by Lisa Oliver
“Shit. I didn’t know dragons could do that – move on without their human spirit, I mean.” Byron rubbed his chest, as his heart rate increased. He and his dragon had never had the best of relationships, and to think his other half could just leave…
I’ve upset you again and I didn’t mean to do it this time. Byron could actually feel his dragon flutter in his chest. Your father’s dragon was very, very, think before-time, ancient. He was old when he entered your father’s body, and only stayed as long as he did because he thought your father would do the right thing in the end. It destroyed him when he learned your father’s plans for Tiernan.
“Ha? That’s weird. I thought a dragon spirit died the same time as their human side did?”
In most cases that’s true. Byron got a sudden picture of his dragon shuffling around on a rocky ledge as though he was getting comfortable. Dragons have always been a mixture of magic and shifter. In your father’s dragon’s case, he was cast out of his original human body by another powerful magic user. He felt sure he would return to our resting place, eager for his chance to reincarnate, but he said that at the moment he reached for the light, your father was born, and he found himself in the body of a baby before he’d had time to acclimatize to the fact he’d passed on.
“That must have been a shock to the dragon’s system, being held in a baby body again.”
It can be, but usually we reincarnate as infants as well, so we grow up with only a slight awareness of the lives we’ve lived before. I’ve always believed that’s why dragons can communicate with each other – to help the younger ones learn, and to keep our ways alive.
“Hmm.” Byron hadn’t even thought about that. “There’s so much about dragon culture I don’t know.”
Which again, is partly my fault, but none of the people in this clan listened to their dragons very much until Dirk met his fated mate.
“That certainly shook things up.” Byron leaned back on his pillows. “I felt that, you know. I felt the dragon celebration when Dirk and Sammy were mated, and when Tiernan was brought into the clan. I was so angry.” Byron chuckled. “I haven’t got a clue why.”
I do, the dragon said quietly. We, you and I, were always meant to be two halves of a whole. But your father’s human words repressed me as much as they did you, and when you threw around words like parasite to describe our bond, I didn’t handle it well.
Byron’s eyes widened in the gloom, even though he knew his dragon couldn’t see him. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, clasping his arms around his chest as if he could give his dragon a hug. “I was just so jealous. Dirk and Sammy both dream-walked with their dragons and you never came into mine. I felt like most of the time you didn’t even care what I was doing.”
You’ve got to remember, our personalities are a lot alike. I didn’t think you wanted to talk to me that way.
“Really, we’re a lot alike?” Byron chuckled. “Do you know that first time in the basement and you wouldn’t allow me to shift, when I was supposed to be challenging Dirk, was the first time I’d ever seen you?”
Weird, huh. Byron was sure his dragon was laughing too. I see you, every time you look in the mirror. But would you like to do that – dream walk with me, I mean?
“Well, I would, if I could sleep.” Byron plucked at the sheets. “I’m not doing a good job of that tonight. It’ll be time to get up soon.”
Dirk did say you can sleep in. Lie down.
Byron did as he was asked, and the fact that it was an ask, and not an order smoothed something jagged in his soul.
Now, close your eyes, and…
/~/~/~/~/
“The situation has escalated,” the man hissed urgently into the phone. “The dragon has gone to stay at his brother’s place, but whoever is doing this has gone beyond leaving notes at reception and on his car. A package was sent to his home.”
The voice on the other end sent a chill down the caller’s spine. “You were supposed to keep all of this from him until I got back. I thought you told me no one knew where he lived?”
“I didn’t think anyone did. But someone, calling themselves Heartbroken, sent a rotting cow’s heart to the home, with a note that his heart would be taken next if he didn’t quote ‘open his eyes’. Clearly, when the dragon didn’t respond to any of the notes or messages, he’s escalated.”
The snarl coming over the phone was menacing. “You said the dragon wasn’t dating anyone. Why would he even expect a note or message?”
“He isn’t – he hasn’t. Ever, from what I can see. He only goes out for business, or to his brother’s place up state. Oh, he went to the funeral for his father in Europe, but that was a while ago, and honestly, that’s it. When he’s home, he’s alone.”
“Then this is bullshit. You said you’d handled the other matter.”
“I did, or at least I am handling it. It’s just the police have been called this time and with the personal threat made…”
“Fuck it. I’ll be on the next plane. If I find out you’re responsible for this…” The voice trailed off; the threat unmistakable.
The caller gulped. “It wasn’t me. I’m not a sick bastard sending bits of cow to a person as a love note.”
“But you’re still pushing an agenda I’m not ready for and meddling in matters you don’t understand. Make sure everything is ready for me tomorrow and don’t stuff things up.” The call was ended with a decisive click, and the caller shivered.
/~/~/~/~/
“This is my favorite place.” The dragon seemed excited, almost giddy in his desire to share. Byron looked around quickly, his head twisting from one side to the other, taking in the brightly colored dreamscape. He was definitely dreaming. Byron didn’t know of any other realm that had lilac sky and deep purple rocks, but his eyes lighted on things he did recognize like bright white fluffy clouds and the sound of cooing doves that were all clustered in groves of trees about twenty feet from where he was standing.
“It’s lovely,” Byron said, unable to ignore his dragon’s need for approval. The grass under his feet appeared dry, so he sat down and crossed his legs, taking in the quiet. “What is it about this place that appeals to you so much? I mean, I know I like my things in their right place, to the point I get anxious if they get moved by another person, but this place seems so… so ordered, but not, if you understand what I mean.”
“I do, I do.” The dragon came thundering over, and then plopped down with a loud thud on the grass. “It’s mine,” he said simply. “Created in my mind, to suit my needs. None of the other dragons visit here, so it’s where I can come and enjoy my space without the others being nosy.”
“Is that my fault?” Byron asked. “I know I tend to shut myself away from others a lot of the time – is that something you learned from me?”
“We are very similar, but we still have our own personalities.” The dragon tilted his head back letting a wisp of smoke trickle from his mouth. “Besides, when you were younger, you were extremely sociable, if I recall.”
“Up until ten years and four months ago.” Byron laid back on the grass which was surprisingly warm. “Why didn’t you tell me we could have fated mates?” The question was almost a whisper, floating on the breeze, but it’d been the source of Byron’s discontent for a long time. “Why didn’t you warn me about him and who he was at the time?”
“Ah, yes. The single biggest mistake I ever made.” The dragon sighed. “Although, I will say in my defense, you weren’t very open to the idea of even having a male mate at the time. Do you remember what else was going on around then? Why we were in Washington in the first place?”
“Investments?” Byron tried to remember. “Oh, I know, it was another dragon family. The Ahlbergs – one of Celine’s sisters, I think. She had no plan to actually invest in our company, but I remember… it was my father, wasn’t it? Wanted me to dissuade the Ahlbergs from investing in the states. Dirk was supposed to go, but father was trying to convince him to run for Mayor of New York at the time, so th
ey sent me instead.”
“You’d been talking to your father on the phone that night,” the dragon prompted. “He, the human half, was ranting on about how no other dragons had the right to come here and try and set up in opposition to the Hollingsworth clan.”
“Oh yeah. He was being totally paranoid.” Byron idly watched two cloud forms merge creating what looked like a Chinese dragon’s head. “Use any means necessary. I do remember him saying that, but by that stage I had gotten used to my father’s rants against other clans and used to tune him out a lot of the time. Negotiations were already in the preliminary stages regarding Dirk marrying into the family at that time, so I wasn’t sure what all the fuss was about. I got really good at nodding and saying yes at just the right moments with my father by that point.”
“Yes, well, I didn’t have much choice but to listen to him with one ear, and his dragon harping on in the other, going on about how I was to make sure you didn’t harm any of the Ahlbergs and they had to be protected at all costs.”
“I’d always wondered why father had such a grudge against the Ahlbergs, although finding out Mother was going to bond with Celine’s dad was a shock when that came out. It’s like the two clans had been fighting for centuries.”
“They have, but that’s only on the human side of things. The last true dragon feud died out about five hundred years ago. Dragon feuds get too messy and there aren’t enough of us to sustain century after century of fighting anymore.”
Rolling on his side, Byron looked at his dragon who was in a semi-reclining sprawl, his long blue tail stretched out behind him. “What did the business with the Ahlbergs have to do with not picking out my mate that night? If I remember correctly, we’d gone to dinner with the woman, and she’d already agreed she was flying back to Germany that night. I’d stopped into a club afterward, to have a drink, when I think I saw our mate. Or at least, I saw a beautiful man who I could instantly see us spending the rest of our lives with. Why didn’t you stop me from leaving or at least let me know it was possible he was our fated one?”
“Why did you walk away from someone you believed at first sight you could have forever with?” His dragon was deflecting. Byron could see that in the way his other half wouldn’t look at him.
“I already said. Father was talking negotiations with the Ahlbergs and a dozen other European families back then. He wanted to strengthen the clan position by forging marriage bonds with other ruling families. Although father was always talking about Dirk as the one who would marry first, he said at least a dozen times he expected me and Samuel to do the same thing. To me, my path was already set in stone. Marry a dragon and have dragon babies. I couldn’t let my father or the clan down by taking up with a sexy piece of ass, even if I believed in that moment, I could see forever in him. More to the point, where were you and why didn’t you tell me he could be our mate?”
His dragon looked away, twisting his neck so he was looking at the sky. “I was here, sulking.”
“Sulking?” Byron wished his dragon would look at him. He wasn’t adept at understanding dragon body language.
“Sulking.” His dragon’s big neck twisted back the other way, and Byron got his wish. “Your father was rattling on about you either seducing the Lady Ahlberg or tearing her throat out if she wouldn’t leave.”
“I wouldn’t have done either of those things. Surely you know that.” Byron wasn’t sure what upset him more – that he’d forgotten that part of the conversation, or the reason he’d forgotten was because his father was always demanding the impossible from him.
“I know that now,” his dragon grumbled, wiggling a bit and then settling again. “But at the time, he was going on about all that hurtful stuff, and his dragon was pleading in my ear to make sure you never hurt her, and the words ‘yes, yes’ were falling out of your mouth like water from a faucet. What did you expect me to think you were going to do?”
“An issue that could’ve been resolved if we’d been clearer on our communication back then.” Byron couldn’t really blame his dragon. He’d said a lot of things he didn’t believe over the years trying to make his father happy. “So, you never saw our mate then?”
“I said I was here.” The dragon huffed. “I was keeping an ear on your brain. If you’d been in danger I would’ve been there for you, but by the time I realized you were genuinely smitten with that guy, and not just in a ‘I want to bonk him’ kind of way, you were already sprinting back to the hotel.”
“I was not sprinting, I was power walking in a confident manner as our breed does,” Byron said. “And I didn’t have much choice but to run away as I already knew the man was too precious to have a fling with, no matter what my dick was telling me. My father had plans for me to make a marriage bond after he’d negotiated Dirk’s. If you had told me we could have fated mates, things might have been different. I didn’t even realize we could have them.”
“I thought you’d go back the next night to look for him again.”
Byron frowned. “I probably would have done. The connection was really that strong, on my side at least. But father called and woke me up about two hours later, said he already knew the Lady Ahlberg was on her way to Germany and for me to get my ass back to work. Why didn’t you say something before I got on that plane?”
The big dragon’s head was lowered, his eyelashes fluttering madly which Byron took as a sign of nervousness. “At the time, I wasn’t completely sure about it either. I’d only got a glimpse of the man, and you could have just been horny. I tried to talk to the other dragons about it, but we’d all spent centuries trying to get our human halves to understand about mates, which was difficult when none of us had found one. Your mother’s dragon was particularly scathing to me, claiming if she had to accept a bond with your father, then the rest of us could suck it up and make sure we all made proper bonds with dragons because we were dying out. She had a lot to do with all of us back then.”
“Hang on. Wait a minute. You’re saying the other dragons weren’t sure fated mates were real either? Well, what was all that bullshit about being happy for Dirk when he found Jon?”
“It was your second cousin that woke us up.” Byron’s dragon let out a long huff of flame, although it didn’t scorch the grass. “The lucky bastard found his mate, a sweet little human girl with a smile as big as the sun. Do you remember Alovek?”
“Alovek, Alovek?” Byron tried to remember. All he could think of was some gawky kid who barely came up to his navel. “He wasn’t at the funeral.”
“That’s because your mother wouldn’t allow it. Alovek claimed his mate – wouldn’t let anyone talk him out of it. They’re expecting their third child now, and he’s over the moon about it. But when the couple first got together, your father kicked him out of the clan for failing his duty as a dragon.”
Byron sat up. “He’s a lone dragon? Then how do you know what’s been happening with him?”
“Because your father could rant and rave all he liked, but he didn’t have the backing of his dragon, and in our culture, we don’t kick people out because of who they mate.”
“So, you can still talk to him? He’s still part of the clan?”
“Yes, although he and his wife are living in London at the moment. Midnight was most upset to learn he wouldn’t be the first dragon flying over Stonehenge, although he hasn’t said anything to Sammy about it yet. Alovek’s already done it and his wife took pictures of it.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Five years.” The dragon lumbered to his feet, took a few stomping paces and then turned back. “For the five years prior to that, I tried to convince my fellow dragons that fated mates were real; that you weren’t the type of man to fall into forever thinking after seeing someone just one time. But I had barely seen our man, hadn’t scented him, and so couldn’t convey that connection to the others. Then Alovek came along, scented, saw, and claimed his mate all in one day, while we all did our best to suppress the sharing of those intense f
eelings from our human halves…”
“Because my father had already banished him from the clan, supposedly.”
“Exactly, but that didn’t make the intensity of what we all felt any less real. Suddenly, fated mates were all any of us could talk about. Dirk’s dragon even apologized to me for not believing what I’d said.”
Byron flopped back on the grass again. “That’s just great. So, when I think I’ve found a man to be with forever from just one glance, you and I are written off as delusional. But then one of our cousins gets lucky and suddenly, dragons are converts to the whole fated mate concept. So much so, Dirk’s dragon made him really sick when he first rejected Jon.”
“He didn’t do it on purpose.” Byron’s dragon sounded sad. “I grew up listening to stories from my elders, about how the mating heat would hit us when we finally found the other half of our soul, but in like, eight hundred years, it’d never happened for any of our clan so all we had was stories.”
“And now dragons are making a comeback – giving birth to half-breed children who can shift into so much more than dragons. Or at least Tiernan can.”
“Sammy’s child will too.” The dragon was quiet for a moment and then he said, “I won’t do that to you. I wouldn’t modify your body ever without your consent. What happened to Sammy was completely natural. As an omega, he was born to conceive.”
“But other dragons like you, can adapt their human side to accept young even if they are male?”
His dragon nodded. “We can’t create the life spark. That has to come the normal way through sex and bonds of love. But we all have magic that would enable us to change the human body so we can conceive if that’s what was wanted.”
“Scares the heck out of me just thinking about it.” Byron didn’t like thinking about it.
“I know, which is why you have my word I won’t modify anything on your body unless you ask me.”
“Thank you.” The two beings were silent for a long time, and then Byron said, “I guess it must be time to wake up soon.”