But saving it?
That had spiritual connotations.
They were vastly different situations.
Right?
Damian pulled in through his gates and parked the Pagani in his garage. He knew Jamison would’ve been tracking the car, even without the earpiece in, so now everyone inside knew he was back, but what they didn’t know was how impotent he’d been.
He’d been right there. His dragon had wanted it. He’d wanted it—no, he wanted Andi—and, “Fuck!” he shouted, pounding his fists against the steering wheel the way he hadn’t on Danny earlier.
He was tempted to just leave his phone behind in the car and let Andi helplessly message him all evening, but in yet another stunning example of how he couldn’t do anything right, he leaned over and picked up the phone, just as another message came in, and he glimpsed the most recent messages he’d missed.
Where the fuck are you Damian?
I need you!
You’d better be alive!!!
His mood and his magic flickered to the rearview mirror. He opened it up to see her and found a view of Andi from her bedroom mirror that she hadn’t yet turned back around. She was sitting in front of it in the middle of a small hurricane of papers and, oddly, an open leather case. She was moving papers from one stack to another while she…cried? He could read the anger in her body from here—but also there were tears streaming down her face. He was sure of it.
He reined in his anger and exited the car.
Mills and Jamison were waiting for him as he came inside. “Danny’s still alive,” he announced, without looking their direction. “And he has no idea who I am, other than another dragon.”
“Damian,” Mills began, as he shook his head.
“Not now. Feel free to be mad at me later, but right now I’m occupied.” He took the stairs two by two and started looking at his phone as he stalked down the hall.
So sorry! Just getting up from a nap. Had the strangest dream!
Oh wait, it was actually a nightmare where my brother came and got me.
He’s got other Hunters in cages at some weird lab where he’s trying to turn them into dragons. And then we went to this shitty bar from our childhood and played pool against some Hunters and kicked their asses—in more ways than one—and then? He gave my mom’s notes to me.
It’s like really them, Damian. I recognize her handwriting.
The timestamps of the messages started spreading out as he got closer to his door.
I just read everything.
And everything Danny ever said was true. I can’t believe it.
Before I saw these notes, there was a chance that all of this was just a shitty story. Something Uncle Lee and Danny whipped up to make excuses for themselves and what they’d done.
But these all prove it’s really her.
She lied to me all along.
And the things she did to him, Damian!
I can’t believe she wrote them down!!!
What kind of mother does that to a child???
Oh my God, Damian, it gets so much worse.
Damian slammed his bedroom door shut behind him and walked straight for his wall of mirrors.
Chapter 13
Andi couldn’t believe that she’d asked Damian for help. But then maybe she was fated to? Why the hell not? Everything in her life had apparently always been a lie.
She’d never had a choice.
Right down to her relationship with Damian.
After Danny dropped her off, she’d come upstairs to read her mother’s notes, sitting on the couch after she tossed her keys on the kitchen counter.
It wasn’t until the first few pages were done that she realized she was sitting like she did when she and Sammy watched something particularly awful on TV. She was curled up in a defensive ball, her hands tight on the papers, her eyes squinting as if not seeing well could somehow help the horror.
First off, her mother was completely unapologetic. She knew exactly what she’d done, and was proud of it, even. There were formulas of medication in there, things that Andi knew were poisonous, lists of applications, injections, bitter things Danny’d had to hold for hours underneath his tongue before spitting out, stinging insects that her mother had left cupped against him. Her mother wrote down what didn’t work, striking them through with a precise line, and then underlined the things that seemed to have—treating Danny like he was a test subject the whole time.
He was never “Danny” in her notes. He was hardly even there. Just a series of dates, trials, outcomes. Was she trying to avoid judgment, by not calling her brother “the child” or even “the patient?” Trying to divorce herself of the familiarity of their bond?
Or trying to deny that bond entirely?
Because what kind of mother would boil up homemade medicines and inject them between her child’s toes where authorities would never see? Or confess to tying him down to put eye drops in his eyes? Cupping scorpions against his skin? Cutting him afterward to see how fast he would heal—or if he’d suddenly somehow gained scales underneath to protect him.
As he grew, her notes got stranger and more urgent—and Danny finally became the boy.
The boy is moody.
Yeah, no shit, Mom, you’re torturing him.
The boy fought again and won. The scorpions are working.
The boy tried to start a fire at school, but does he have the fire we need inside?
And then the notes reached the point where Danny broke off to do his own thing when their mom’s cancer hit her, and Andi knew she started in on chemo. Her handwriting got a little more loopy. Her thoughts were more scattered and she turned her eye on her legacy and the notes became more like her diary.
Have I done enough to prepare him?
Where is the dragon hiding?
Some days I swear I can sense it, just underneath!
And then there was a longer gap during which Andi knew the cancer had been winning.
Close to the end now. My flesh is winding down. There’s no point in fighting, the doctors won’t even use Huang Qin Tang—although if they did, Andi would throw herself in front of me. She has such faith in the medicine she uses…little does she know what she could do if she knew more.
“Thanks, Mom,” Andi muttered, smoothing a creased page down, before reading the next.
All of this effort and I’m still not sure of the outcome of my life’s work. I feel sure I have changed something inside him, summoned some beastly part of him more near, but I do not think I will get to gaze upon a dragon again in this lifetime. I can only hope I’ve done enough.
And then, the last page:
I am, and have been, the luckiest mother alive.
I have raised two spectacular children, each in their own way: Andrea to be a creature of empathy, and Daniel to be a creature of action. My heart and my liver, and I love them both.
I have the same dream every night now, as the end grows near, and I have dealt in magicks long enough to know it means something. It is a vision of the future, of Danny and Andi fighting together, protecting one another. And while I am dismayed that they must fight, I know that I have done everything within my power to prepare them for the battles yet to come.
Most importantly, I’m leaving them each other.
Andi howled without thinking. It was something guttural inside her, like a scream she’d been holding back for months—maybe years. Maybe ever since she first realized she was going to lose her mother and that she was going to have to stay strong because nobody else in her family could fucking be trusted to—not her brother who was running off to God-knows-where or her uncle who was off doing God-knew-what. That first scream that she’d entirely swallowed when she realized that she was abso-fucking-positively alone. It came out of her now from someplace in her soul, for the span of an entire breath, and then when it was over, she inhaled and did it again, and again, because fuck this and fuck everything and how could she hurt so bad again? Why didn’t it ever stop? Would
it ever stop? Had her mother really thought she could just point and shoot Danny off, like a wind-up-soldier, and her find out about it, and that she’d be the same? That she’d be okay?
She loved her mom. She missed her mom.
What the fuck had her mom done?
When Andi next caught her breath, between screams and sobs, she realized that just because Sammy was out again didn’t mean she’d stay that way. She grabbed up all the sheets of paper quickly and ran to her room.
And three steps inside her room she tripped on her rug and fell sprawling to the ground, her mother’s notes fluttering down like butterflies, knocking the wind from herself.
She lay on the floor for a long moment. It was easier to feel like there was ground when you were on it—a lesson every drunk person inherently knew.
Her mom…and her brother…and her mom….
She twisted her head to get away from her past and saw the pile of things she’d shoved under her bed in her Ambien haze weeks ago—her stuffed animals, her mother’s photo album, and the case for her old pool cue, the one given to her by her father.
She reached out for the leather case and tugged it away from all the other stuff. At least playing pool was pure. Their dad may have been an abandoning asshole, yes, a disappointment, absolutely, but he hadn’t had an ulterior motive during their childhood. There was something clean in that. Because very-sarcastic-HOORAY. She was empathetic? Wow, what’s that get you these days, a Diet Coke if you toss in a buck fifty? Thanks, Mom, for helping me to meet the basic minimum standards of participating in society. I get to be a good person and you turned my freaking twin brother into a KILLING MACHINE?
Andi slowly got up, pulling the case out with her. If she’d had her own pool cue with her tonight, she’d have dispatched those Hunters even faster. Ironically, in hindsight, the only times she’d ever been really “bad” was with Danny—participating in the hustling, witnessing the fights, drinking on their fake IDs. She wondered what, if anything, her mother knew about their escapades, or if her mother chose to turn a blind-eye toward the only brother-sister bonding they ever got to do, seeing as there was a gulf between them in every other way.
She’d moved around to the front of her bed, pulling the cue and the papers with her, preparing to show them to Damian whenever it was he got back, arranging them into timeline order again in front of her as best she could, and then she opened up the case for old time’s sake.
Her cue—the last treasured memory of her father—was gone, and her first instinct would’ve been to assume that Danny’d stolen and sold it, were there not even more tightly rolled papers in its place. She pulled them out and carefully unfurled them to read, her heart dropping as she realized what the words meant.
She texted Damian in a panic, trying to hold on to the world she thought she had, while knowing it was too late.
The destiny she’d been fighting all along had still caught up with her.
And no wonder Damian had fallen for her, and she for him.
She’d been a fool to think she’d ever had a choice.
“Andi?”
She heard a rustling from her bathroom just as Damian emerged. By then she’d picked up all the notes and had them in order again, and she knew she’d done the wrong thing.
“Go back,” she said, running for him, pushing him back into the bathroom. “None of this is real, Damian. Just go back.”
He stood firm, looking down at her with stern concern. “What happened?”
“It’s not safe—”
“I’m not leaving you,” he growled.
Andi stopped shoving him. “No. Of course you’re not.” She gave a bitter laugh.
“Princess,” he began.
“You want to check me for strings, Damian?” She spun around in front of him. “Or maybe you can insert a rail somewhere to whip me off of, like those little race cars Danny used to have. Just shoot me off at a preordained target, like a fucking missile.”
“You’re not making sense.”
“It doesn’t matter if I make sense. In fact, nothing fucking matters at all.” Andi ran her fingers through her hair, sitting in front of her bed by the piles of notes as Damian looked worriedly down at her.
“Did they poison you at that bar?” He put a hand on her forehead and she slapped it back.
“No. That was the best part of the night. For a moment, I felt vaguely free.”
“I don’t understand….”
She picked up the nearest pile and shook them at him. “You don’t need to. Someone wrote everything out for me, years ago. You ever wanted an Andrea Ngo instruction manual? Well, here it is.” It was one thing to be trapped—and another yet to know it. Why wouldn’t the room stop spinning? Her whole life had been leading up to now!
Damian slowly sat down beside her. “I saw your texts, Andi,” he said, his voice a bass rumble. “I’m sorry your mother is not who you thought she was. I understand that that’s traumatic.”
“Yes, but,” she said, finding the last note in particular. “You didn’t see this.” She held it over to him and rocked back, to read it in reverse as her nightlight shone through the thin page.
Andi.
This is just for you.
I know you will find it when the time is right.
So much in this world is predestined, whether we know enough to understand it or not. And if it is your destiny to throw this case away without opening it, I am willing to take that chance.
I am sure I succeeded where your brother is concerned. It’s only a matter of time now. I know he will continue, although I no longer have any time left.
I know you will feel betrayed, reading this without me. Knowing what you likely do now about me and my people.
I just wanted you to have a choice, my sweet heart. I have protected you all this time. I just wanted to give you a chance to live your life. To see where it would take you.
But if you have opened this case now, and you are reading this with full knowledge of what I mean, then it is time to choose.
You and your brother are one of a kind, born of a woman who ingested dragon magic for centuries. The circumstances surrounding your birth are utterly irreplicable—there is no point in trying.
But because of that, both have dragons in you. Daniel, I experimented on. Whereas I left you my blank slate. My formula to summon yours is on the next page.
It will never work on anyone else but you.
Tell no one this formula exists. I will take my secret to my grave, and you might very well take yours, too. I have no judgment for or against that—the world doesn’t need you to protect it. I have already given it Daniel. Isn’t offering up one child to destiny enough?
I just thought that you should know. My heritage did not skip you, my gentle girl, nor did I leave you without power. Protect yourself—with or without using it. Pass on my legacy. Make a family, have a home, fill them all with love, and remember me fondly.
Your mother,
Mei Li
Damian knew Andi was watching him read, and he also knew she’d say something the second he was done. Fate, or familiarity? He didn’t dare smile as he set the page down.
“This is why you love me, isn’t it?” she challenged him.
One of his eyebrows rose. “I haven’t even said it yet.”
“You don’t have to. I’m not an idiot.”
“Well, if I say it now, you’ll say it was predestined. And if I don’t, you’ll say that was predestined too.” His brow furrowed. “This is why I hate prognosticators.”
“We didn’t meet by accident, Damian,” she protested. “It wasn’t a meet-cute, you hiring me. You knew, or fate knew, and all this time you’ve only wanted me because I’m part-dragon. Even if you didn’t know until you read that page. You didn’t get a choice, either.”
He watched her get all worked up. “Even if that were true—which it isn’t—would it be so bad?” he asked, trying to calm her.
“Yes! Because if this nonsense is
all true, then the thing with me fighting by my brother’s side is probably especially true, right? Don’t deny it.”
Damian nodded slowly, with a sigh. “I saw your brother tonight as well.”
“Did you kill him?” she asked, although she could already read the answer on his face. “No. Of course not. You couldn’t. We still have destiny. So it’s not allowed.” She put her head in her hands and he knew he was watching her second-guess every decision she’d ever made.
Damian put one hand on her shoulder and used the other to lift up her chin. “I don’t give a damn about destiny anymore, princess. I just want you.”
Her expression was haunted. “Even if it’s all a lie?”
“If you’re a lie, then you’re the sexiest lie I’ve ever seen.” He slid the hand on her chin up against her cheek. She fought the temptation for a moment because his mate was a fighter. That’s what she did. Then she leaned into it and he knew that everything would be all right. “I know what it’s like to run from destiny. I’m a prince of a place I hate, remember? But now, knowing that you and I are mated, did I hate it because it was the right thing to do, or because hating it brought me here? Who can say?”
“You’ve told me enough stories,” she said. “It was the right thing to do.”
“I agree,” he said softly. “Especially after meeting you.” He reached for her and she let him pull her to nestle safely against his side. “The more I have to deal with all this Andi, the less convinced of anything I become,” he admitted. “I’m inclined now to think that what we do becomes our destiny. And all I want to do is be with you.”
“But don’t you get it, dragon? All of this is just a game. None of it is real,” she said, looking up.
He kissed her forehead and willed it to flow through to her overheated mind and then chucked her chin over so that she was looking at the mirror they were reflected in, showing him wrapped around her. “This is real, princess. I don’t care if I’m fate’s plaything, as long as I’m at your side.”
Dragon Mated: Sexy Urban Fantasy Romance (Prince of the Other Worlds Book 4) Page 22