by Amelia Jade
“And?” she pressed.
“And as long as I live, you will too.”
Riss laughed. “Zander, I may only be human, but I know that dragons can live for many centuries, even for over a thousand years.”
“Most dragons live to see over a thousand. The oldest dragon ever recorded was over sixteen hundred years old,” he said without hesitation.
“Yeah. Humans don’t live that long,” she said sternly. “I’ve got six decades left in me, if I’m lucky!”
“No, Riss,” he said seriously. “Not if you accept that you are my mate. Don’t ask me how it works. I honestly have no idea. But as long as I will live, you will live.”
She frowned, running that information through various scenarios.
“And if you say, get killed by Kieran next week?”
“Then you will die,” he said bluntly.
“And if I fall off a cliff two years from now?” she asked.
“Then I will live as a broken man until the end of my life.”
Riss blinked. “Well that’s no fair. If you die, I die. But if I die, you live? Who the hell came up with that!”
Zander just looked at her. “It’s not quite that simple. My mind would be shattered. I would be a fraction of who I once was, destined to live a life of loneliness. Yes, I would still be alive, but it wouldn’t be a happy life.”
She stared into those giant yellow orbs, their nictitating membranes sliding back and forth to keep them moist.
“This is ridiculous,” she said with a shake of her head. “I can’t believe I haven’t just shut this idea down.”
Zander just continued to look at her, letting her think in peace.
Is there really much more to think about? He doesn’t seem to have anything to lose by lying at this point. His cousin has already gotten everything. Besides, why would Zander want to tie himself to me if he knew I would immediately realize he was lying? That doesn’t make sense.
No, the only option that made sense was that Zander was telling the truth. All that remained to be seen was whether she was willing to take a leap of faith and believe him so thoroughly that she would allow herself to be bonded to him.
The annoying part of it all was that Riss already knew the answer. She already knew what she was going to do. The moment she had refused to dismiss the idea out of hand, she’d all but committed herself to it.
“Where do you put it?” she asked slowly.
“Wherever,” the dragon responded. “A lot of times women will put it on their upper chest, so that others will see they are bonded. It avoids a lot of hassle from some of the other shifters out there.”
“Here?” she asked, touching right under her collarbone.
“Yes.”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” she said. “But yes. On all levels, yes. I accept you,” she said, reaching out and laying a hand on the leathery snout that rested a foot from her face.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
Riss only nodded, unwilling to trust her voice.
Zander took one last long look at her, but he didn’t question her twice, accepting her judgment.
He backed off slightly and curled his tail around in front of his face until he selected just the right scale from near the tip, no bigger than her fist. With a delicate precision she hadn’t known dragons to possess, he tugged it free, holding it pinched between two talons.
“Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” she said, yanking her shirt down to expose the skin of her upper chest.
Zander sucked in a deep breath, and as she watched, began to breathe over the rear of the scale. The wind howled and shrieked as it blasted over the tiny piece of him, the whistling sound increasing in pitch as it went on. Then, to her surprise, the scale began to glow as it heated up.
When the rear was a bright cherry red, Zander moved swiftly and affixed it to her chest.
Riss screamed as lancing cold pain lashed out through her body. Stars exploded in her vision and she pitched forward off the ledge.
Chapter Fifteen
Zander
“Riss!” he bellowed and his wing shot out, catching her like a trampoline and holding her aloft as she writhed in pain for a few moments more.
Her movements ceased with a sudden sharpness.
“Riss?” he called more tentatively.
Emotion exploded in his brain as she jerked and drew in a deep breath.
Pain.
Fear.
Anxiety.
Desire.
Passion.
Hope.
It was this last one that began to burn brightest in his mind, and he stoked it feverishly, surrounding it with his own feelings.
Tenderness.
Care.
Trust.
Love.
Riss abruptly sat upright as he sent that last her way, and she looked up at him, her gray eyes wide with shock, surprise, and most of all, joy.
“Zander,” she breathed, and he could feel her awe through their link.
He smiled.
“You were telling the truth.”
“I was,” he confirmed. “About everything. No more secrets. No more lies. Just you and me,” he told her.
Thick, full lips curled upward once more.
“Can you shift back?” she asked.
“Of course. Just stay there, okay?” he asked, and moved to the stone circle.
The shift happened swiftly, and in seconds his boot-clad feet were pounding across the intervening distance as he wrapped her thick little form up in his arms, brown hair with black streaks twirling in the air as he spun her around.
“I love you,” he whispered in her ear.
“I know,” she said happily, and he felt the matching answer emanate from within her.
They kissed under the moonlight in the rubble-strewn courtyard, uncaring of the Guardians who had come to fetch them and put them back in their cells.
It didn’t matter now. They were together, and in short order he was confident they would be released. The truth was out there now, and it wouldn’t keep them behind bars.
Hand in hand, they climbed back up the rubble pile and through the opening in the wall.
***
Riss
There was a knock on the door.
“Wonder who that is?” Zander asked, getting up from his spot on the couch next to her where they had been watching a movie together, curled up and content in each other’s company.
She watched him go, admiring his ass in the jeans he was wearing.
Zander turned and shot her a wink as he sensed her mischievous intentions. Riss couldn’t help but blush as she received a wave of lust that dwarfed what she’d been feeling. She smiled in anticipation though.
She couldn’t hear him talking at the door, but his shock rang out through their connection as clear as daylight.
“Zander?” she called, hopping up from the couch and moving to his side. “What is it?”
“My mother’s will,” he said quietly, holding up a manila envelope.
“Oh,” she said.
Then the full impact hit her.
“Oh.”
Zander nodded, and handed it to her. “I’m not sure I can read it right now. Would you?”
“Of course,” she assured him, taking the thick envelope in one hand, his fingers in her other. “Come on.”
She led the way to the kitchen table in his inner-city house, where they had been staying in the week following their bonding, getting to know each other on a fuller, deeper level than any time before.
With a swift flick of her finger she slit the envelope open and pulled out a stack of papers.
“There’s a note that says ‘Read me first,’” she said, looking it over. “It’s dated two weeks ago.”
“Okay, read it then I guess,” he said, still somewhat distraught. “May as well get it done now. No sense in delaying. I’m sure Kieran could turn that into some sort of lawsuit.”
Riss snorted
, but unfolded the small piece of paper.
“My dearest Zander,” she read in the hand-printed script.
“I’m sorry it’s come to this, but everyone reaches their end at some point, I assume. Rest assured that I am as ready for this as I can be. My only regret is the pain I know my passing will cause you. So suck it up, and accept that I lived a full life. I can’t live forever, but I have seen many a wonder in my day, and it has left me content. So don’t be a mopey little shit for too long after I’m gone. A week or so should be just fine for my ego.”
The pair of them paused and shared a laugh at that. Riss leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, but she kept reading.
“I wanted you to know, my son, that I think you will make a fine Pierce.”
Zander sat upright at those words. “Read that again,” he said, pointing at the letter. “That last sentence.”
So she did, rereading it for him.
“That’s what she was trying to tell me.” He looked at her, and she could sense the relief in his voice. “On her deathbed, she kept saying I would make a fine something. I thought she was saying person, maybe. But she was saying Pierce.”
He sat back into his chair with a happy smile on his face. “Thank you. Is that all?”
“No,” she replied, and kept going. “And I know you will make a better Pierce than that insufferable little shit Kieran. Which is why I was always going to designate you my heir, even if you didn’t find a mate. That wasn’t for my benefit, Zander. That was for you. You’ve lived alone too long. It’s time you find someone, a good woman. I don’t care if it takes you another week or another decade. Just start opening yourself up to the possibility. That’s all I ever wanted. Now go open a beer in my name. The rest of this is just legal mumbo jumbo bullshit. Somebody will come along and tell you to sign here, bleed there, and give three urine samples for no reason, I’m sure. But rest assured, it will be you who carries on the Pierce name, my son. I have no fears about that. You will be a wonderful scion of the family. Just don’t wait as long as I did to have some offspring. I wish I’d been able to have you around for much longer than I did. Signed, your loving mother.”
Zander was staring at her in dull-faced shock.
“Your mom had quite the way with words,” Riss observed.
Her mate smiled, a big, teeth-baring, cheek-splitting grin. “Yes, yes she did. I wish you could have met her. She truly was something else.”
“So, you’re the scion of house Pierce now, are you?” she asked.
“I guess so,” he said, surprise replacing the smile.
Then it returned in full force and Riss was hit with a blast of laughter both over their bond and out loud.
“What?” she asked. “What is it?”
He leaned forward and kissed her full on the mouth, the heat behind the kiss leaving her momentarily breathless.
Zander still couldn’t wipe the look off his face though.
“I was just imagining the look on Kieran’s face when he hears about this!”
THE END
This concludes Book 1 of Dragons of Cadia. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Although this story is over, there are more adventures to be had. To get access to my newest stories at the introductory price of just 99c, and for other exclusives, sign up for my newsletter!
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About the Author
Amelia Jade
Amelia Jade loves to write the stories of tall, growly shifter men and the women who come to love them. Living out in the backcountry near the mountains, she keeps her own alpha male close by to keep the bears away and keep her warm. In her downtime (which is rare), she loves to read science-fiction with a dash of fantasy. You can often find her curled up in front of the real wood-burning fireplace, her nose firmly buried in a book or her favorite e-reader. The cold can’t bother her there!
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Contents
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
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About the Author