The Dragon's Tattoo: A Dragon Shifter Romance (Bluewater Dragons Book 1)

by Roxie Ray

  Anthony stood in the center with moonlight shining down on him. He looked ethereal and I didn’t know how I knew but suddenly I was certain that nothing would ever be the same. My life was about to change, for better or worse, out here in the woods on a cool spring night.

  Anthony gestured for me to come to him. I looked around, apprehensive, and having a hard time ignoring all the physical symptoms I’d been feeling. But still, my instincts told me to move, so I moved.

  Smiling, with a lot of emotion in his eyes, Anthony took my hands. His skin was warmer than normal, but I’d noticed that a few times. He seemed to run a little hot. Unusual, but not unheard of. My body was still acting crazy, but I wasn’t afraid. Yet something was definitely off. “Anthony,” I whispered. “What’s going on?”

  Then it hit me. “Oh, no.” I moaned and tried to pull my hand from his. “Are you guys really a cult? Is this some sort of initiation?” Scenarios for what Anthony might try to do to me to initiate me into his cult ran through my head and none of them were comforting at all.

  Anthony laughed and swung my hands. “We aren’t a cult, but we are something… more.”

  Damn it. All these years I’d defended them. And here it was down to the wire, and I was about to be inducted into a cult.

  Anthony leaned in and met my gaze. He was so serious with so much emotion in his eyes. “I need you to understand that I’d never harm you. Hurting you goes against everything you are to me.”

  I laughed, not scared but getting nervous. “Why would I think you’d hurt me?”

  “Soul mates are real, Skylar.”

  That was a conversation we could have, but not in the woods behind his house at dusk. “Okay, well—”

  “For my kind, it’s a lot stronger.”

  I stiffened and tried to pull my hands back again. “What the hell are you talking about? Anthony, you sound crazy. Your kind?”

  “Don’t be afraid. But there’s more to the world around you than you could imagine.” He lowered his eyes guiltily. “I haven’t been honest with you, but it was for the safety of me and my people.” My heart beat hard in my chest. The insane electricity intensified. “I can’t keep it a secret anymore because our relationship is progressing and there are things that must happen but can’t happen if you don’t understand who I am, what I am, and what you are to me.”

  My stomach clenched painfully as my adrenaline spiked. My fight-or-flight instinct kicked in. “Anthony,” I said warningly. I was about to take the hell off.

  “I am the alpha of the Bluewater Coast Clan.”

  Alpha of the who now?

  He pulled back his sleeve, and I gasped when I saw he’d gotten a massive tattoo. It was of a dragon and went from his wrist to his inner elbow and wrapped around to the outside of his arm. The tattoo seemed to be glowing.

  No way. Could he mean—? No. No way. None of this made any sense. It was completely unreal. I stared at Anthony, and he let out a deep breath. “When did you get a tattoo?” I asked weakly.

  “Skye,” he said gently. “It’s not a tattoo, not really. It’s a mark that appears when I find my mate. And you couldn’t see it until I told you about it and even then, you’d only be able to see it if some part of you believed in it. I’m a dragon. My family… We’re dragons.”

  16

  Anthony

  The silence pretty much deafened me as I waited for Skye to respond to my admission. Her heart was about to beat out of her chest. I heard it across the few feet that separated us. She was either nervous or scared. I didn’t smell fear, so probably just a lot of confusion.

  “Do you think this is a joke?” Oh, damn. She sounded upset.

  “No, I’m not joking.”

  She backed up and shook her head. “Why are you doing this? Is this your way of pushing me away without having to be open and honest with me?”

  Oh, damn it. I’d done it wrong. She thought I was trying to pull one over on her. “No, Skye, no.” I threw my hands up, but when I moved toward her, she pulled away. “I’m not joking. I don’t want to push you away. I want to get closer to you. The last thing I want is to push you away.”

  She scrunched up her shoulders. “I don’t know, you sound like a lunatic.” Her gaze darted around the clearing, locating the trail she’d come in on.

  “Wait…” I backed up, giving her space to not feel so overwhelmed. “Let me just show you. But promise me, no matter what happens, promise you’ll remember I won’t hurt you.”

  She furrowed her brow. “I don’t believe you’d hurt me.”

  Relief washed over me. “Okay, just keep repeating that.” As I moved farther into the clearing, I smiled at her and then called on my dragon to initiate the shift.

  In the midst of the change, I heard her gasp. A tang of fear filled the air. It was easy to smell once my nose shifted. I finished my shift and opened my eyes. Skylar was pale and her eyes wide. She had one hand covering her mouth.

  I was sure she was going to run, but she didn’t. Her heart was racing so loud it thumped a rhythm against my eardrums.

  “Am I dreaming?” she said in a breathy voice.

  I shook my large head. I’d projected my thoughts to her earlier, but I wasn’t sure if she’d heard me since she wasn’t a dragon. But I’d hoped that since she was my mate, it might work. You’re not dreaming.

  She didn’t react at first, so I assumed it didn’t work. Disappointment washed over me. If I’d been able to talk to her, it would’ve been further proof that we had a true and real connection. I believed we did, but it would help convince my clan if she heard me.

  “Did you just talk in my head?” Her voice sounded weak and suddenly I worried she was going to pass out.

  I wanted to rush forward, but having a full-grown dragon rushing at her might not have been the best idea. Only the alpha of each clan can communicate with his clan this way.

  She stepped forward a few feet but stopped well short of me. “Is this real?” She’d dropped to a whisper again.

  I remained very still as she kept inching forward, and when I spoke in her head again, I tried to speak softly, but it wasn’t like talking out loud. It wasn’t an exact science. Hell, it wasn’t a science at all. It was pure magic. This is all too real. You’re in no danger, and I’m really a dragon.

  She jumped and giggled, and I thanked my lucky stars because some of the tension in the air thinned. She scoffed and then sighed, the emotions bouncing off of her changing at lightning speed. “At least a lot of things make more sense to me now. Like why everyone in town thinks you guys are a cult. In a way, you are.” She cocked her head when I spoke again.

  We’re trying to protect ourselves from people finding out, but it makes us seem weird.

  She stepped forward again, nearly close enough to touch me now. “So, why are you telling me?” she asked.

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to be in my dragon form for the fated mates conversation. I’ll tell you all about that when I’m on two legs again.

  She nodded. “Fair enough.” Her shuddering breath ran through me. Now that she was settling and knew she wasn’t in danger, that this was still me, she was growing more excited. I waited patiently for her to move toward me.

  Her hand shook a little, and the mischievous side of me considered chuffing at her because it would’ve made her jump and squeal, but I stayed perfectly still. There was plenty of time to tease her later in life. For now, I needed her to accept me and get more comfortable with the fact that the world as she knew it had changed.

  What felt like an eternity later, her hand rested on my nose. Electricity sizzled between us and she giggled low in her throat.

  “Does it hurt when you shift?” she asked as she began to walk slowly around me.

  No.

  “Well, how does it happen?”

  Magic. I didn’t clarify. Not yet.

  “Oh, like a witch casts a spell on you?” she asked derisively.

  I didn’t answer, because it was a lot like that. Sammy’s an
cestor had invented a spell that made it possible for us to shift painlessly and Sammy had come up with a genius solution to our clothing. She did something to us during our initial shift that made our clothes sort of hang out in limbo so that when we shifted back, there they were, good as new. It caused a slight drain to our energy, but not enough for any of us to even notice anymore.

  She walked around my other side and looked me in the eye. “Are witches real?”

  Every clan has a witch. Traditionally, the dragons provided the witch protection. Nowadays, we just pay her. It’s her full-time job to help the clan.

  Her jaw slackened enough for her mouth to open a little. She breathed out with wide eyes. I could practically hear her mind racing. “Does the witch brainwash people?”

  That was a more complicated answer. I stepped toward her, eager for her to continue exploring my large body.

  “Got it,” she said. “We’ll have to talk more about that, too. That seems terribly violating.” I nuzzled her arm and looked up at her. “Stretch out,” she said. “I want to see how big you are. You’ve been trying to look small, haven’t you?”

  It was true. I’d hunched down as much as I could, trying to seem unintimidating. Standing at my full height, I stretched out my neck and tail and puffed out my chest, proud to show her my impressive size. I was the biggest member of our clan, as alphas tended to be.

  She gasped in wonder when she saw me. “Can you breathe fire?” she asked.

  Our clan are water dragons. I can manipulate water and breathe it out the way the dragons of human lore can do fire.

  “Okay,” she said. “I admit, that’s pretty cool.”

  She continued on with her questions. “What about lifespan?”

  We live the same lifespans as humans, but we tend to live to the max of those years. The oldest dragon in my memory was a hundred and five, but most live to their nineties.

  “Illness? Surgeries?” As she asked, she circled me, and I knew her medically trained eyes were taking in my physique, my skin, scales, and in her mind, she was picturing my circulatory systems and trying to figure out how I shifted.

  It’s magic. You won’t find a scientific reason for this. At least not one that we’ve discovered yet. If science was behind this, it was a science far, far beyond human reckoning or understanding. And no, we generally don’t get diseases, or if we do, we almost always recover. We can still get the occasional cold, but it’s milder than a human.

  She ran out of steam after asking a few more questions and circling me several more times. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do,” she said and crossed her arms.

  I shifted back, my clothes perfectly in place as if I’d never even moved.

  She shivered. “I’m not sure I’ll get used to that.”

  Holding out my hand, I prayed she’d take it, meaning she was open to all of this. Anything but a full rejection I could handle. She hesitated but took my hand. We walked back down the trail toward my house, and she kept her distance, our arms outstretched between us. I understood. This shit was crazy. I grew up with it, and still sometimes felt like it was beyond comprehension.

  I walked in my back door which opened into my kitchen. “Here,” I said. “You need a glass of wine.” She started to protest, but I chuckled. “After what you just saw, don’t you think you deserve it?”

  With a snort, she hopped up onto the chair at my kitchen island. “Okay, when you put it that way, I guess so.”

  A few minutes later, Skye sipped at the red wine and sucked in a deep breath. “So, why did you think I deserved to know about this enormous secret?”

  And here was the second half of the enormous secrets I had to give up today. I gulped down several ounces of my wine. “Do you still like to read?” I asked. I’d gone over how to tell her this part over and over. When we were kids, she’d loved to read, and I knew from the women in the clan talking that romance novels often got it pretty right.

  She gave me a confused look. “Yeah, what’s that got to do with anything?”

  “According to the female dragons I know—”

  “Wait,” she interrupted. “Women are dragons too?”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Why wouldn’t they be?”

  Her mouth opened and closed at me. “I don’t know. I guess I have read too many shifter books where it’s only the men who are shifters.”

  I nodded encouragingly. “So, what do those books say about fated mates?”

  Her eyes widened. “You’re not saying what I think you’re saying.”

  Oh, yeah. She was getting it. I grinned at her while I waited for her to get there.

  “I’m your fated mate?” she asked. Her face was so shocked I wasn’t sure if she was glad to hear it or dismayed.

  “I always had feelings for you. When we were kids, they were innocent, but as we got older, they morphed into more. Something deeper. And then I finally decided to do something, and I kissed you.” Holding out my arm, I showed her my tattoo again. “This is the mark. When a male dragon discovers his fated dragon mate, he develops a tattoo that burns onto his skin. It’s actually pretty painful.”

  “And the woman?” she asked.

  “Female dragons’ tattoos develop as their feelings for their mate grow. Slower, and less painfully.”

  “Dragons?” she asked.

  And the last hard thing to tell her. “That’s the thing. That’s what’s made all this so difficult. As far as any of us know, there’s never been an instance of a dragon mating with a human. It’s why my parents freaked out. It’s why they sent me away and why I was afraid to contact you.”

  She snatched up her wine glass and gulped down the contents. “Never?”

  I shrugged. “While I was away, I researched all over the world. Took trips. Asked everyone. If it’s happened before, nobody is willing to admit to it.” I reached across the kitchen island and put my hand on hers. “And some people aren’t too happy about it.”

  “At least you leaving makes more sense now,” she said. “Because I tried to accept it before, but it never made any sense. It was so out of character and out of what I ever would’ve expected from you.”

  I squeezed her hand. “But you should know that before the tattoo ever showed up, I’d decided I wanted to take you for my chosen mate. We have a choice. The tattoo has never shown up on someone in love and committed to another woman. And I loved you. I never stopped. I’ve loved you since I was old enough to know what it meant.”

  She looked at me with big, watery eyes, then turned her hand over underneath mine so that we held each other’s hands. “What does it mean to be a mate to a dragon?”

  I smiled, thrilled she was asking questions as if she was accepting this. “It’s not really more than being married and committed to one another. The magic just recognizes that we’re especially compatible and most likely to achieve lifelong happiness. Have you ever felt pulled toward me?”

  She ducked her head. “As long as I’ve known you. I just always figured we had a connection, not the connection.”

  I chuckled and circled around the island to stand close to my mate. “Our connection is growing.”

  She gasped. “Since this morning, I’ve felt like my skin was electrified. It overwhelmed me. I nearly threw up!”

  “Once it’s sealed, it’s like we’re married in the eyes of the magic.”

  “Sealed?” She raised her eyebrows. She probably had an idea what I meant, thanks to those books she liked to read. “What does that entail?”

  “It’s a bite,” I admitted.

  She snorted. “Will I turn into a dragon?”

  I started to say no, but then I realized I had no idea. “That’s something I can’t answer. There is no precedence for this. As I said, I wasn’t able to find other instances of human mates, male or female.”

  She nodded. “Well, we can figure that out. Maybe your witch will have some answers.” Her arched eyebrow told me she was teasing me about having a witch.

  I chuckled.
“Would you like to stay with me?” I asked.

  She hesitated and looked around the room before meeting my gaze again. “Yes. I would.”

  Thank fuck.

  17

  Skylar

  “Let’s go sit down and get comfortable,” Anthony suggested.

  My heart was full of love but also still pretty damn shocked. Everything felt surreal. I should’ve been more upset or shell-shocked, but I kept my composure. It was easier to keep it than I would’ve expected. Even with the fear of the unknown, I knew one thing for certain and that was that Anthony had always been my person. With that in mind, my stress left. He was my person, and I was even more sure of it now with the whole fated mate situation.

  We had barely settled in the living room with our wine glasses replenished when his doorbell rang. He sat straight up. “Damn. I’m so distracted. I normally hear people drive up.”

  He set his glass on the coffee table and jogged to the door. When he opened it, his father’s gaze pinned on me. They’d known I was in here. Well, they probably saw my car.

  “What are you guys doing here?” Anthony asked.

  “Darling, we felt,” his mother raised her eyebrows warningly, “as if you needed some assistance.”

  He chuckled. “I was afraid of that. Come in. She knows.”

  His mother’s jaw dropped. “She does?” She turned to her husband. “See, Mitch? I told you she wouldn’t run screaming.” She walked into the room carrying what looked suspiciously like a casserole wrapped in a towel. “I brought dinner.”

  She hurried through the house. “Don’t bother!” She waved Anthony off as he tried to follow her. “I’ve got it. I’ll just put it in the oven on warm.”

  “That was nice of you,” I said, feeling more timid than I’d felt since I was sixteen. But then, these were the people who made Anthony leave.

  Mitch glared at me and plopped down in one of Anthony’s recliners. His living room was quite big, which was nice. Mine was cozier, but it was right on the beach.