by Rinelle Grey
© 2018 by Rinelle Grey
www.rinellegrey.com
All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents
Blurb
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
About the Author
Blurb
Dragon Elder Ostrian is concerned about the increasing number of dragons who are choosing to mate with humans. He's sure there's something going on, and he's determined to get to the bottom of it. He certainly isn't going to let the pretty human distract him.
Mary is equally determined to prove that nothing is wrong. The fact that she just might be starting to understand the grumpy old dragon's motivation is not going to stop her from protecting the place of humans in the clan, no matter how blue Ostrian's eyes might be.
But as the two of them research the history of love between dragons and humans, they realise that the ripples of the past have had more of an effect on the present than they ever could have imagined.
Ostrian is book 9 in the Return of the Dragons series.
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Chapter 1
Ostrian stared after Brad and Nate, still trying to figure it all out. Why had the humans agreed to give themselves up to the police to protect the dragons? The princes and princess certainly weren’t going to force them to, they’d made that very clear. Princess Lyrian, especially, had an ulterior motive for protecting Brad, since they’d mated mere hours ago.
Yet, the humans were even disobeying the princes to go, Brad going against the wishes of his mate.
Why?
Ostrian just didn’t get it. Did they have some hidden agenda?
If they did, he couldn’t possibly see what it could be.
“Well, come on, we’d better go back inside. There’s nothing more we can do here.” For a moment, the voice startled Ostrian. He’d almost forgotten about the human woman at his elbow. He didn’t have to turn to imagine her auburn hair pulled back into a severe bun, or her no nonsense navy skirt and white blouse.
Older than the men who’d left, an aunt to one of the young women who’d mated into his clan recently, she confused Ostrian almost as much as they did.
Maybe more.
Ostrian nodded, but didn’t move. He kept staring out at the bush were the humans had disappeared, as much to avoid looking at Mary than because he still didn’t understand why they’d gone.
He didn’t like the feelings the human woman stirred in him. Every time she looked at him, his heart turned over, and his throat closed up. Whenever she looked at him, with that fierce look of hers, he kept forgetting the point he was trying to make.
He hadn’t even really noticed her up until the last few days, even though she’d been here for weeks. But at that point, she suddenly seemed aware of him. She’d spent the last two days berating him, and he had no idea why. He hadn’t done anything to her directly, but she still seemed to bear a personal grudge against him.
Mary turned to go back inside, but stopped when she realised he wasn’t following him. “What, regretting helping them already? Or are you just thinking of all the trouble you’re going to get into when Lyrian finds out?” She raised one, straight, narrow eyebrow.
Ostrian stared at it for a moment, mesmerised. He’d never seen an eyebrow so perfect, as though not one hair dared to move out of place. He wasn’t surprised this woman managed to keep even her eyebrows in check. She was bossy and overbearing enough that even they wouldn’t dare disobey her.
He’d done nothing to her, hadn’t even spoken to her until she’d started attacking him, so why was she so antagonistic?
He lifted his chin. “Not in the slightest,” he said haughtily. “They did the right thing. I just don’t understand why.”
He hadn’t meant to add that last part, it had just slipped out. Probably a sign of how confused he was. Or maybe this woman had some human equivalent of life magic. That would explain why he kept feeling so tongue tied around her.
Mary stared at him for a moment, her eyes narrowing, and seeming to pierce right into his soul. Then she laughed.
The sound was strangely appealing, in a human sort of way. Not to him, of course, he hated laughter. But he was sure other people would find it appealing.
The thought made him frown.
“People will do the strangest things for love,” Mary said, her voice light. She gave a shrug.
Perhaps that was what made him so uncomfortable about all this? Mary was right, Brad and Nate had both clearly said they were doing this to protect the ones they loved, not for the good of the clan.
Being in love made people dangerous. Erratic. You could never predict what they were going to do next. Take Brad and Nate as the perfect example. Humans, protecting a dragon clan, all for love. It was unnatural.
It might appear to help the clan now, but they couldn’t trust it. If the Trima dragon who Nate had mated defected back to her own clan, then who knew what Nate would do.
Ostrian didn’t trust the Trima dragon’s loyalty one little bit. It was clearly to her mate, not to Rian clan. She was just another example of how unstable love made people. She’d given up her clan, the highest dishonour, all because she was in love.
And if she and the Trima life dragon were telling the truth—though Ostrian wasn’t at all convinced of that—then this whole war, the war that had claimed hundreds of dragon lives, including that of his son, was because of love too.
No, Ostrian didn’t like what love did to people at all.
“Love makes people act stupidly,” he said firmly. “And we’d all be better off without it.”
Mary stared at him, her bright red lips making a large O in the middle of her face. Even in surprise, she looked flawless and perfect. How did she do it? Was it a trick?
She recovered quickly. “I thought you said you approved of what they did? Why else would you help them?”
She was quick. A worthy opponent in a debate. Or she would be if she weren’t a human.
“What they are doing will help the clan,” Ostrian agreed. “But that doesn’t make it a wise move. Sacrificing one’s self for the clan is honourable. Sacrificing one’s self for love? That’s pointless.”
Mary stared at him in disbelief for a moment. Then she shook her head. “That makes no sense at all.”
Ostrian didn’t really care if she understood or not. It made no difference to him. He didn’t expect her to appreciate his point of view. She was just a human. Humans lived for things such as love, probably because they couldn’t fly or hunt, and had little honour.
He really didn’t get what any of the dragons saw in them. Especially not enough to mate one of them. Yet, in the last month, no less than… he counted in his head… seven dragons had fallen for and mated a human in a short space of time. One of them, his granddaughter.
It was the most bizarre thing he’d ever seen. Usually they were lucky to have one dragon mating every few months. But seven, all in one month? And to humans?
He frowned. The more he thought about it, the more sinister it seemed.
A pattern like this couldn’t be just coincidence.
Did the humans have some sort of power the dragons were unaware of?
He stared at Mary, and she stared back at him. Ostria
n searched her eyes, hunting for any sign that she was anything more than an ordinary, mundane human.
As he stared, he couldn’t help noticing that her eyes were a glorious shade of blue. Just like the ocean he had glimpsed once, when he’d recklessly left the lair and flown to the coast as a young dragon. They sparkled too, like the sunlight dancing off the waves.
Emotion welled up in him. How amazing it had felt, to stare at so much water all in one place. He’d been awed, and stared for far too long. He’d nearly been seen by a human passing. He had been seen by his mother, who had set out to find him.
She’d scolded him for weeks. But it had been worth it.
Staring into Mary’s eyes, he felt that same mix of exhilaration and fear of the forbidden. It set his blood pumping with more vigour than it had in ages. And scared him even more than the fear magic from Ultrima’s life dragon at Prince Verrian’s Mesmer chamber had.
If humans did have some sort of power, it was strong. Stronger than dragon magic.
Ostrian gave himself a shake. What nonsense was he thinking? Humans had no magic, everyone knew that. And yet…
“It doesn’t make any sense…” he mused.
Mary put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Just because you’re a sour old man who doesn’t believe in love doesn’t mean it makes no sense.” She pointed a finger at him, actually touching him, stabbing him in the chest. “You need to wake up to yourself and what this attitude is doing to you. No one in the clan appreciates it.”
Her words, and her touch, sent a chill down his spine. For a second, he felt exposed, naked. She gave voice to a truth he had no wish to look at. The futility of his actions. The thankless task he had given himself.
Yet, he couldn’t stop himself.
“Do you think I don’t know that?” he said roughly.
Mary’s eyes widened. “Then why do you keep doing it?”
Ostrian sighed. Humans might understand this romantic love stuff, but they seemed to lack any understanding about what it meant to love your clan. To love them so much that you’re prepared to sacrifice your own happiness for them.
For some reason, he desperately wanted someone to understand. For her to understand. Because as he stared into her eyes, it seemed like she just might.
“Even if I die a lonely old man, if even one thing I’ve done has protected my clan, then I could die without regret,” he said simply. “My personal happiness is unimportant, the clan must go on. Humans don’t seem to understand that.”
Even as he said the words, they just rammed home the truth. That was why so many of them mating into the clan was dangerous.
The clan had only survived this long by protecting the needs of the entire clan. Trima clan had done their best to wipe them out, and they’d had to make great sacrifices to survive. Yes, that meant that dragons hadn’t always been able to mate with whoever they wanted, or fly when they felt like it, or even always have enough to eat.
He and the other water dragons had given up the ecstasy of submerging themselves in water. The wind dragons were rarely able to fly. Every single dragon had given up things to be where they were.
But they were still alive.
If it weren’t for their loyalty to the clan, they might not be. The princes and princesses might be waking up to find out they were truly alone. Or never waking up again.
All that had changed since the humans had come onto the scene, starting with this woman’s niece, Gretchen. She and her dragon mate, Jayrian, had been the ones to convince them to let a human wake Prince Taurian. A human who he had subsequently mated.
And that had just been the beginning.
Dragon after dragon had mated with humans, until some days it felt like there were humans everywhere. Like the one standing next to him right now.
They were like a plague, taking over the clan and infecting every dragon here with their crazy, idealistic beliefs, none able to resist them. Every dragon that came in contact with them seemed to succumb to whatever charms they were putting out. Even he was feeling the pull, and he could see how hard it was to resist it. His years of experience gave him a strength and knowledge the younger dragons lacked.
This wasn’t just a few dragons falling in love with humans. This was bigger than that. And if something weren’t done about it soon, it had the potential to bring ruin to his whole clan. Humans were dangerous. Everything he’d ever read and everything he’d ever seen told him that.
Why couldn’t the other dragons see it? Had they forgotten their history? Had he failed to make it clear enough to them? Humans had nearly destroyed the dragons once, centuries ago. He wasn’t about to stand by and watch that happen again.
Was there something else leading them astray? Did the humans hold some sort of power over dragons that he couldn’t see? His experiences with Mary certainly seemed to indicate there might be. Her pull definitely reminded him of the power of a life dragon, even if it weren’t as strong. It was clearly almost as dangerous, maybe more so because it was so insidious.
Had this been part of what had made the dragons flee from humans last time?
He needed to find out what it was about humans that attracted the dragons so much.
Mary was gaping at him, still shocked that he didn’t care what others thought of him. Ostrian was glad he’d finally found something to make her shut up. Her constant questioning was getting in the way of his thinking.
He needed to research this. There were records going back thousands of years, back before the dragons had left England. They’d interacted more with humans then. Perhaps there was some clue there.
But first, he had to get this beautiful, irritating, distracting human to go away.
Chapter 2
Mary stared at Ostrian. In a few short sentences, he’d turned everything she’d thought she knew about him on its head.
Ostrian had been in the thick of things ever since she’d arrived in the lair. At first, she’d just been irritated by him. He seemed to live for stopping anything that brought anyone joy. He’d tried to drive her niece and her dragon mate apart, and to bully Taurian into mating with his granddaughter. And nothing anyone said to him seemed to get through to him.
But after a while, she’d started to feel sorry for him. He’d seemed to have no clue how much he was annoying all the other dragons. He was still speaking out against Lyrian’s mate and the sacrifice he’d made for their clan, despite the fact that no one else in the entire clan agreed with him.
The fact that he was doing all that because he really believed it was the best thing for the clan, despite knowing it was turning them all against him… that he accepted his own loneliness because it was less important than the survival of the clan…
Well, she couldn’t help feeling a little admiration.
She couldn’t even claim so noble an excuse for her own isolation. She was fast heading towards being a lonely old woman simply because she’d spent too much time listening to society’s chant that money was the key to happiness.
It had worked for a while, when she was young and beautiful and had plenty of suitors to turn away. Then she’d felt powerful, on top of the world. The nice house, fast car, and expensive clothes had only helped.
But somewhere over the years, it had started to fade.
Now, watching all these happy young couples, she was desperately wishing she’d made another choice. She could have sacrificed some of that money for love, surely? She could have had any one of those dashing young men who had stared at her admiringly.
But, like Ostrian, she’d made her choice. Her time was past, and it was the next generation of dragons’ turn. And the only thing Aunt Mary, as they all called her, could do to was to see that no one got in the way of them falling in love. And the one most likely to do that was right here in front of her.
“Humans understand sacrifice for our families more than you think,” she said softly. “But your prejudice against love is blinding you to the fact that it’s the very thing that holds
a clan together.”
She’d caught his attention with that. He stared at her, wide eyed. He shook his head once, paused, then shook it again, more definitively. “No,” he said firmly. “Love is an individual need, and placing an individual’s needs above that of the clan is what leads to our destruction. That’s what Ultrima tried to do, when he wanted to mate with Princess Sarian. And look where that got us.”
He really didn’t get it, did he?
“If Latrima is right, then it was the fact that Princess Sarian insisted on putting the clan’s needs above her own that caused the destruction, not the other way around,” she said firmly.
Ostrian stared at her in disbelief. He opened his mouth to say something, then snapped it shut.
Mary hid a smile. He was cute when he looked so bemused. Kind of like a puppy dog who’d received a reprimand, but wasn’t quite sure why.
He recovered quickly though, giving her a frown and saying haughtily, “That’s only if the Trima dragon is right, which I very much doubt. And even if she is, that still makes what Ultrima tried to do unacceptable. Even love is no excuse for trying to force himself on a princess or attacking a prince when he tried to stop him.”
“Of course not,” Mary said firmly. That was something they could both agree upon. Even so, she suspected there was a lot more to that story than had been recounted, but she didn’t say that. There wasn’t a lot of point. Instead she asked curiously, “Have you ever been in love?”
Ostrian turned away with a harrumph. “Of course not. Love is for the weak.”
Mary wondered why she was bothering. He’d clearly shown that he was incapable of change. He’d flat out told her he didn’t care what others thought of him. And yet, there was something in his voice. An echo of pain, that perhaps indicated he wasn’t quite telling the whole story.
Why couldn’t she help feeling that there was something deeper to this man? Something good hidden in his grumpy, overbearing personality. Sure, she’d had glimpses of honour and loyalty to his clan, but that alone wasn’t enough to make a man redeemable. Not if he was unwilling to listen to others telling him he was wrong.