“I’m sure for everything we know, there is still plenty more that we don’t.”
“What happened to Mr. Baker and his lover?” Thomas asked.
“She never told me. Only that the lover died first, and Mr. Baker roamed the halls of his house in sadness every night, until he finally became so ill that he was bed-ridden. She took care of him until he finally gave up his last breath, and then took over the restaurant.”
“I always thought that her family owned that restaurant,” Thomas mused.
“No. They owned the land, but not the restaurant. She got that from Mr. Baker. It was so long ago that most people just made the assumption that it all came from family.”
“I wonder if she ever found any happiness,” he said.
“I don’t know. The journals that my grandfather wrote seemed to bring her some peace, but I don’t think happiness was ever in the cards for her.”
“How very sad.”
“I agree,” she replied, looking down a moment before turning back to him. “I hope we can be happy. I don’t know how she bore such deep pain. Think of how hopeless she must have felt to agree to such a ruse with Mr. Baker. Even then, she knew that she would not find new love and had no intention of ever looking.”
“Why wouldn’t we be happy? We have everything we need. We have each other.”
“Yes, but I’m hardly someone who would have been your first choice. Your life would be so much simpler with someone who wasn’t covered in their own baggage. We can’t get married. We can’t have kids. What does someone like me even have to offer someone like you?”
“What are you talking about, Kara? You have everything to offer me. We can get married, and we can have kids. Even if we have to leave this place to do it. Aaron is changing the laws, but I know people here are set in their ways, and if I have to leave it behind for us to live the kind of life we may choose to one day, then that is what will be done. I’m not going to spend thousands of years missing you.”
“Are you sure? I know marriage isn’t on the horizon today or tomorrow, but I don’t want to only fall more in love with you, and then find out that it was never in the cards.”
“Listen, Kara. I know that I hurt you in choosing my career over you. It was wrong of me – so wrong that I can’t even defend my actions. I was miserable. All I did was miss you. I knew immediately that I’d made a mistake and tried to fix it, but you were so angry, and you pushed me away. Still, did I not come running back to you?”
“Perhaps you just felt guilty or sorry for me,” she said meekly.
“No, Kara. I love you. I love you now and forever. Every best part of my life stems from having met you, and no one will ever take what we have away from us. We belong to and with one another. You are just afraid, that’s all. Isn’t this what we’ve been talking about all this time? Not being afraid? I’m not afraid of you. I’m not afraid of what people will say or think about us being together, and if, someday, we marry and have a child or children, I will never let anyone disparage them or you.”
“What if we have a tiger instead of a dragon?” she asked.
“Then I’ll learn how to train him to do all the things he needs to do. If he shifts into a tiger with wings and a dragon tail, we’ll figure out what to do with his very special gift. I don’t care what happens, as long as you and I are in it together. Do you get that?”
“Yes, I get that. I want the same with you. I guess I just have so many concerns that are new to me. I never expected all of this to happen. I would have never thought in a million years that my bloodline included that of tigers or the ramifications of such a fact.”
“No? Not at all? You mean the fact that your dragon form is the color of a tiger wasn’t a clue?” he said playfully, trying to introduce a bit of levity into the situation.
Kara was completely silent, looking at him in disbelief. He thought at first that he had just said something completely wrong, but then she started laughing. They stood there in the yard, letting it out for a few minutes before she finally regained control of herself and looked at him.
“You know, I have never realized that. I mean, I knew I was orange and black, but it’s not like I have ever seen my own dragon, except once as a reflection on the water and it was rippled, so it was hard to really see. It’s not like I can get a mirror out and check it all out or take a selfie. You are the first person to ever tell me I look like a tiger.”
“Perhaps that is because I am the first person who has ever seen your dragon and knows you are part tiger. I have to say you are, by far, the hottest tiger I know, too,” he said with a grin.
“Well, I suppose it could be worse. I could look like an enormous Kermit the Frog,” she joked.
“What? Who are you talking about? I know you can’t possibly be referring to my glorious, emerald green form. If anything, I’m a chameleon, blending in here on the Emerald Isle when I need to not be seen.”
“Not be seen? You’d be like trying to hide a jumbo jet. How can you be so tall and athletic in your human form and morph into such a gigantic lizard beast when you shift? It’s just crazy!” she laughed.
“Are you calling my dragon fat?” he gasped.
“No, not fat. More like, pumped up on steroids,” she teased.
“I’ll have you know that my dragon is drug free, but thank you for saying I look so buff. I will take it as a compliment.”
“Take it however you want, Kermit Schwarzenegger.”
“Don’t make me terminate you!” he joked.
“You can’t terminate me. You can’t even catch me!” she shot back, dropping her robe and shifting as she sped upward.
Thomas followed suit, chasing her all around the village and out over the ocean until they were both exhausted and returned home, landing back in his backyard to shift. They lay there on the cool grass behind his house, catching their breath for a while and saying nothing. Then they just started laughing again.
“I bet you can’t catch my human form either,” she suddenly announced, jumping up like a shot and darting into the open French doors that led into his house. Thomas took off after her, quickly learning she was right as he walked into the bedroom to find her perched there, waiting for him on the edge of his bed.
“You run like a frog,” she said.
“Ribbit,” Thomas replied in defeat, walking around the edge of the bed and climbing under the covers before pulling them back and patting the bed beside him. “Here kitty, kitty, kitty, he called out to her.”
“Meow,” she replied, climbing into bed beside him and once again curling up to him with her head in the crook of his arm. They fell fast asleep until morning, when they awoke to what looked like the beginning of a beautiful day. Though it was a sad occasion, Thomas knew the future after this could only get brighter for both of them.
Chapter 15
Cassi’s funeral was beautiful, attended by everyone in the village. Her body was set afloat on a funeral pyre, burned in the fashion of her ancestors from centuries before. It was only upon her demise that Kara was afforded the journals, still in Cassi’s possessions from where Kara’s great grandfather had given them to her to read.
Kara sat and read them aloud to Thomas, though it felt like an invasion of privacy of some sort. They were full of love and laughter, but also, great pain. Some of the most touching words that had ever been set down on paper could be found in the journal belonging to Khalil, who it was evident had loved Cassi deeply and missed her every day of his life.
“Listen to this,” she told Thomas, reading a passage aloud to him.
There is nothing that sustains me like the thought of you in my arms. I miss the long nights when we would lie awake beneath the stars, huddled together for warmth against the cool night. I remember your body so well, your growing belly heavy with our child. Our little Tigon as we were wont to call him, not knowing what he would be. You’d be so proud of our son if you could see him, Cassi. He is a tiger like me, but he has your heart and sense of advent
ure.
Why must you stay away from us, my love? Why can’t you come to me and let me hold you in my arms? I don’t understand why you have forsaken us, but it is of no matter to me. I shall continue to love you until the sun no longer shines, the moon no longer beams, and they set my body aflame to sail across the oceans, to await your return to me in another place, another time.
Kara looked up at him as she stopped reading, her eyes full of tears. Thomas had to admit that he felt a bit like crying himself, but he held back and tried to maintain his manliness.
“He loved her so much. He never let go. How do you think he coped with that sort of pain?”
“I don’t know. It must have been hard for both of them.”
“I can only imagine that he poured it into his son and tried to make his life the best it could be,” she said.
“Maybe so,” Thomas replied, contemplating how he would feel having to spend his life without Kara by his side now that they were finally together.
They had moved in together only a few weeks after Cassi had passed away. True to his word, Aaron had insisted that the Dragon Council drop their restrictions, regarding marriage to any outsider of their choice. It had opened the door to quite a few secrets that had been floating around the village for some time, with people who had previously been in relationships they were afraid to reveal coming forth to share their love with all.
While there were many still in the village who just couldn’t be convinced that it was an acceptable thing to allow the sort of mixing of clans and shifters that were now becoming commonplace in the village, they were consoled by the fact that Aaron assured them he would never allow the position of leader to be held by anyone who was not a full dragon shifter and married to another of his kind. It was a concession he wasn’t afraid to make, since he intended to be in power for some time to come.
As the warm spring days turned to summer, Thomas and Kara found themselves returning to the old abandoned farm where Khalil and Cassi had first made their home. The lady who had told them the story of how the property had been handed down had since passed, and when the land went up for sale, they took the opportunity to purchase it as a second home, often flying down in the darkness at the end of a work week and spending the weekend repairing the old cottage.
It was on one such weekend that Kara was surprised to find a small, wooden box sitting alongside the supplies laid out for building. When she turned to ask Thomas what was in the box, she found him on one knee, holding a ring up toward her.
“Kara Sheaver, I have loved you from the moment I first laid eyes on you. Perhaps I was too stubborn to admit it at first, and maybe I made some mistakes along the way, but I promise you that I will love you until the day I no longer breathe a drop of air. I will be with you for the entirety of our lives, whether it is only another day or thousands of years. Will you marry me?”
“Oh, my God! Yes! Yes, I will marry you,” she said, tears streaming down her face.
Thomas slipped the ring on her finger and stood, pulling her into his arms to kiss her passionately. Of all the days of his life, he had to say that this might just be the best one he had ever had. It was a close race with the first night he had made love to her amid the castle ruins not so far from here, a place they returned to from time to time to share a night of passion beneath the stars.
“Open the box,” he told her.
“What?” she said, holding her finger up to admire the ring he had given her as it sparkled in the sunlight shining in through the cabin windows.
“The box behind you,” he told her.
“You are just full of surprises today, aren’t you?”
“Perhaps.”
Kara turned and pulled the box from the shelf behind her, opening it very slowly as he watched with a knowing smile. She looked confused for a moment as she pulled out a ragged t-shirt. It looked as if it had been ripped to shreds and then sewn carefully back together. Realization set in as she unfolded it and took in the front of it. She turned to him wide-eyed.
“When? How?” she asked.
“I picked it up and tossed it in a bag in my car. I started to buy you another, but decided it wouldn’t quite be the same, so I washed it in one of those little garment bags to keep it from falling completely apart and then sewed it a little here and there until I had it back together again. I admit it still looks a little rough, but I did what I could.”
“It’s fantastic! I can’t believe you did that. It’s so wonderful,” she exclaimed, holding her old Mother of Dragons shirt up to her.
“What if I’m never the mother of a dragon, though? What if I’m the mother of a tiger?” she said, frowning.
“Well, then we will take a magic marker and fix it,” he laughed.
“You are brilliant!” she told him, laying the shirt aside to kiss him again.
“I don’t know about being brilliant, but I do what I can to make you happy,” he told her.
“You are doing a grand job of it. I am so excited that I get to marry you. I can’t think of anything that could be better than that.”
“Well, I could be rich,” he told her.
“Yeah, that would be nice,” she laughed.
“Says the woman who gave away a small fortune to our village,” he laughed.
“Do you mind?”
“No, not at all. I wouldn’t have you any other way.”
“It’s a good thing, because this is the way you’ve got me,” she laughed.
“Let’s take a break from work and get a bite to eat,” he told her.
“The usual place?” she asked.
“Yep.”
Making their way to the nearby shed, they hopped in the old truck they kept for getting into town when it was daylight and they couldn’t fly. They drove up the road to the inn where they had first stayed when they came here, saying hello to the same clerk who was always there when they came in for a bite and a pint. They had learned by now that his name was Charles and his family owned the inn.
“Good evening, Thomas. Good evening, Kara. How are the two of you today?” he asked as they entered the place.
“Engaged!” Kara said enthusiastically, holding up her hand to show him her ring.
“Oh, wow. That is exciting!” he told them. “Well, in that case, your meal is on us. Order whatever you’d like.”
“Thanks, Charles. We appreciate that!” Thomas told him.
“Yes, thanks so much,” Kara reiterated as they passed by on their way to the pub area.
A few minutes later, Charles came in and spoke to the server who looked over at them and smiled. Charles then stepped over at the bar and picked up a glass and a spoon, clanging them together to get everyone’s attention, though there were only about a half dozen people in the entire bar.
“Ladies and gentlemen, can I have your attention? It looks like we have a couple of soon-to-be newlyweds in the house. Can I get a big round of applause for Thomas and Kara?”
Everyone began clapping loudly as the couple looked around, their faces flushing red from the attention. The server came over to take their order, looking at them with a huge smile still.
“The usual?” she asked, not even bothering to pull out her pad and pen.
“Absolutely. It’s served us well so far; why change it up now?” Thomas replied.
She returned a few minutes later with two pints of beer, soon followed not long after by the same meal they had enjoyed when they first came here and stayed in room number twelve. It was just as delicious as it was the first time, which was why they always came back for more. This place seemed as much like home to them as the village did these days.
The meal was punctuated with people stopping by to congratulate them or speak for a moment as they left after their own meals. Many of them had become, at least, casual friends and often invited them to events at their homes, when they were able to make it down for them.
“Do you think it was like this for Cassi and Khalil when they lived here?” Kara asked.<
br />
“I doubt that this inn is quite that old,” Thomas laughed.
“No, I mean were they embraced by the locals like this? I wonder if people were always afraid of our kind, of what they can’t understand, or if it is only the modern age that treats us like this.”
“I’m afraid that a fear of anything different is something that spans across all of time. People just can’t accept what they can’t understand and, unfortunately, it is that inability to understand that prevents the cycle from ever ending.”
“I suppose you are right. Still, it’s a sad situation.”
“Yes, I agree with that completely.”
The two of them sat there eating their meal, dropping the discussion in favor of a new one and started to make wedding plans. It seemed the one thing they could agree on was that it should be in the village, surrounded by their friends.
“But wouldn’t it be great if after the wedding, everyone could fly down to the old castle ruins for a grand reception?” Kara mused.
“Yes, but I don’t relish seeing some of our guests arrive naked.”
“Perhaps we could provide robes for everyone as they land,” she countered.
“How very Roman of you,” he mused.
“Well, you know. It was just a thought,” she laughed.
“When do you want to get married?”
“Today,” she told him, reaching across the table for his hands, and looking at him in that way she always did
In that moment, Thomas knew exactly how Khalil must have felt. How it must have been for him to look across the table at the woman he loved every day. How incredible it must have felt to have her in his arms. The devastation he felt after losing her could only have been horrible by any stretch of the imagination, and to have never given up on that love, to never have found anyone else to fill that gap must have been heartbreaking.
“Thomas, are you okay?” Kara asked, looking at him with some alarm.
“What? Oh, yes. I was just lost in a thought.”
“Not a very nice one from the look of it.”
“No. It wasn’t. I was just thinking about Khalil and what pain he must have felt to lose Cassi all those years ago. I don’t think I could truly relate to that before you, but now, I understand it all too well.”
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