by Chant, Zoe
With my grandfather and father dead ...
If only, Heikon thought. If only.
That was certainly what he wanted people to think. It was the story he'd put around, that he'd executed everyone directly involved with the conspiracy, and extracted oaths of loyalty from the rest.
In truth, most of the conspirators had renounced Braun and gone back over to Heikon's side as soon as he came back. Some of them had died in the fighting, including Reive's father. And as for Braun ...
Well. He wouldn't be hurting anyone anymore.
Still ... with Esme back in his life, Heikon thought, maybe it was best to make sure that his precautions were holding. He dialed another number, one that he didn't call nearly as often as he should.
She might not be awake, he reminded himself. But then, she didn't sleep much, as was often true of the old. And indeed, she picked up on the first ring.
"Hi, Mother," he said.
"Sweetheart." Her voice was warm, though a little shaky with age.
Dragons lived a long time, but still, his mother was the oldest dragon he'd ever personally known. It was she who had brought the cherry-tree seeds that had grown into his heart-grove, long ago when she had swum across the sea from her native Japan, to a rugged, wild coastline of trees and mountains.
He had asked her, once, why she'd done it. Because I wanted to see what was on the other side of the sea, she'd said.
But she didn't travel anymore. She had a sanctuary of her own, deep in the mountains, and there she preferred to stay, these days, tending the gardens she loved ... and keeping his other secret.
"How's my brother?" he asked.
"Tranked into a coma as usual," his mother said dryly. "I'm not going to let him come out of it enough to escape, Heikon. I know what he's like—what he is."
Do you? Heikon wondered. Leaving Braun with his mother was the only solution he'd been able to think of, short of outright killing him. And when it came right down to it, he had been a little surprised to find that he didn't have it in him to kill his brother in cold blood.
"I hope not," he said. "He mustn't escape, Mother. I ..." He lowered his voice, though he knew Esme couldn't possibly be near enough to hear; in the quiet of the empty building, he would have heard her approach. "I found Esme again."
"That pretty little girl from the Lavigna clan? How nice for you, dear."
"She ..." He started to say it. And then he choked on the words. She's my mate. But it wasn't true anymore, and telling his mother now would force him to explain why he hadn't told her all those years ago. It had been so new, so fresh, a secret just for the two of them ... and then gone, in a single beat of his poisoned heart.
"She's just like I remember," he said instead. "Beautiful. Fiery."
"She always was an energetic girl," his mother mused. "They're the best kind, you know."
"I know," he said, smiling despite himself as he thought of Esme's temper.
"Just don't get too attached. Remember, there's a mate out there for you somewhere."
His chest gave a deep pang. "I know, Mother."
"And bring my grandchildren to visit one of these days!"
To a cave with Braun in it? Still ... he was locked up and drugged. Heikon knew he was going to have to get over it sooner or later, going to have to either trust that his mother could keep the rest of the clan safe from Braun—or go ahead and commit the act of fratricide he'd been trying to avoid.
It was easier for humans. They had police and courts and jails. Dragons resolved disputes themselves, frequently through duels. Usually it was simpler. But sometimes you ran into situations like this, when you had someone who was too dangerous to run around, but no safe place to put them.
"Heikon? Are you still there? Has this phone lost you?"
"No, no, I'm still here, Mother. I'll bring them someday soon. I have to go. I love you."
He put the phone away and got up decisively. After washing his hands thoroughly, he donned his jacket and looked around to be sure the bathroom was as tidy as he could leave it. He had no idea where Esme had gotten the tools from, so he'd left them packed up and ready for her to put them away.
He hoped she was happy with this gift. Tomorrow he would find more gifts to bring her. And maybe someday, she would take him back.
Just don't get too attached. His mother's words rang in his ears. Remember, there's a mate out there for you somewhere.
Wise words. But wrong.
There was no one for him but Esme. Not now. Not ever.
He left, turning off the lights as he went. At the door, he punched in the alarm code. It appeared to be a date, and he'd already finished typing it in and slipped through the door before the significance of it hit him.
It was the date they'd met. The day they had looked into each other's eyes and seen their forever love, their partner, their fated mate looking back at them.
With the ludicrous frog umbrella dangling from one hand, rain falling lightly on his hair and shoulders, he turned and looked up at Esme's building.
All the lights were off except several on the top floor. She had big windows that must offer a commanding view of the area, though nothing like the view from his mountain, of course.
As he watched, a slim shadow crossed one of the windows. Esme, going about her nighttime business. The shadow paused. Was she looking out now, or looking away, consumed with her own thoughts? What might she be doing up there?
He saw her, in his mind, as clearly as if she was in front of him, the way he remembered her at the Aerie twenty years ago. Wrapped in a silken green robe, a cup of tea in her hands, her hair spilling loose and long over her shoulders ...
Up there. Out of reach. And forever to remain so, if he couldn't find a way to win back her love.
He turned away before he could do something foolish, like calling her. She had extended a gesture of trust to him with the alarm code, and her willingness to leave him alone in her building; he was not oblivious to how much that meant to a dragon. So he must return her gesture of trust, and show her that he could be trusted not to push too far.
Patience, he thought. He had been apart from her for twenty years. Another night would not kill him. All good things in life were worth doing properly. He would win her back, and he would do it according to the rules she'd set him.
He was starting to come alive, feeling eagerness quickening inside him. She hadn't sent him away out of hand, when she easily could have. There was something between them still. He wasn't the only one who felt it.
Behind one of the buildings, hidden from casual observers by the night and the lightly falling rain, he shifted and stretched his wings, and took to the sky.
Esme
Rain was still falling the next day, steady and gray, as if to match Esme's mood. It had not helped when she came downstairs and found the toilet fixed, the tools neatly packed up and set to the side.
She knew how late he'd been there because she had been watching out the window, looking down on the rain-washed street ... waiting for him to leave. She had watched Heikon looking up at her apartment, and wondered if he sensed her looking down at him. She didn't want to stand there and watch him leave, but she couldn't help herself. She watched until he was out of sight, and then stood gazing a little while longer until she forced herself to turn back to the suddenly empty-feeling apartment.
She did not miss him. It was absurd. And yet, it seemed as if having him come back into her life had made her aware of a hole that had been there all along, a hole shaped exactly like Heikon, that only he could fill.
It was foolish. It was stupid. For one thing, he was no longer her mate. The bond had been well and truly broken. She could not possibly still miss him this much; she had grieved him for years and then gotten past it and moved on with her life.
And now here he was again, and it felt as if she had stepped directly back into a wellspring of feelings she'd thought long dead and buried.
Humans fall in love and get married without a
mate bond all the time. Is it truly so foolish to think ...
Yes. Yes, it was. For one thing, she was not a human. And she'd had lovers before. One of those liaisons had given her Melody, who she wouldn't trade for the world.
There had been genuine emotion between Esme and all of her previous lovers. But at the same time, it had been a shallow sort of thing, never able to deepen into the true lifelong connection she craved. She'd always been aware of her dragon inside her, pushing her away, urging her to wait for her true mate. When she had looked into Heikon's eyes and recognized their bond, her dragon had risen in joy. It was as if she'd been filled with pure music, from the bottom of her soul to the ends of her fingertips. It was the thing she had waited for her whole life.
And now it was back to being one of those shallow, empty relationships that could never deepen further. Having her dragon react to Heikon the way that it had to her previous lovers—with a constant thrumming refrain of This is not our mate—hurt her in a deep kind of way that she could hardly bear. If she acted cold around him, it was only because she could not bear to look into his face and hear her dragon sulkily insist they were wasting time with this man who was not their mate, rather than feeling it leap with joy as it strained to reaffirm the bond of their shared souls.
How could you share that kind of connection with someone and then go back to being near-strangers?
Somehow Heikon seemed to be managing just fine, she thought bitterly, as she picked up the toolbox and took it back to its closet.
* * *
"Where's that handsome boy?" Miriam quavered when her granddaughter dropped her off for class, half an hour early as usual. Miriam always liked some time to get settled in before the other students arrived.
"I'm quite sure I don't know or care. Can I help you with your shawl?"
Miriam was bundled as if to face an Arctic expedition rather than a late summer rainstorm. Getting old must be a terrible thing for humans, Esme thought, helping her peel off her damp outer shawl only to reveal another shawl underneath, wrapped around her bony shoulders.
And Miriam was so young, why, she was barely 90! Esme tried to recall what she had been doing when she turned 90. Hmm, possibly she'd been living in New York at that time. Jazz had just become a thing, and there was a lot of interesting music to collect. Those early years of records had been such a wonderful thing. Esme had never dreamed in her childhood that she would someday be able to hoard music in physical objects she could possess, rather than just in the form of sheet music and instruments and the contents of her own head.
"Oh, there he is," Miriam said with satisfaction in her birdlike voice, and Esme looked up, startled. Heikon was just coming in the door, shaking rain off that utterly ridiculous frog umbrella. Today he wore a jacket of deep amethyst, setting off his bronze skin and sparking purple glints from his dark eyes.
She had found his red jacket slightly inappropriate and ridiculous yesterday, but she now realized it was only that it was a little out of place in an old-fashioned way that she couldn't help finding incredibly charming today. Men simply didn't dress like that anymore. Even George, who thought he was dapper, wore his pants halfway up to his armpits, and his beige jackets never went out of fashion mainly because they hadn't been in fashion to begin with.
But Heikon had grown up in an era when male fashion was as much of an art as the female sort, and it seemed he'd never quite lost the knack. He walked in like a man who knew he looked good and expected all eyes to turn to him—as of course they did—but his gaze went straight to Esme, and she was shocked and alarmed to feel herself blushing, especially when he broke into a welcoming smile. Esme had to fight to straighten out her own lips.
Ever the gracious hostess, she went to welcome him, despite her overwhelming desire to find something urgent to fuss with at the coffee table, or possibly hide in a closet until everyone left.
"Esmerelda," he murmured as she reached to take his umbrella. "You look lovely tonight."
So do you. She caught herself right before she blurted it out aloud. He did, though, damn it. Lovely wasn't quite the right word, but ... dashing. Handsome. Cheekbones you could cut yourself on. She'd forgotten what his eyes were like, dark and deep, eyes you could get lost in ...
She spun away from him hastily, before her treacherous arms could reach for him, seeking the touch of his skin again. "You'll be dancing with Miriam tonight," she said shortly. "You're the only two here yet, so you'll have a bit of time to get acquainted. Let me go put some music on."
She took her time fussing with the record player and sound system, but she couldn't help watching out of the corner of her eye. Heikon, to her surprise, went to one knee in front of Miriam's fragile, hunched figure in the wheelchair, as courtly as a prince in a queen's kingdom. "Care to dance with me tonight, lady?" he asked, holding out a hand. His deep voice carried across the room, brought to Esme by the perfect acoustics that she'd spent so much time carefully planning into the ballroom's design.
Miriam laughed quietly and put out her thin hands. "I would love to, but don't let me keep you away from that beautiful redhead all evening."
Esme put the record needle down and cranked up the sound, drowning out whatever he might have replied in the clear strains of Chopin.
* * *
She had already decided she was not going to dance with Heikon tonight. Too much temptation lay that way. So she paired him up first with one of her students, then another.
If you truly wanted to remove temptation, all you have to do is send him away ...
Instead she watched with a critical eye as he danced with first one old lady, then another. She started out fully prepared to stop the dance if he was in any way rude to her students, but she might have known he'd be perfectly polite, endlessly patient. And Esme was amused to see that most of her students knew more about dancing than Heikon did. They had, after all, been coming to her classes for weeks. It wasn't that Heikon couldn't dance, just that his was a beginner's understanding of the steps, or perhaps that of a man who hadn't done it in, perhaps, a century or more.
But he was graceful and coordinated, far more so than many people she'd taught. Perhaps more to the point, he was surprisingly gracious and humble about letting the other students—elderly human women, no less—show him the dance steps and correct the ones he missed.
It was always a pleasure seeing her students become teachers. Esme liked to pair up inexperienced students with the class veterans, because she knew that they would both get something out of the experience; the newcomers would learn the steps, of course, but teaching someone else was a good way to get the experienced students out of their rut and give them a new perspective. You learned a lot from showing someone else how to do something.
And tonight, it was even more pleasing to watch them than usual, because Heikon was such a good student. She would never have thought it possible, and yet, he was. He accepted correction with only a slight, chagrined smile, and he brought out the best in his dance partners, as only a dancing natural could.
Dancing was inherently a generous act. Selfish people might do well in solo dance, but Esme had a private theory that they could not dance well with a partner. Coupled dancing meant giving part of yourself to your partner. It meant being willing to let the other person shine rather than trying to take the glory for yourself. For it was only when you gave yourself completely to your partner, when you elevated their glory above your own, that the two of you could become greater together than you would ever be apart.
Watching Heikon dance with the other women in the class—watching him bring out the best in each of them, watching him make these old women smile, make them laugh ... she was wildly, stupidly jealous. She had thought it would get easier once her treacherous heart recognized that it was simply the meaningless steps of a dance ... but instead it got worse.
She knew it was ridiculous. She was ridiculous! It had been her idea in the first place.
It was just that she wanted to be out ther
e on his arm. She wanted Heikon to whirl her around the dance floor, lifting her as though she was weightless.
The only person stopping you is you, she told herself.
I don't know why you're so interested in him anyway, her dragon remarked.
... and there was the reminder of why she couldn't. Because she never could be with him the way she wanted. Oh, they could be lovers; in time, she might even love him. But there would always be that deepest part of her soul holding back.
How could you do this to us? she thought, heart breaking, as she watched him whirl around the dance floor, with a succession of different women in his arms where she desperately wanted to be. I know you broke the mate bond because you thought it would protect me. But once it's gone, it's gone. We can't get it back, and now we will always have our animals pushing us apart.
I don't know how you think it's possible to go back to how we used to be.
With a deep sigh, she went to dance with George again. It was like dancing with a block of wood, compared to Heikon.
* * *
And yet, the evening passed in a whirl of music and dance, as it always did on dance-class nights. Despite Esme's private unhappiness, she still managed to lose herself in the music to the point that it seemed all too soon when her students began to gather their coats and umbrellas, and Miriam's granddaughter came to take her back to the care home.
And then, after the flurry of goodbyes and see-you-Thursdays, it was just her and Heikon, as he helped her clean up the coffee things, helpful and uncomplaining.
"Any more toilets for me to fix?" he asked, with a sparkle of humor in his eye.
Esme hmmph'd and firmly resisted the urge to go off and secretly flush a shoe down the toilet. There had been something indescribably ... well ... hot about Heikon down on the floor, jacket off and shirt sleeves rolled up.
She liked him well put together, in his nice suits with his hair tucked into place. But she liked him even more with his clothes off, all sweaty, doing things with his hands ...