He didn’t know when he would have to stop winning her over. He would do it every day if that was what it took. The attempts would be exhausting, but he would never stop reminding her that she was loved and needed.
Chapter Fourteen
The night sky was clear. Each constellation stood out in perfect illumination. Ashton raised his hand to point out his favorites. Makenna noted they were the easiest to find. Perhaps that was why they were his favorites. It didn’t matter if he didn’t know much about the stars. The world consisted of only the two of them while she was curled beneath his arm.
Not even the winter chill could reach her while she huddled close to Ashton. He was so hot, she thought her hair should have singed. Instead, it welcomed her in a way that it did to no one else. His heat had granted her a special kind of immunity.
The word mate rang through her mind again.
It brought with it a song. The notes filled her soul, humming along her bones as she stared into the endless sky. Near her was the worn leather of her guitar case, close enough to run her fingers along the curving seam. Words began to unfold in her mind. She could hear it, plain as day. It was a song of loss and anger, of determination.
This was, perhaps, the first time Makenna had felt anything in a long time. What she’d thought was living had only been a specter of life. It had been empty. She’d been a ghost going through the motions of someone who was alive. It’d all been for show, to convince others that she was okay while she grew numb to everything that hurt.
Here, with Ashton, she felt again. It wasn’t perfect. A lot of time, she felt pain. The thought of leaving him hurt, the thought of losing everything to her debt stung, and worst of all was the idea that she would eventually return to the numb ghost that she’d been. The cold fear left needles of ice in her blood.
Yet, she’d wanted to bring along her guitar case when they left. She couldn’t have explained why, at the time, but she could feel music coming back to life inside her. Chords and lyrics swam thought her mind. Her roiling emotions fed the chaos. A kind of chaos that could be refined through the strings of her instrument.
“Are you alright?” Ashton asked.
A long moment passed. She wanted to wave it all away and get on with their date, but the confession burst from her. It filled the night air with her concerns when all she wanted was a night away from them. Given voice, they sat heavy on her chest. Each word became harder than the last. Still, Ashton waited. He was patient while she fought her way through the confession.
She told him about the year she spent trying to follow her dreams. She told him about her aunt and how the woman had hidden her cancer to let Makenna pursue music, about how her aunt looked when Makenna finally returned home. The gaunt and gray version of the woman who raised her still haunted her.
If Makenna had stayed home, then she might have been able to save her aunt. She would have been there to take her to treatments, would have been able to give her money for the experimental treatment. If all else failed, she would have been able to beg at a Drake doorstep for one of them to change her. Sickness never affected the dragons. The change could have saved her aunt.
But Makenna hadn’t been around. She’d been sharing drinks with producers and fending off the ones who wanted to take advantage of her, thinking it was just a part of the life. Only now did she realize as much as she loved music, that hadn’t been the right path. Part of her had cursed the debt that dragged her back to Grove, but in a way, it had saved her.
When she was finished, he watched her. She thought he struggled to find a response, but when he spoke it wasn’t to wave it all away. He spoke with feeling, connecting instead of deflecting.
“Don’t blame yourself. There was nothing you could do to stop what happened to her. You aren’t a doctor or a scientist. You don’t have the secret cure to cancer.”
She pressed her eyes shut. The voice inside her slowly abated, growing quiet until she could breathe again. “Still, I could have asked someone to change her. If I had, she might still be here.”
He wrapped her in his arms. “It doesn’t work that way. Cancer isn’t like disease for us. When we change, our cells can mutate, too. It wouldn’t have saved her. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Makenna hadn’t know how deep her blame had run. She bound herself with it every day, thinking that if only she’d been faster, smarter, more of anything, then her aunt wouldn’t have suffered. Makenna bore the debt like her cross. She paid it as if it were the only way to repent for her wrong doings.
“You tried to have your own life,” Ashton went on. “No one can blame you for that. Your aunt wanted you to reach your dreams. She gave you the time and space to grasp them. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
She fisted her hand in his shirt. His heart beat beneath her knuckles. Between her and that beat was the beast, his dragon. “I’m afraid I’ll fail you, too. I can’t take care of anyone. Its why I don’t even have a houseplant. If…if I can’t be what you need, then…” she couldn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t want to face the truth of it.
He laughed, surprising her.
She tore herself away from him and sat up to scowl at him. Still, he grinned.
“I don’t get what’s so funny!” She threw her hands in the air. “This is your life we’re talking about!”
He leaned back, arms folded behind his head as though he didn’t have a care in the world. He acted like there was no chance he’d ever lose his mind to the beast inside him. If she couldn’t help him keep the balance, then that was an option. They had both seen how strong a beast could be, how it could take over against a man’s will.
“I’m not in any danger, Mac.”
“Says the man who woke up naked in my back yard two days ago,” she said, skeptically.
“Turns out my beast knew exactly what I needed.” He shrugged.
The gesture infuriated her. She’d never been so angry in her life. Well, at least not as long as she could remember. She was sure there’d been times in their teens where he’d made her just as angry. The heat of it warmed her limbs and brought flame to her tongue.
“Don’t be cryptic. If you think you can get away with lying to me only to fall apart later then I’m going to finally lose my shit.” She couldn’t imagine losing Ashton to the beast.
His goofy grin and the flippant way he filled her life with humor. She couldn’t stand the thought of a world without him. She needed that light. He was the lantern that lit her way. Without him, the world would be gray and dull, just like the life she’d been living.
She sighed and raked her hands over her face. “I can’t spend all day with you. And you can’t burst into my work every time your beast needs something. I know we’re helping each other, but this isn’t going to be easy.”
He reached for her and she let him pull her into his arms. She lay along his body, her head on his chest. His breathing was steady. There wasn’t an ounce of worry or tension in him, and it confused her. She worried about so much. Every possibility, every way she could fail, filled her mind at all times.
How could he not worry about what would happen? He needed to think of himself, but it was like he didn’t care. She couldn’t be the one to care for the both of them. She felt stretched thin already.
“You aren’t my safety net,” Ashton told her finally. “You aren’t a mechanism I can turn to when things are rough. It isn’t your job to make sure I’m alright one hundred percent of the time. That’s too much to ask of anyone.”
“But mates are supposed to do those kinds of things for each other…”
He clutched her tighter, as if pleased with her response. “Mates help each other, sure. It’s a lot of give and take. Back and forth. I won’t lie and say being around you doesn’t help. Your presence keeps me level. Do you know why?”
Makenna shrugged. She assumed it was just the effects of the bond.
“My beast and I know what’s important when you’re in my life. The beast and I aren’t
fighting for different things anymore. Even when you’re not around, the beast and I are starting to agree. Like how I know that family is more important than work, even if they can seem like work. I also know that home is more than just a set of walls. It’s people and the places that fill you with happiness.”
Makenna buried her face in Ashton’s shirt to hide the heat that most likely darkened her cheeks.
“Coming home was a breath of fresh air,” he went on. “Sure, Jasper is a pain in my ass and probably will be until I can push him onto some woman, but I still love him. Same as I know you won’t stop working. But I’ll be there whenever you’re done. Any minute you have to spare, I’ll be there.”
“That’s a lot to promise,” Makenna warned him. She was falling for it, for the life he laid out before her. In it, there was happiness. Here was a chance to nurture this spark inside her into something greater. Not the person she’d been, but perhaps whoever she was meant to be. “What about you? You’re not a dog. You shouldn’t have to wait for me.”
“You’re so concerned about me,” he said, his hands sliding along her back. They were warm and comforting, nearly lulling her into sleep. “I’m trying to tell you I can put myself back together. My dragon has something to protect now. I can save you from fire and ruin, but not from your own burnout. You need to slow down and think of yourself.”
She couldn’t afford such a luxury. Even this day was stolen, time she would have to pay back in order to keep up.
“Look up at those stars and tell me they weren’t worth it,” Ashton whispered.
Makenna rolled onto her back. Ashton’s hand slipped into hers, fingers threading together so he could hold her tight. The longer she stared, the further into the vast depths she could see. The milky way sprawled out above them. It was filled with things they would never know, never control.
It should have made her feel small and inconsequential. Instead, it made the weight on her shoulders lighter. In the grand scheme of things, the bills meant nothing. She had one life to live. Why did she have to live it in shame and misery? Her aunt wouldn’t have wanted her to carry this burden for so long. It had dug deep into her heart to rest there like a worm among rot.
When she breathed, the air felt fresh. It renewed her. She twisted, wresting her hand from Ashton’s so she could find the guitar she’d brought with her. Her earlier impulse to grab it had felt foolish, but now she was happy to have it nearby. The feeling of the strings beneath her fingers was familiar, yet the sound she coaxed was new.
Ashton sat up and watched her with reverence. She looked away, face heating beneath his gaze even if it did bring a smile to her lips. Through the song forming in her hands, she felt the spark inside her grow and grow until it engulfed her. Nothing would be easy from here, but she was tired of living with this burden. She hadn’t realized how exhausting it was.
Suddenly, she slapped her hand over the guitar strings and looked Ashton in the eye. He was taken aback, confused. Hurt flashed on his face, but she needed a moment to organize her thoughts. They crammed in her throat like a car pile-up.
“I was enjoying that,” Ashton teased. “I’m going to need you to start recording because you only ever play at night, and I need this all day long.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk about,” Makenna confessed.
Ashton sat back and waited. She hadn’t seen a hint of his beast since the fight. It was like he truly found peace in her presence. She chewed her lip, hesitant to ask him for more. Ashton was already giving so much. He’d paid her electric bill and outfitted her apartment with a studio. She couldn’t keep asking for things.
It was selfish. It would tip the balance between them.
Ashton touched her knee. He was warm and gentle, offering a soft smile. “You’re allowed to ask for things, you know. It isn’t rude.”
“How do you keep reading my mind?” she rasped.
It was like he was in her head, always saying the right thing at the right time. No one was that perfect.
“I think you forget we have a long history. Your facial expressions haven’t changed all that much. I could read you back then and I can read you now. Every time I took you to the ice-cream stand, you’d bite your lip like that because you wanted a waffle cone. You never asked because it cost more, but I knew.”
She laughed. Ashton had always handed her a waffle cone with extra sprinkles, just the way she liked it, even though she ordered a plain cone.
“Tell me,” he prompted. “What did you want to ask?”
She chewed her lip a bit longer before she finally straightened out her response. “I want to start seriously recording music. Since you’re part of Jasper’s court now, I know you can’t leave. Especially while he’s acting like this. What I’m trying to say is that I don’t want to go on tours or anything like that, but could you help me sell some of my music online? I don’t know the first thing about something like that.”
“I’ll admit I don’t know crap about sales, but I think I have some friends I could reach out to. I’ll call in any favor I need to just to listen to your music while you’re gone. If my help bothers you so much, remember I’m doing this for selfish reasons.”
Makenna couldn’t believe her luck. When Ashton returned home, she’d wanted to avoid him at all costs. Then, like a lost puppy, he’d shown up everywhere she went. Like a fool, she’d gone and let him in and become attached.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” she confessed.
In the span of days, Ashton had come and turned her world on its head. A new path unfurled before her while the old one gradually faded into nothing. Wherever she’d been heading, into a fiery burnout perhaps, had disappeared. The path ahead was lit with hope. Sure, it would be rocky with her bills and Jasper’s uncontrollable dragon, but Makenna found that she wanted this.
She hadn’t wanted anything since her teen years. This wasn’t the painful kind of longing that would grip her for years, laying unfulfilled. It was the burn of a passion gone dormant. It would fuel her in ways that nothing else could, driving her forward for years to come.
For a while longer, she played. A song was budding in her head and she was trying to capture it. After Ashton drove them home, she slipped into the recording studio to try to find it.
It all began with a spark.
Chapter Fifteen
Ashton scowled at the sign hung over Jasper’s gate. GO AWAY had been spray painted in drippy letters on a piece of plywood. Ashton had half a mind to burn it to cinders. Instead, he scaled the fence. The metal contraption might hold back humans, but it did nothing to stop a dragon shifter.
On his way toward the door, he glimpsed Griffin. His cousin said nothing, only raising his brows before slipping away to hide from Ashton’s incoming confrontation. Ashton was done with letting Jasper hide up here. He secluded himself and not even Griffin bothered to pull the new king from his solitary confinement.
He knew what a cage felt like. A cage could drive the beast to madness, even if it was one built by a dragon’s own hand. Their kind was never meant to live like that.
“I can’t do this alone!” Ashton shouted to Griffin.
The silver dragon said nothing. Ashton bemoaned the state of his mountain kingdom. There were other dragon mountains and they didn’t have half the problems the Drake family seemed to have. At one point, the Drakes had been the strongest family of shifters in the States. Ashton didn’t think they’d fallen, not yet. His cousins just needed some coaxing.
And maybe some good women, though Ashton didn’t know the first thing about finding a mate. His own was his high school sweetheart. Maybe he would see if a strip club had popped up in Grove while he’d been gone. There would be women there.
Ashton kicked the front door open, letting himself in. The boom echoed through the massive house. It’d been renovated in the recent years. Gone was the ancient wallpaper and the horrid antler chandelier that looked like it’d been waiting for the right moment to impale someon
e. Ashton would have been glad to see it go, but the crystal monstrosity in its place was terrifying.
There was crystal everywhere he looked. Glass chimed through the house, like the distant voice of a ghost. Ashton took it all in, wondering at what kind of madness Jasper was truly dealing with.
“Did you just break down my door?” Jasper shouted from another room.
Ashton shoved his hands in his pockets and grinned, waiting for Jasper to come to him. Not a moment later, Jasper’s red face appeared at the top of the curling staircase. Each step down made the walls tremble. Even the manor cowed before the golden king. Surely, Ashton should have been so smart as to kneel or run.
He’d traded smarts for determination that morning.
“Didn’t you see the sign on the gate?” Jasper’s voice was laden with warning.
“You’re chairholder in one of the biggest banks in the world. I’m here to make you participate in your own business.” Ashton dropped a file folder on the foyer table. “I had to tuck it in the back of my pants while I jumped your fence. It might smell, but that’s your own fault.”
“Go back to the city!” Jasper howled at him. The king paced, fury bending his shoulders in on themselves. A snarl ripped from his lips.
Flames burst inside Ashton. “There’s no way you’re getting me to go back there. Grove is my home now and you’re just going to have to deal with it.”
Ashton came to convince Jasper to handle his family business, but the plan was failing. Jasper seemed to only want to retreat. He expected the gold dragon to burst free and fly off into the sky at any moment. Ashton was more than prepared to drag his cousin back down to earth if he had to. This conversation wasn’t over.
“You’re a damn king now. You best start acting like one.”
Jasper whirled on him again. “What do you know about kings? You left the first chance you could.”
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