“Grissom, please stop humming.”
Surprised, Grissom looked up from the paperwork that he was filling out.
“Was I humming again?”
“Yes,” said Derek in the aggrieved tones of one much put upon. “You were. Again.”
“Sorry,” said Grissom, meaning it. He couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.
Derek grunted.
There was a brief silence, during which Grissom finished up his form, before Derek said, “You’ve been in a good mood lately.”
“Have I?” Grissom thought about it a minute then grinned. “I have, haven’t I?”
“Ever since that storm of yours,” agreed Derek. “And I can’t help but notice that you now work a more reasonable amount of overtime.”
“Do I? I hadn’t noticed a change in my schedule,” Grissom airily lied.
“That’s also changed since the storm,” noted Derek. “It’s an interesting coincidence, isn’t it?”
“I feel like you’re hinting at something.”
“No, not at all,” said Derek innocently.
If there was one thing that his partner wasn’t, it was innocent. He was too sly for that.
From across their desks, Grissom considered Derek narrowly.
Derek blinked back at him. Butter wouldn’t have melted in his mouth.
Without taking his eyes off of his partner, Grissom took a sip from his coffee mug.
Derek didn’t so much as blink.
Grissom wasn’t fooled. His partner knew something that he didn’t. And whatever it was, Derek was probably laughing at him over it.
Grissom scowled, unease prickling up his spine. Logically, he knew that Derek wasn’t poking at the old hurt – Derek wasn’t that kind of dragon – but years and years of casual cruelty regarding his status as a lone dragon had made Grissom wary of allowing people to laugh at him.
Except Ana.
Ana was always full of light and laughter and looking on the bright side of things. None of her laughter was ever meant unkindly.
“There you go,” said Derek cheerfully. “That’s the face that I’m used to seeing.”
Grissom scowled at him harder. Derek laughed.
The life of a detective in the financial crimes division was a busy one, and Grissom soon forgot Derek’s teasing.
They had just left a laundry mat – a couple of the marked twenties from the Peterson kidnapping case had shown up in their weekly bank deposit, but it had proven to be a dead end like all the others – and were walking down a side alley back to their car, when Derek said abruptly, “Which way is she from here?”
And Grissom pointed roughly south-southwest of where they were standing. He didn’t even have to think about it.
Grissom froze.
And Derek laughed, but not unkindly.
Disbelief trickled down Grissom’s spine. It settled as a hard lump in his belly.
“Impossible,” said Grissom harshly. Hurt lashed through him. He had thought Derek above mocking him for that. “It’s not like that.”
“Why not?” needled Derek.
“Because I’m not like you,” snarled Grissom. He whirled on Derek and shoved him, hard. “I’m a lone dragon! Things like that are impossible for me!”
Just saying it aloud hurt. It felt like denying Ana, like saying that she didn’t mean anything to him. That was stupid. And it was wrong. Ana was everything to him.
He loved Ana. It didn’t matter to him that she was human. Grissom was only one man, but he loved Ana as deeply as any set of twins had ever loved their fated mate. He just… wasn’t her fated mate. He was no one’s fated anything, not even Ana’s, no matter how much he wished that he was.
Lone dragons didn’t have soul mates. They were too incomplete. Everyone knew that.
“Because lone dragons don’t have soul mates?” inquired Derek, echoing his thoughts. “That’s a load of crap, you know. They only say that to discourage twins from breaking up and striking out on their own. It would be hell on the inheritances.”
“And you’d know so much about it,” sneered Grissom. Derek had a twin. True, he was Derek’s exact opposite – same basic build, but with hard eyes and covered in tats – but that didn’t change the fact that Derek had a twin. They were a whole set, and theoretically, there was some woman out there whose soul matched both of theirs.
“I do,” said Derek calmly. “My brothers Elston and Elliot split.”
“They split?” repeated Grissom, stunned. Male dragon twins almost never split.
“Tiffany was Elston’s soul mate, but she wasn’t Elliot’s,” said Derek with a shrug. “So Elston married her, and Elliot’s search continues.”
Grissom continued to stare at him. He usually reacted quickly to changing situations, but those changing situations didn’t usually shift the paradigm of his universe around him.
Among dragons, a romantic relationship with one’s soul mate granted certain abilities. There were probably other things – things that he didn’t even know about – but growing up, Grissom had noticed that his dads always knew where his mother was, if she was well, and if she was happy. All of their shared looks had been speaking looks.
But his parents’ relationship wasn’t anything like Grissom’s relationship with Ana. Aside from anything else, his dads were a completed set of twins. As a set of twins, Grissom’s dads had grown up together, fallen in love with the same woman, and married her. She was their soul mate, and they were hers. The three of them were exactly what a dragon’s triad should be. Perfect triads got to be soul mates.
Grissom was a triplet. He loved his sisters dearly, but neither of them could act as his twin.
In point of fact, his mother had produced three sets of triplets – triplets ran in her family – and none of his other six siblings had what it took to act as his twin. Abigail, Beatrice, and Constance were ten years older than him, while Harrison, Irwin, and Jamison were roughly ten years younger than him. And as far as he knew, none of them shared any of his interests besides.
Grissom had long ago resigned himself to a long, lonely life. Before Ana, he would have said that it wasn’t going to be so bad. He had good friends and a loving family. He had a job that he enjoyed and found fulfilling. And he had a long list of hobbies to try someday.
But then he had met Ana and everything had changed. Grissom had started dreaming bigger. He had started dreaming about Ana, and the future that they could build together. But he hadn’t ever dared to dream that they could build that future together as soul mates.
But if this Tiffany woman was one brother’s soul mate, but not the other then… then maybe he could be Ana’s soul mate.
“Are you sure?” demanded Grissom, hope fluttering in his chest. “About your brothers?”
Derek nodded sharply.
“Yes. My parents are soul mates, the same as yours, but they aren’t a triad. I have one dad and one mom.” Derek smirked. “And I think I turned out pretty well.”
Despite himself, Grissom grinned.
“You would,” retorted Grissom and watched as Derek’s smile widened into a grin.
Hope warmed Grissom from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. If Derek’s brother and father could be enough on their own to be someone’s soul mate, then maybe he could be too. Maybe he already was.
Grissom smiled at the thought of it. He had the terrible suspicion that it was a remarkably silly smile, but he couldn’t seem to stop smiling it. He couldn’t seem to stop randomly humming or whistling throughout the day either. He was just so happy!
And no good deed went unpunished, after all.
It was only later, as he followed the insistent tug of their bond toward her apartment, that Grissom began to worry.
Ana was his soul mate. His soul was the perfect match to hers, and hers to his. The link that bound them together was eternal and unbreakable, and it would only get stronger with time. But could humans even feel soul bonds? Could they be bound by them? Could humans feel the
ir mating bonds with their dragon partners? Would Ana ever know their soul bond the same way that he did or would it forever remain a one-sided bond?
Grissom didn’t know, and he didn’t know anyone that he could ask either. Derek may have been the product of a pair bond, but his parents were both still lightning dragons. Of Grissom’s eight siblings, only his sister Abigail was married. As far as he knew, Abbie was very happily married – and with nine kids and counting, no less – but she had wed a pair of fire dragons. She had no reason to know anything about the intricacies of soul bonding to a human, nor did anyone else that he knew.
Grissom didn’t know anyone who was soul mates with a human nor did he know anyone who was the product of such a union. He had questions, but there was no one to ask.
By the time that he pulled into the parking lot for Ana’s apartment building, Grissom was feeling agitated and unhappy.
He had always wanted a soul mate, and Ana was everything that he could ever have asked for on that front, but he didn’t want to be bound to someone that might never feel bound to him in return. What if that meant that Ana couldn’t ever love him in return?
But maybe soul bonds just took longer to settle in humans? If she could eventually feel the bond the same way that he did, then his bond with Ana would be everything that Grissom had ever wanted. He would have his soul mate, and she would have him. They would be so happy together.
Either way, it was a gamble.
Grissom wasn’t much of a gambler.
Scowling, Grissom pounded up the stairs to knock on Ana’s door. She answered the door wearing his plaid shirt over a white tank top and jeans.
Grissom took a moment to admire her.
He always enjoyed Ana’s curvaceous figure, of course. And Grissom had always appreciated her in a short, tight dress and ridiculously impractical heels or even a short, tight dress and highly practical sneakers. But he liked her best like this: relaxed and happy and wearing something of his.
“Hey, honey, these are for you,” he said, offering her a bouquet of roses. He had stopped off after work – and before his worries had found him – to get them for her.
It was entirely worth it. Ana’s eyes widened, and then she smiled her brilliantly happy, sweet smile up at him.
Ana was stunning when she was happy.
And under all that simple happiness and beauty, Grissom felt his sour mood melt away. Even if she couldn’t feel their soul bond, he had her, and she had him. And for now, that was more than enough.
Chapter 13 - Ana
The thing about Grissom Hale, Ana eventually realized, was that he was rich. No way could a guy surviving on a civil servant’s salary spend what Grissom spent on dates with her.
She had already known that he had grown up rich, of course, what with all that business about the multitude of bathrooms scattered around his childhood home. From that little bit of intel, it wasn’t impossible to imagine him growing up in some giant mansion out in the hills with a legion of servants to clean all of those bathrooms.
But just because his parents were rich, it didn’t necessarily follow that Grissom himself would be rich. He certainly worked hard enough at his job. Ana knew for a fact that he worked a lot of overtime. She also knew that Grissom loved his job an awful, awful lot.
Ana didn’t know what other rich guys did for work or if they liked it, but rich or not, Grissom was meant to be a police detective. And she loved him for that as much as for everything else about him, which was why she generally tried very, very hard not to think about what a handsome, kind, and sweet police detective was doing with a woman who was barely scraping by on a barista job at a weird little coffee shop.
She was artistic. She had even shown in a few galleries and sold a couple of things. But that wasn’t the same as undeniable success or even pulling down a living wage on her art alone.
And sure, she had a little saved in the bank – most of it from her severance package – but it was nothing compared to what Grissom probably had in the bank.
Ana didn’t know that she would describe herself as kind either.
She wondered if she could describe herself as a fellowship winner yet.
It would be easy enough to find out.
Ana had gotten an envelope in the mail from one of the two fellowships that she had applied to. It was a suspiciously thin envelope. But so long as she didn’t open the envelope, it remained Schrödinger’s envelope: she might still have a chance at that fellowship, she might not, but she definitely hadn’t been rejected.
She should probably open it now. Or soon. Soon was probably better.
Ana was still fluttering around the envelope – picking it up, reading the front again, and then dropped it again in favor of rushing off to do something super productive that absolutely had to be done right away – when Grissom knocked on her apartment’s door. Envelope clutched in one hand, she went to let him in.
“Hi, honey,” said Grissom, as he leaned down to kiss her hello.
That distracted her… for awhile.
“So what’s with the envelope?” Grissom asked sometimes later. They had long since moved inside, shutting the door behind them.
At Grissom’s question, all of Ana’s pleasant lassitude melted away.
“It’s a thing that I put in for awhile ago,” said Ana awkwardly. “I wasn’t supposed to hear back about it for awhile yet. Weeks.”
It was probably a rejection letter. She was probably rejected.
Ana really didn’t want to be rejected.
And as long as she didn’t open the envelope, she hadn’t been rejected yet.
“Well, let’s open it,” suggested Grissom, and Ana’s heart sank.
But, thought Ana, I would’ve had to open it sooner or later.
It was easier to put her finger under the flap and tear the envelope open with Grissom there to bolster her courage. The form letter was very short and to the point: she hadn’t gotten the fellowship, but she was cordially invited to apply again next year.
Ana had faced rejection before. She had been rejected loads of times for lots of reasons or even for no reason at all. And yet, she always seemed to forget how much it hurt. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how many of her hopes she had pinned on getting a fellowship.
“Aw, Ana,” said Grissom regretfully. “I’m sorry.”
Grissom gathered her up in his arms and held her against his chest. He stroked her hair while she definitely didn’t cry into his shirtfront.
“You could apply for another one,” said Grissom presently. “There’s still time this year, right? I bet you’d get it. Your work is really beautiful, Ana. The right people need to see it, that’s all.”
Despite how terrible she felt, Ana almost smiled against his chest.
Grissom’s faith in her was amazing, and it felt amazing to have someone believe in her so much. Maybe she could fill out another fellowship application. But later. She wanted to stay where she was for awhile longer.
Chapter 14 – Grissom
Taking Ana back to his place was surprisingly stressful.
There wasn’t anything wrong with where he lived! He had spent a lot of time and money renovating it to bring it up to current building codes without losing any of its original charm. And if Ana didn’t like it, he was willing to shell out more to bring it up to her expectations. He just… really, really wanted her to like it.
Grissom just really, really wanted her to like it. He wanted her to want to live there with him. Forever, preferably.
Plus, her place was really small. Right now, it made things feel cozy and intimate, but Grissom had the feeling that it might not be so much fun in the long term. Grissom didn’t really want to try living as a couple in Ana’s apartment over any period of time longer than forty-eight hours. He also didn’t want to hurt her feelings by telling her that, though, in case her decision to live there was a matter of personal choice rather than finances.
And so, as they drove past the city limits, Grisso
m kept half of his attention on the road and the other half on Ana.
So far, she seemed to like the scenery. And she didn’t seem phased by the security gate. Ana also seemed to like the long driveway well enough. The house, though… Ana had been staring at it for the last three minutes.
“It’s not as cozy or colorful or as lived in as your place,” said Grissom, feeling awkward, “but the water pressure is good. And there’s room to grow into it.”
“It’s a turn of the century mansion,” said Ana. She sounded stunned. “Art nouveau, right?”
“It is? I… hadn’t noticed?” Grissom narrowly resisted the urge to smack himself. He knew that his house was a mansion, built around the turn of the century in the art nouveau style. Pretending that he didn’t know it wasn’t going to make Ana like the place better.
The look that Ana fixed him with was patently disbelieving.
“It’s kind of hard not to notice,” said Ana, and Grissom winced. Perhaps she noticed that too, because a moment later, Ana added, “But I like the stained glass windows. And you painted the house a really nice color.”
“My great-uncle’s lover did the stained glass windows,” said Grissom. “He was an artist too. The best one is in my uncle’s old study. We could turn it into an art studio for you, if you like it.”
Ana startled.
She stared at Grissom as hard as she had been staring at his house a moment ago. It was only then that Grissom’s brain caught up with his mouth.
Stupid.
He hadn’t meant to propose like that. Grissom had wanted to at least tell Ana about being a storm dragon first. That would naturally lead into a discussion of soul mates, and then he could pop the question – romantically. Ana liked romance.
Grissom was about to ask Ana for a do-over, when her expression softened in a smile.
Ana nodded.
And Grissom’s heart skipped a beat in his chest.
They were getting married!
Whooping, Grissom caught Ana up around the waist and spun her off of her feet. She was laughing when she flung her arms around Grissom’s neck and kissed him senseless.
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