Lilly: Dragon Clan

by Skye Jones

  More and more, she envisioned a future for them which didn’t include them living happily ever after. It showed her stretches of time where she didn’t know where Zach was or who he was with. Her mother put up with it for years from her father. He’d turn up at eleven at night and say he’d been working, and often he had. But then there’d been the other times. Those occasions he’d turn up late, spew out the work excuse while stinking of booze and perfume. Her mother merely smiled on those occasions and asked if he’d eaten.

  But she and Zach wouldn’t be that way, right? They were the original meant-to-be’s. Okay, so he messed her around these days. Left whenever he decided they were too young to commit, but he always came back. Always. As her friends said, they were made for one another.

  But now…now, these men were here, with their incredible scents and amazing physiques and tough, rough attitude. These men claimed they were made for one another, too. In a much more basic way. A biological way, or so Claire said. Something hard to deny. Lilly sensed it, the way they made her feel like a… Well, to be crude, they made her feel like a bitch in heat. She wanted to rub herself against them, twirl around them like some sort of feline.

  “You coming, Lil, or you staying here?” Dom shot her a cheeky smile, and she realized everyone had trooped out of the room. While she stayed stuck in her head, musing about it all.

  “I’m coming.”

  She pushed her chair back and placed her napkin on the table. As she neared the door, she noted Callum hovering in the hallway. He fell into step with her as she strode down the long hall.

  “I’m sorry if we scared you before, in the kitchen.”

  She let herself glance at him. He made her more uncomfortable than Rhyndor. Perhaps because Rhyndor’s air of sadness negated some of his scary. Tamed him somehow.

  “It’s okay.”

  “We won’t force you to do anything. It is not the way of our kind, and certainly not the way of either myself or Rhyn. Perhaps neither of us worded it well at first. But when we saw you, scented you, after so long, it hit us hard. Sometimes we can both be a tad domineering. But we’d always listen to our mate.”

  “I appreciate the apology. And I’m flattered, truly.” She girded her loins to tell Callum about Zach. Yes, she might be a bit confused right now by their sexy-hot-stupendously-handsome thing, but she’d spent too long wanting Zach to give up now without seriously thinking things through. Not when he seemed ready to commit from Missy’s text. “However, I won’t be going with you. There’s someone in my life already…or was. I need to sort things out with him.”

  Callum didn’t seem pissed off as she’d been expecting, merely nodded instead. “Ah, yes. Zachary. Although, it might be more accurate to say he’s not in your life at this moment.”

  Dom walked past them, shooting her a concerned glance, but she gave a small nod to let him know she was okay. Once Dom rounded the corner, she turned on Callum.

  “How are you aware of what’s going on between Zach and me? Have you been spying on me?”

  “Spying? No. Keeping an eye on, yes.”

  She snorted. “Semantics. Is it why you live in Connecticut?”

  “Maybe…Yes. But my point about your Zachary still stands.”

  His smug expression irritated her to no end, and so she said more than she intended. “You’re wrong. It’s over with the girl he’d been seeing. There is no one else for him now.”

  But he didn’t seem perturbed. “I see. He’s come slinking back again, his tail between his legs, and you’ll simply take him back. Forget Rhyn and me for a moment. Why let him treat you this way?”

  His face grew serious, and his eyes regarded her with something akin to sympathy, which she hated. But the way he dropped the cocky act and got real for a moment made her do the same.

  “It’s hard to explain, but he’s more than a boyfriend, he’s like my home. He took me under his wing, saved me from bullies. His parents became close to me. His family are like my family. We are meant to be together, he used to tell me it all the time. But he’s a guy, and he’s young. You know what men are like.” She didn’t even convince herself anymore, but she couldn’t simply give in to what these men were offering. Maybe she needed some time alone? No Zach, and no hot dragon men.

  Callum put his hand on her arm for the briefest moment. “Yes, I know what human men are like. I know what human beings are like. Some are good, great. Many are not. They lie, they cheat. They have no sense of the future, so they live reckless lives. Look at what they’re doing to the planet. And you are not human, you are Dragonea.”

  “I feel human.”

  “Do you?” He seemed genuinely intrigued and surprised.

  “Yes, I do. Claire told me how she burned some man, and how Mia set a shed alight, but I’ve never experienced anything similar. I don’t dream about dragons, and I sense no kinship with the people here.”

  “But you can’t be in a relationship with a human unless you tell him what you are. You can’t live a normal life with him.”

  “Why can’t I?”

  Callum’s eyes narrowed. “How much have Claire and her mates told you about us?”

  She shrugged. “They told me about my fire, and I might have some magic. They asked me to stay. And Nathan, to be fair, keeps saying we need to talk and I need to practice my magic, but I’ve been putting him off.”

  “Motherfucker!” The modern swearword jarred her as it shot from his mouth.

  Callum stormed down the corridor, leaving her standing and watching him open mouthed. What now?

  She followed close on his trail and nearly bumped into him as he entered the living area.

  “Why the fuck doesn’t Lilly understand anything about our kind? Why does she think she can still have a long-term relationship with some human boy?” Callum pointed at her but stared at Nathan.

  Nathan sighed. “We were taking it slow. She’s kind of flighty. We thought if we pushed too fast and too hard, she’d run away. Leave. It isn’t in anyone’s interests to scare her half to death.”

  “What do you mean, when you say I think I can have a relationship with Zach?” Lilly’s heart hammered too fast. She ignored these men talking about her as if she weren’t there once again because she frankly didn’t give a crap. She needed to understand what they meant.

  “Well done, shit for brains.” Dom bit off the words and shot Callum a livid look.

  Callum didn’t seem fazed, and he turned to her with soft eyes. “Lilly, you won’t age the same way your boyfriend will. You can’t have kids with him, either, and if you went to a doctor to try to find out why, you’d end up in a whole heap of nightmarish trouble.”

  Only three words stood out from the noise: can’t have kids. Her body began to tremble, and she swallowed hard. Maybe he didn’t know what he was talking about. Rhyndor and Callum had been away for ages, living on their own, and they were clearly not part of the clan life. But one glance around the room, seeing Claire’s wide, watery eyes, and she knew he stated the truth.

  “Why can’t I have kids?” Her voice shook.

  Rhyndor unfurled his long limbs from the sofa where he sat and came to her, shooting his friend an angry glance. “Honey.” He put his arm around her, but she shrugged it off.

  “Don’t honey me. I’m not your honey, I’m not your anything. Will someone please tell me what is going on?”

  Claire stood and began to herd the men out of the room like they were annoying cats. “Get out, all of you. Leave Lil and me alone to talk.”

  “Claire, beautiful. Listen—” Nathan began to speak, but she cut him off.

  “No. We’ve done it your way. Now leave this up to me to fix. You males have messed things up enough. I’m angry at all of you right now. So please, go away for a while. And do not fight. I swear to God, you idiots start getting all macho and having dick-measuring contests, and I’ll totally fucking lose it.”

  Nathan’s mouth tightened, but he didn’t argue. Instead, the men all trooped out of th
e room like obedient schoolboys.

  Despite her upset, Lilly couldn’t help but be impressed.

  “I’m sorry.” Claire’s eyes were sad, and she looked almost scared.

  “Can you explain to me what is going on? I’m dying here.”

  “You get that we are latents.” Claire got straight to it. Lilly nodded. “And so, we can’t change. We also can’t reproduce. Only full shifters can have young.”

  “Oh.” Lilly clapped a hand over her mouth in shock. She’d always wanted children. Had envisioned herself having three or maybe four. Perhaps because she’d never had a family of her own. Who knew.

  Her face went hot, and tears burned her eyes.

  “Please don’t cry. I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you everything, but Nathan believed if we did, you’d freak out, panic, and maybe run away. We are worried for your safety. You go to a doctor for any in-depth tests, and things will go crazy. Your parents must guess what you are, to a degree. We think it is why they came from America to adopt you. We think all the parents who looked after us guessed something or were told something, but as to who is telling them or arranging the adoptions, we haven’t found out yet. But the thing is, our adoptive parents have kept us away from doctors. All of them so far. If they hadn’t, we might have been in some sort of science lab by now. Your blood isn’t human blood. You’re not one of them, Lilly. You’re one of us.”

  Claire crossed the room, pulled down the door on the drinks cabinet and took out a bottle of Grey Goose. She poured two thick fingers full into two glasses and strode back to Lilly. “Here, take a drink.”

  Lilly didn’t like vodka, but she didn’t argue. She downed one big mouthful, coughed and spluttered some, and then took more.

  Claire led her to the sofa, and they sat. “You can still have a family. Kids. You have to adopt is all, and you can be with a human. Only you have to trust them completely and utterly, to keep your secret safe. But there’s the aging issue. You can’t get around it. I’m sorry, hon. You can see now why we had to come get you?”

  She’d wanted her own kids. Her own flesh and blood, in the way her parents never had been. Adoption hadn’t crossed her mind.

  Claire went on. “If you did decide to be with dragon mates, there are young up for adoption here, too.”

  “I suppose it sounds stupid, but I wanted my own flesh and blood. We don’t have that, being adopted.”

  Claire gave a sad smile. “It doesn’t sound stupid at all. But you do…now. Me and our other sister, Mia. You’ll love her, honestly. And the thing is, if you decided to be with dragon mates at some point, they’re so close, they give you a sense of belonging. Honestly, maybe closer than a blood relationship. This…this thing happens.” Claire blew a bit of hair away from her face. “I’m not sure how much to tell you because I’m wary of freaking you out, but I’d hate to have things hidden from me, so I’m going to put it out there. When you mate with dragons, your inner dragon merges with theirs, and when it re-enters your body, you can sense them. It’s such a deep bond. I can sense if Nathan’s sad or happy. He’s right here.” She put her hand over her heart. “Same with Dom.”

  Lilly didn’t know how she felt about the idea. It sounded lovely on one hand, but scary on the other. “How do you sleep, though? Or rest at all, if there are other people’s thoughts and stuff inside your head?”

  Claire smiled. “They aren’t in my head. I don’t hear their thoughts, although I might be able to pick up on them to a degree if I tried, but I don’t. The bond when you mate is more ethereal in nature. You sense them within you. It’s quiet. A whisper not a roar, but they are there. And to me, it’s beautiful.”

  Tears stung at Lilly’s eyes again, and she sniffed. It did sound beautiful.

  “I think tomorrow we ought to begin your magic practice. Once you learn how to control it, you’ll have more options. You can return home quicker if you still want to, but you may find once you can harness your dragon, you feel you belong here a lot more.”

  Lilly nodded warily and prepared herself to meet her inner dragon.

  Chapter Four

  Lilly stretched and raised her hands to the sky, enjoying the pull of muscles in her back. Nathan and Claire strode across the clearing toward her. They were up on a hill, overlooking the clan. The same place, apparently, where Claire used to come to practice. Lilly’s stomach flipped as she thought about what lay ahead.

  Nathan shot her a grin. “You ready for this?”

  She turned her mouth down. “Not remotely.”

  “You’ll love it. Trust me.”

  Claire wrapped an arm around her shoulder and gave her a squeeze. “He’s a hard taskmaster, but tell him if you get tired.”

  Nathan explained to her how to call forth her magic. He told her to focus on the feeling of fire in her hand to begin with. To let it build and then let it burn until actual flame materialized there. Scared of getting burned, she flunked it the first ten times or so, but he didn’t show impatience with her.

  On her twelfth try, it happened. She cried out as a small glow in the palm of her hand became a dancing, flickering flame.

  As soon as it appeared, it went, snuffed out the moment she lost focus, but she’d done it. And unlike when she’d seen the two males on the path, she’d done it purposely and with control.

  Nathan declared they were done for the morning at that point, but he told her to meet them again in the afternoon.

  She ate lunch alone in her room, needing some downtime, and read the latest gossip on her phone. Not that she cared much which celeb said what to whom, but she needed to chill out after the events of the morning.

  At two, she walked back to the field with Claire and Nathan. This time, he wanted her to let the flame come and then light the grass with her hand, but for her to put it out then using only her mind. She tried for over an hour, but on each occasion, Nathan or Claire had to step in to put her fire out.

  Claire tried to reassure her that she’d struggled with this part too, but Lilly felt like a failure.

  “Think of water, of a stream or a waterfall running over your hands. Let yourself go deep into imagining how it feels.” Nathan explained it to her for what seemed like the thousandth time, his tone calm.

  “Can I help?”

  She jumped and turned around at the deep voice. Callum stood not five feet away, watching them.

  “It’s up to you.” Nathan glanced at her.

  She gave a quick nod. What could it hurt? It wasn’t as if she’d made any progress using Nathan’s instructions.

  Callum surprised her by patting the ground. “Cross your legs and sit down.”

  She frowned at him but did as he said, wincing as the cold earth met her bottom. She should have worn thicker trousers.

  Callum sat behind her, his legs raised up either side of her, bent at the knee. Holy hell, with him so close, she almost drowned in him. His delectable scent wrapped around her, like luscious vines pulling her in, and his deep, regular breathing somehow soothed her. Calmed her.

  “Okay. Put your hand on the ground and bring your fire forth.” His deep voice reverberated low and soothingly by her right ear, his warm breath tickling the hairs at her nape.

  She tried to ignore his presence long enough to focus on the task at hand, and as before, managed to bring forth a single paltry flame. She let it burn brightly then placed her hand on the grass, watching as the green strands caught fire one by one.

  “Now,” Callum said. “What’s the nicest water you’ve ever seen? Think about the ocean or maybe a stream.”

  “A waterfall in the Caribbean.” She recalled the beautiful waterfall, falling from rocks into an aqua pool, surrounded by jungle.

  “Okay. Picture it, and as you do, let your senses in on the memory, feel it.”

  She glanced at the grass, the fire spreading, and worry spiked her heart rate.

  “Ignore the fire. It’s cool, we can put it out.” His voice hit her low, in her gut. Hypnotic, soothing, but also enticing
. His hands went around her shoulders, holding her there as he continued to speak. “Think of the cool water, the way it felt when you put your hand under it. The noise it made and that gorgeous, fresh water smell.”

  Transported back to the wonderful afternoon with her whole family on the trip, she remembered how it felt to be beside the waterfall, rushing off the rocks, and how she’d giggled when she’d stuck her hand under it. How cold it had been. The freshness of the air right next to it.

  The warmth in her palm stopped, and a cool, soothing sensation prickled at her skin. The fire under her palm went out, and the dousing spread quickly, the rest of the flames around her fizzling out as surely as if she’d poured actual water over them. She wanted to clap her hands in delight like some little child.

  “Good girl.” Callum whispered the words, dark and sinful in her ear.

  God help her, but those words set a new fire burning within her, right at her core. What she wouldn’t give to have him say them to her as he fucked her… What? No. No way. She pulled her arms from where his hands still wrapped around her upper shoulders and stood, face burning.

  “Thank you. For your help. It’s greatly appreciated.” Crap, she sounded like her mother. Cold, aloof, well-bred. Callum didn’t seem offended, though. He stood and shot her a lazy wink.

  “You’re welcome, Princess. Why don’t you come to the cottage tomorrow for an hour? I can teach you some more. You’re well-matched to me, so it will probably be a far sight easier for you to learn from me than from Nathan or Claire.”

  She glanced at her sister, who shrugged. “Up to you, sis. But it probably will be easier for him to teach you. It’s all to do with the way you match.”

  Glancing up at the sky, Lilly rolled her eyes. Any time spent in the company of this guy would be dangerous to her psyche, she’d bet money on it. But the sooner she learned her magic, the more quickly she could go home. Back to the human world, where she could pretend none of this had happened. She could leave the whole headfuck behind and get on with her life, whatever shape that took moving forward. She lifted her head and met Callum’s gaze. “Fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”