Dhara frowned, shaking her head. “What do you mean?”
“Inbreeding,” Kean told her. “We can only breed with each other.” He gestured to her, smiling slightly. “What we just did…you won’t get pregnant.”
She blushed, biting her lip almost shyly. “Good to know, I guess.”
“If we had all stayed in one place, we would have run out of breeding options much faster,” he said. “But now we have different branches. Some of us are in Australia. Some of us are here, in Boston. There’s a group in Seattle. And there are a few—not many—in Norway.”
“And how do you breed…?”
He arched an eyebrow at her, amused at her hesitancy. “In human form, much like we just did. But there would be a baby nine months later.”
“Ah.”
She seemed perturbed, and he tilted his head, wondering why now, of all moments, she was suddenly nervous. “What’s wrong?”
“So you’ll be given a mate.”
“Yes,” he agreed, nodding. “Likely from Norway. The Norway Clan is the smallest, and they know they can’t survive unless they join in with other clans. For this generation, most of our mates will come from Norway, and then, for the next generation, one of the other clans will disperse and join in …” he trailed off, realizing as he spoke of it out loud just how precarious their longevity was. “Eventually…there will be no one to mate with.” And that was the problem that Ronan was working on so feverishly, Kean reminded himself. While Kean was out here in a clearing, making love to a human and giving away their sacred secrets.
“Then there’s no point to any of this.”
Dhara’s sharp tone brought Kean out of his self-recriminations, and he frowned at her. “No point to what?”
“Us.” She gestured between them. “We can’t ever really be.”
It was true, he supposed, but he didn’t think of it the same way she did. “Dhara…it’s not like that. Yes, I’ll have a dragon mate, but because of the way that it all works …it’s very common that the two dragons destined to mate are not actually in love with each other. They’re partners, yes, but that might be it.”
“Partners who have sex and raise children together.”
“One child,” he said, seeing the anger in her face and not understanding. “Why are you so upset?”
She scrambled to her feet, yanking her dress back up to cover her body. “Because I’m in love with you, you jackass! And you’re going to partner up with some dragon woman and make babies with her instead!”
He blinked at her in shock, then got to his own feet as well, though he had nothing with which to cover up. “Dhara, don’t get angry. I’m trying to tell you that dragons often have romantic partners, outside of their mate. Their mate is just …their mate. But they might love someone else.”
It wasn’t as though he was lying, because it had happened before. But it was highly discouraged, of course, since forming a loving, long-term relationship with a human was difficult when the dragon could never expose his or her true life to that person. But it had happened, and it could happen again. He couldn’t imagine giving Dhara up for anything, and he had already sealed that deal by bringing her into his secret world.
“We could be incredible,” Kean said, walking toward her and trying to take her hands. “Because you do know the real me. We could be in love and have everything.” She was backing up, but he grabbed her and pulled her into his chest, kissing her. “I love you too. Did I forget to say that part? I love you, Dhara.”
He had thought she would melt into his arms, but she shoved him away as hard as she could. It wasn’t hard enough to hurt him, but it did shock him as much as the anger in her eyes.
“Fuck you,” she told him succinctly. “You tell me you love me in almost the same breath that you tell me that all I can ever be is your mistress? That I’ll have to be alone at night when you go home to your mate who you have children with?”
“Just one child.”
“That’s not the point!” she shouted, throwing her hands up in the air. “Kean, how could you be so…hurtful?”
He shook his head, not knowing what to say. Did she expect that he would give up his duty to create part of the next generation? If he could have his children through her, then he would. He would marry her in a heartbeat and enjoy every second of planting his seed inside of her, but it wouldn’t work. It couldn’t! He was giving her everything that was in his power to give her—his love and his heart forever. His most carefully guarded secret. His promise to fight for her and make it right that she knew who he was when she should never have received that knowledge.
And in spite of all that, she begrudged him his devotion to his responsibilities as one of the remaining members of the Celtic Dragon Clan?
“Dhara…don’t do this,” he said, trying to move toward her only to have her move away again. “I told you I love you. I want you in my life. I’ve given you everything I have. What else do you want from me?”
She shook her head. “More than you have to give.”
Chapter Thirty
Dhara
Kean didn’t understand why she was so upset, and she didn’t understand why, out of everything she had learned in the past twelve hours, what was bothering her most was that she and Kean could never truly be together—not the fact that her entire past was a lie and that the spell that had been used on her to create that lie had created such a split in her mind that it had manifested into an angry, murderous entity, powerful enough to move outside of her body, interact with the world, and try to kill her.
That, surely, should be her priority, and yet as she stalked off into the forest, having no idea where she was or how to get back into Boston, all she could fume about was the fact that Kean couldn’t understand why the idea of being his permanent sidepiece just didn’t appeal to her.
“Dhara, stop!”
It wasn’t the first time he had called after her. He wasn’t that far behind her, unwilling to let her out of his sight despite her refusal to speak to him and the naked state he was in.
“Enough of this,” he told her. “You’re being unreasonable!”
“I’m being unreasonable?” She turned on him, throwing a hand up in the air. “Oh, well, do enlighten me then. You love me but want to have a family and children with another woman. And I’m upset, so I’m unreasonable. Please explain that to me.”
He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Fine. I will. But can we please do it after I find some clothes?” He gestured to his stark nakedness. “I’m not saying I’m not proud of what I have going on here, but it’s cold and wet, and there are branches sticking out that you don’t always see until it’s too late to save…arts of you.”
She didn’t want to smile, so she didn’t, but it did take effort to keep it in. She was furious with him and felt fully justified in her fury, but he was also still gorgeous and sweet and the man she loved. And he did, for the first time ever, look just a little bit pitiful, padding after her with no clothes on.
But she didn’t relent much. “Fine,” she said, keeping all her affection out of her tone. “You’re the dragon expert. So how do we get back into town with you like that? Because naked or in your dragon form, if we go back to Boston, you’re getting arrested.”
“I can take care of it,” he told her. “I’m going to shift. And when I do …get on my back. Can you do that much?”
She shrugged, waving a hand for him to get on with it, as though watching him transition into a dragon was now an everyday occurrence for her.
He moved back, putting plenty of space between them, and then closed his eyes, his head tilting upward as the change began to overtake him. It was the first time that Dhara had seen the process, and she found herself unwillingly captivated by the sight in front of her. Kean’s skin stretched and pulled back to reveal the large, strong, scaled body of the dragon that was always within him, his head reared back, his neck elongated, and, too quickly for her eyes to even catch it, he morphed complete
ly into his dragon form, his strong, thick tail sweeping back and forth over the forest floor.
There was a feeling in the air, like there was a magical aftershock pulsing around her after his transition, and when she looked up at Kean, the immensity of his form was more impressive than it had been before. Last time, she had been in a bit of a daze, and riding on his back. Somehow, seeing him shift in person and stand before her was absolutely breathtaking.
He flicked his tail at her, as though reminding her to climb up onto him, and she licked her lips, taking a step forward and hesitantly placing her hand on his leg. It seemed like it might hurt him if she grabbed onto his scales for leverage, but she didn’t know how else to scramble up onto his back, and so she just stood there, trying to figure out what to do next.
Impatient, he wrapped the end of his tail around her and flipped her up onto his back without waiting for her to figure it out. He snorted at her, too, as she landed.
“Excuse me,” she said, flicking her finger against his strong, steely back. “It’s not like I’m a practiced dragon climber. Give me a minute to figure all this out.”
He puffed a flame of fire at her, then jumped up into the air, forcing her to grab onto him as he soared high above the clouds and took off to the east. Dhara pressed herself flat against his back, the valley between the ridges of his spine providing her with both shelter and a good place to hold on. It was exhilarating to fly with him—even more so than the first time because she was more alert and had more awareness of what was happening.
But she couldn’t fully enjoy herself, knowing that when they landed, reality would set back in. And reality was that she was possessed by a spirit that neither one of them fully understood and that Kean, by his own admission, could never fully be with her the way that she wanted him to be.
It would be so much easier if they just never had to land at all, but before she knew it, they were sinking lower and lower, then landing on a patch of land that looked like it belonged to a small house quite a distance away. As soon as they touched down, Kean shifted back into his human form so quickly that Dhara found herself on top of his naked body.
For a moment, they stared at each other, the heat between them still sparking, but she rolled off of him and dusted herself off before standing. Gesturing to the space around them, she demanded information. “Now where are we?”
“A place that we have set up for exactly this kind of situation,” he told her, standing up himself, still blissfully naked. “Come on.”
He took her hand and pulled her toward the house, breaking into a light jog that she joined in with until he got too fast for her to keep up with. “Kean, I’m not as fast as you,” she said, tugging against his hand.
Instead of slowing, he just swept her up into his arms and carried her the rest of the way to the house, not stopping until they were on the back porch. Reaching under a potted plant, he pulled out a key and let them inside, then disappeared into a bedroom, leaving Dhara to stand by herself in the main area of the house, looking around.
It was clear that the house was not used for regular inhabiting. There was almost nothing in the living space—one broken-down couch sat against the far wall and a chest of some sort sat beneath the window. There wasn’t even a TV, and as she wandered into the tiny kitchen, she wondered if there was running water.
“What is this place?” she muttered to herself, jumping with Kean answered her.
“It’s our hideaway.”
Dhara turned to find Kean standing in the doorway of the kitchen, a pair of jeans and a button-down shirt covering his body and a pair of generic tennis shoes on his feet.
“When we shift, we lose our clothing,” he said, explaining further. “That can get very inconvenient sometimes, especially since we don’t really have a good way to carry a spare outfit with us. And we clearly can’t go flying into town and walking into our front door. So this place is still out of the way enough to allow for landings, and we just all keep a spare wardrobe here in the back rooms.”
“So no one lives here.”
“Not usually.”
With that explained and Kean dressed, suddenly they had no specific goal to pursue, and they were left just standing there, looking at each other, both seeming to be at a loss as to what they were going to do about their new situation. They were in love and at odds and both of them in trouble with their respective paranormal worlds. It was a lot to deal with all at once.
“Look,” Kean said, walking toward her, his palms held up in a gesture of surrender. “I don’t know what exactly happened back there, Dhara. But I know you’re angry with me, and maybe, given that you haven’t grown up in the culture like I have, you have every right to be. To me, it’s just instinctive that I have to mate with someone and produce the next generation. And if that someone could be you, I would be the happiest man in the entire world. But it can’t, sweetheart.”
She let him slide his hands down her arms, but she didn’t lean into him when he drew her closer, still not knowing how they could get past this. The problem wasn’t that he was a shapeshifting dragon. It was the rules that went along with him being a shapeshifting dragon.
“We’ll figure that all out,” he said to her, his voice gentle, coaxing, and so seductive. His lips whispered against her temple as he drew her into him and she went willingly. “What I’m most concerned about right now…is you.”
Dhara pulled back again. She didn’t want to think about what Leitheia had told them, and it was so much easier to just focus on Kean, his world, and the problems it created for them She didn’t want to deal with the fact that she had a split personality that had developed into a violent paranormal element.
“Don’t pull away from me,” Kean said, tilting her chin up to force her to look at him. “I have to make sure you’re going to be all right. Nothing matters more than that, Dhara.”
She looked up into his eyes and felt tears form in her own. “I don’t know their names, Kean. My mother. My father. I don’t know their names. I don’t know what street we lived on. I don’t know what pets I had or where I went to school. How did I never realize before? I …I talked about them. I knew who they were. I knew who I was.”
“You are still you,” he said fiercely. “Nothing can change that. You’re Dhara. You’re a scientist. You study disease. You went to school in California. You have friends. You like Chinese takeout. The really bad kind with too much salt that sits heavy in your stomach the next day.”
He was trying to lighten the mood, but the tears slid down Dhara’s cheeks. “It’s my own mind attacking me.”
“Yes,” he admitted.
“And Leitheia can’t help me.”
“No,” he said, agreeing with her again. “But she told me about someone who might be able to.”
“Why am I okay right now?” Dhara asked. “Why does it only happen sometimes?”
He sighed, touching her cheek gently. “I don’t know. I don’t know if there’s a trigger, or if it’s regenerating power, or if it’s just completely random. I’ve never encountered something like this before, but …there is always a price to magic, Dhara. The people who saved you from the life you were living and gave you a new start meant well. They did. But what the spell did is it took all the dark parts of you and it put them in a box somewhere in the back of your brain where you were never supposed to find them. It didn’t erase them. Nothing can ever erase a part of you. And over time …those dark parts of you and the magic that was binding them have combined and morphed into something that I don’t understand. But that’s not going to stop me from getting rid of it for you.”
“What if you can’t?”
He took her face in his hands. “There has never been a problem I can’t fix.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Except your destiny to mate with a stranger of someone’s choosing.”
Kean sighed and shook his head. “One thing at a time, okay? One thing at a time.”
It wasn’t what she wanted to hear,
but it was good advice. If Dhara tried to look at her new world all at once, it was enough to blind her. They would tackle the darkness that was lying temporarily dormant inside of her and then see where that left him.
If they did find the solution to what haunted her, she didn’t know what she would do next. She didn’t think she could walk away from Kean, but she knew she couldn’t stay beside him while he lived a life so separate from her.
“One thing at a time,” she repeated, looking into his eyes. “One thing at a time.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Kean
It was late in the day, and Kean decided that they would not start for Santa Fe until the morning, after Dhara had gotten some rest. The day had been hard on both of them, and they needed some time to unwind. Kean, in particular, needed some time to think.
He gave Dhara the bed that was in one of the back bedrooms, and he took the couch, bedding down with a blanket draped over him and a million thoughts in his head. To avoid those thoughts, he pulled out his cell phone and called Ronan.
“I’ve been wondering when I was going to hear from you,” Ronan answered. “I hear that we have a lot to talk about …”
Kean stared up at the ceiling, steeling himself for the conversation, given that Ronan had clearly already picked up on what was happening. “What do you know?”
“I know that you’re my brother, and that while I’m worried about some of the decisions you’ve made, you’re still my brother.”
It wasn’t the response that Kean expected after talking to Eamon, and he closed his eyes, the emotion that swelled up in him almost embarrassing. “I appreciate that,” he said, clearing his throat. “You know I would never endanger us or our way of life.”
“I know,” Ronan said. “That being said, we do have a situation, don’t we?”
Celtic Dragons Page 17