by Tonya Brooks
His mate had returned!
Lightheaded with euphoria, sheer joy bubbled through his veins like the finest champagne. Overwhelmed by the barrage of dormant emotions coursing through him, he pulled Ainsley into his arms and held her trembling body against his. He had imagined this moment so many times. Longed for it in the depths of his soul.
His lips sought hers for a kiss that reawakened every particle of his being. After years of wandering aimless and alone in the darkness, trapped in a cold, emotionless state of existence, Dragan was wonderfully, vitally alive. It felt as if he had been reborn into the creature of fire and light that his dragon was supposed to be.
His beautiful Ainsley had returned to him, and no power in heaven or hell would ever keep him from her again. Her love was the reason for his existence. Loving her gave him a reason to live. She was his mate, his heart, his everything. From this day forth, he vowed to be everything that she needed.
A shudder racked his body when she wrapped her arms around him, giving herself over to his keeping. Consumed by his need for her, to be one with her, the kiss turned hungry and demanding. Filled with a passion that he could neither control or contain, he was overwhelmed by an urgent need to claim her.
Make her his forevermore.
"Ah-choo!" The sound of a sneeze followed by an unmistakable whoosh of flame barely registered until Ainsley tore her lips away from his. "Oh, shoot. Mom!" The panicked cry did not register nearly as much as the horror-stricken expression on his mate's beautiful face.
When she looked back over her shoulder, he lifted his gaze to see a young girl peering nervously back at him around the side of the garden gate, a column of smoke rising from behind the wall. Dazed by the riot of emotions ravaging his senses, Dragan looked questioningly at the woman he loved.
"What the hell are you, Dragan?" She demanded brokenly. "Why can our daughter breathe fire?"
His gaze swung back to the miniature version of his Ainsley. Blonde hair like his mate's shone gold in the sunlight, but it was his deep brown eyes that stared back at him warily. The world tilted on its axis as comprehension dawned. Ainsley had borne his child. A living legacy of the love that he and his mate shared.
"Daughter," he breathed reverently.
"Please, Dragan," Ainsley pleaded and placed her hand against his chest, directly over the part of his heart that still remained. "Tell me what's happening to her. Can you make it stop?"
"She's becoming the majestic creature that she was born to be," he responded absently, tearing his thirsty gaze away from the glorious sight of his daughter to look down at her mother's worried face. "It's her birthright. Nothing can stop the change."
"No!" His Ainsley denied vehemently and shoved free of his embrace, her hand falling from his chest. Losing the warmth of her touch was like being doused in an ice bath, and it cleared the haze of euphoria clouding his mind. "I haven't come all this way for nothing. You have to fix this, Dragan. Tell me there's a way to stop it!"
Realization dawned as brutal and deadly as a lance through the heart. His Ainsley had not returned to be his mate. The only reason that she had come back to him was because the girl's dragon was beginning to emerge. She'd returned because she needed his help for the child that he'd known nothing about.
The daughter that she had deliberately kept from him.
The fragile flame of hope had been brutally extinguished. Pain slashed and clawed at his heart, eviscerating his soul. Anguish and despair consumed him while his dragon roared at the betrayal. The bitter truth enraged him, and he wanted to set the world on fire with his fury. Watch it burn to ash along with his dreams of a life with her.
Overwhelmed by long-dead emotions that he had forgotten how to feel, plumes of smoke blew from his nostrils in a rush of heated air. "You dare come to me for help," he accused in a guttural tone as fire licked through his veins and burned in his eyes. "After you left me. Kept my child from me!"
"Dragan, please," an ashen Ainsley said anxiously as she backed away from him, her amethyst eyes wide with fear. "She's your daughter. Help her."
"Don't yell at my mom," the girl growled in a deep rasping tone as she darted between them, the red, glowing eyes warning that her dragon was very near the surface. The situation was about to become dangerous because it was obvious that she barely had control of the deadliest creature in existence.
"Ember, no," his mate admonished as she placed herself between himself and the girl. In spite of his rage, the action flooded his soul with fear. When his daughter lost control of the beast, he could withstand a baptism of dragon fire unscathed. His mate could not. She would be burned to death within seconds.
Reacting purely from an instinctual need to protect his mate, Dragan swept her up into his arms. His wings unfurled, wrapping securely around Ainsley, effectively shielding her from the blast of molten flame that engulfed him. His barren soul rejoiced at holding her close even as his body baked in the heat of the blaze surrounding them.
***
The situation was quickly turning into her worst nightmare. Aside from being jailed for trespassing, that is. Ainsley had known that Dragan would be angry with her, and she freely admitted that he had a right to be. Learning they had a child that she'd never told him about would be a shock in and of itself.
But the man that she remembered had been infinitely patient, so very gentle and loving. She had hoped that he would display that same compassion in aiding their daughter with whatever it was that she was going through. His reaction to her arrival had been more than she had expected and everything that she had yearned for.
Just as it always had, being held in his strong embrace had felt like coming home. The hunger in his kiss, the tenderness of his touch, had opened the floodgates of her soul and every molecule of her being had become vibrantly alive. She was filled with an all-consuming need to be one with him, forever.
Her daughter's plaintive cry for help had forced her back to the present where she shoved the memories of the past into the back of her mind. The timely interruption had come as a sobering reminder of why she was there. Although blurting it out in a less than tactful manner clearly hadn't been the best way to handle the situation.
Dragan had appeared shell-shocked as he'd stared at Ember, a look of wonder on his handsome face. Then he'd started talking about her baby changing into some kind of creature and scared her half out of her wits. Ainsley had gone into panic mode and demanded that he make it stop.
Obviously, that had been a mistake because he'd changed right before her eyes. The expression on his face had hardened into a forbidding mask of fury. Smoke had escaped from his nostrils, and his eyes had glowed a fiery red. She could have sworn that there had been flames flickering in their depths.
It scared the bejesus out of her.
"You dare come to me for help," he had accused in a guttural tone that sounded nothing like his normal melodic voice. "After you left me. Kept my child from me!"
"Dragan, please," Ainsley said anxiously as she backed away from him, terrified of what he might be yet desperate for his help. "She's your daughter. Help her."
Before he could respond, Ember had suddenly darted between them, sounding more animal than human as she growled, "Don't yell at my mom."
"Ember, no," she had admonished as the protective instincts of a mother had her moving between the pair. Without warning, she was swept up into Dragan's arms before some type of leather covering was flung over her. Wrapped tightly inside a cocoon of darkness, she struggled to free herself from the suffocating heat.
After endless seconds that felt more like hours, the covering was removed, and Dragan gently placed her back on her feet again. Before she could demand to know what the hell was going on, her daughter's frightened cry snared her complete attention. "Mom? Oh, God. Mommy! I'm so sorry."
Ember was ghost white and shaking like a leaf when she pulled her into her arms for a fierce hug. Turning to level a glare at her former lover, Ainsley could only stare at him in shocked di
sbelief. Dragan was standing there barefoot with the legs of his pants burned away as tendrils of smoke rose from his body.
"You could have killed your mother," he accused in a tone as harsh as his expression.
"I didn't mean to do it," her daughter sobbed hysterically, tears rolling down her cheeks. "It just happened."
"What happened?" Ainsley demanded at a complete loss.
"I breathed fire, Mom," Ember wailed. "And I almost burned you alive."
"It will happen again unless you learn to control it," Dragan growled.
"Then tell me how," her daughter pleaded desperately as she released the death grip on her mother to face him. "I don't know how to make it stop!"
A myriad of emotions crossed his face before he nodded confirmation. "I will teach you, but you'll have to stay away from your mother," he commanded. "For her own safety."
"Now just a damn minute," she protested hotly and wasn't about to abandon her child to deal with this insanity alone. Or trust her to Dragan's less than tender care. The man looked positively livid and about as welcoming as an angry wasp.
"He's right, Mom," Ember insisted and sounded slightly less shaken than she had been. "The fire didn't burn him at all, but if he hadn't wrapped his wings around you…"
"Wings?" Ainsley choked out in shocked disbelief. "Like… an angel?"
"No. More like a dragon," her daughter imparted, and there was a spark of excitement in her eyes when she added, "It was really cool."
A dragon, she thought wildly as her logical mind tried to reconcile the pieces of this puzzle. Dragons were reputed to be able to breathe fire. Was it possible that they were real? That Dragan and her daughter were the mythical creatures? Turning wide, frightened eyes on her former lover, she choked out, "You're a… dragon?"
"I am," he confirmed in a matter of fact tone.
"Holy sh…" she breathed as her last conscious thought before darkness engulfed her.
CHAPTER THREE
Dragan was livid. His mate's reaction to what he was had been the final straw that had broken him. He swept an unconscious Ainsley up into his arms before she hit the pavers and hugged her possessively to his chest. Then he had thrown his head back to roar his fury and his fiery wrath, to the heavens above.
The girl watched the display, with wide, frightened eyes. For her sake, he made a concerted effort to rein in his raging emotions. That only extended so far which meant his visage was probably terrifying when he commanded in a low growl, "Come, little one." That said, he turned and carried his mate into the castle.
Once inside the great hall, he bellowed for his majordomo, a play on his true title of mage that Brendyn found amusing. His lifelong friend and confidant magically appeared, and the girl following along behind him gasped in surprise. A glance over his shoulder revealed that the child had stopped and was staring at the man in awe.
Brendyn's dark good looks always had that effect on females of any age, but it was his reaction to the girl that had Dragan gnashing his teeth. Because the mage was staring at his daughter in the same manner. "The gods be praised," his best friend said in reverence. "The prophecy has finally come true."
The prophecy being that a girl child under the guidance of, and mated to, a powerful mage would grow into a benevolent ruler who would replenish the nearly extinct dragon population with her offspring. "The devil you say," Dragan snarled in Latin. "I'll see you dead before you'll lay a finger on my daughter."
Tearing his gaze from the girl, the mage looked at him to respond in their native tongue, "But the prophecy…"
"Prophecy be damned," he growled. "She is but a child and you a manwhore at best."
"Nay, my liege. Those days are no more," Brendyn fervently denied as his adoring gaze drifted back to the girl again. "Not now that I have found my one true love."
Stepping in front of the girl to block the other man's view of her, he vowed, "I'll rip the beating heart from your chest if you even think about touching her."
His devil may care friend sobered and replied, "As you say, she is but a child. Now. But she will grow into a woman, Dray. A woman destined to be my mate… and the dragon queen. Until she is mature enough to do so, you have my solemn vow that I will be her loyal friend and faithful counselor, just as I have been yours all these centuries."
Chagrined for doubting the other man's integrity, Dragan sighed wearily and replied, "Forgive me, old friend. I've only been a father for a few moments, and I've already fucked it up royally."
Brendyn's blacker than night eyes traveled from his bare feet up to the unconscious woman in his arms before a devilish grin covered his face. "Hmm. So I see," he agreed. "Shall I attend to your mate, or mine, my liege?"
Even though he loved the mage like a brother and trusted him implicitly, the thought of handing his mate over to another man's keeping was intolerable to both he and his dragon. "Yours," he replied with a hard look. "Be very careful, Bren. She's going through the change and has no control over her dragon yet."
"I survived yours," he responded dryly and took a step sideways, so the girl was in his sight again. Offering a courtly bow, the mage switched to English to say, "Welcome to Dragon's Lair, Princess. I am Brendyn."
The girl stared up at his friend with the same bemused expression that females always wore around him. "Hello," she said tentatively. "I'm um, Ember."
"Princess Ember, it is an honor to make your acquaintance," he replied with the rakish grin that had been known to send females into a swoon. "Would you care to join me in the kitchen for a snack before we tour the castle?"
The girl looked up at Dragan questioningly before he nodded confirmation. "Stay with Bren," he commanded.
"But… what about Mom?" She queried in concern.
"I will attend your mother," he assured her and carried his mate up the stairs to the second floor. Turning left, he walked directly to the suite that his Ainsley had chosen before. She had adored the room because its balcony overlooked both the walled garden and the panoramic vista of the valley below.
With the utmost reluctance, Dragan placed his mate on the bed and released his hold on her. Once again, the barren desolation filled him, so he sat beside her and gently lifted her hand to his. Unable to help himself, he brushed his fingertips down her cheek, savoring the warm silky texture of her flesh.
Ainsley. His Ainsley. It shredded his soul that she had run from him and borne his child in secret. The reminder that she had not loved him as deeply as he still loved her rekindled his fury and hardened his severed heart. But she was back now, and by all that was holy, he intended to keep her, by fair means or foul.
Dragan would make her love him.
And even if she didn't, he wasn't going to let her go.
Because without her, he was lost.
***
Ember listened with rapt attention as Brendyn gave her a crash course in dragon lore. He told of a time when dragon's walked the earth like gods among men. Of the fierce battles they had fought and kingdoms conquered. That her bloodline led back to the dawn of time itself and she was destined to one day be the dragon queen.
He made it sound so exciting that the prospect of becoming a dragon wasn't as frightening as it had been. She could almost believe that she had stepped into a fairy tale and that the mage was her handsome prince. With his coal black hair and eyes, he was the most beautiful man that Ember had ever seen.
Brendyn had talked to her as if she were an adult instead of treating her like a child. He'd patiently answered all of her questions, and she'd discovered that he had a great sense of humor. Since she felt more comfortable with him than she did with her very frightening father, she asked, "Is he always like that?"
The sparkle in his eyes dimmed, and his smile became sad. "The man that you saw is not the man that he is," he replied enigmatically. "Dragan has not been himself since… well, that's not for me to say. But rest assured mate meus, he will be back to his jovial self soon now that your mother has returned with you."
&n
bsp; "Did he love her? My mom," she queried curiously.
"Never has a man so loved a woman," Brendyn replied solemnly. "Such is the way with fated mates. Once found, they simply cannot bear to live without each other."
"They did okay for thirteen years," she said dryly.
"There is a difference between living and surviving," he explained. "To survive is simply to exist whereas living means that you are vitally alive, happy and content."
Ember digested his words slowly, and the meaning rang true. Because she'd heard her mom cry herself to sleep every night for as long as she could remember. Though she seemed happy, there had always been a deep sadness in her eyes, as if something were missing. Now she had to wonder if that something was her father.
"How do you know so much?" She asked when the thought occurred to her.
That dazzling smile blinded her again as he teased, "I am a very wise and ancient mage. It's my job to know everything."
She laughed at his nonsense since he had to be around her mom's age. Sure thirtyish was really old, but it wasn't ancient. Not that it mattered what his age was, because Ember had just developed her first crush, and it was awesome!
CHAPTER FOUR
Ainsley woke with a start, instinctually aware that she wasn't alone. Her last memory came flooding back, and she sat up with a gasped, "Ember," in concern for her daughter.
A shadow separated from the darkness surrounding him as Dragan's voice responded in a low growl, "Brendyn is attending her."
She breathed a sigh of relief. In spite of his devil may care attitude, the majordomo had shown her nothing but kindness during her short stay at the castle. She'd been completely distraught when she'd left, but she could still hear the genuine concern in his voice as he'd asked, "Please, my lady, tell me what is distressing you so."