Choosing the Dragon

by Rinelle Grey

  Rylee nodded. She’d expected that. “Are you okay here while I get the shopping done?” she asked Calrian. That was a completely normal question to ask, right? The strange look the librarian was giving her must be from earlier.

  He nodded solemnly. “I will be fine, Rylee. I will wait for you here.”

  His words sounded strange to her ears. More formal than most people would use. But it couldn’t be helped. There was no way anyone would guess he was a dragon, especially not now he was dressed completely normally in a grey t-shirt and khaki shorts. No, he’d just seem slightly eccentric, and they could live with that.

  So she gave him another glance and then headed back out to the car. It wouldn’t take long for her to finish the shopping. Then she’d be back for Calrian. He’d be fine for that short time.

  Chapter 7

  The librarian showed Calrian into a back room and lead him over to something that looked a little like Rylee’s TV. For a moment Calrian wondered if he’d be watching the newspapers somehow, but the librarian showed him how to use the machine to enlarge tiny little copies of the newspapers. Calrian guessed they took up less room and were less likely to get damaged this way.

  He was a little relieved when she finished her explanation and finally left. He was aware that she had looked at him strangely, just as the women at the previous store had. He wasn’t quite sure why, but he could see that it bothered Rylee, so he felt much more comfortable on his own.

  He wasn’t really sure what he was hoping to find here, but with all the history in the room, he couldn’t help thinking there must be some clue here. His clan, at some point, had lived not very far from this town. Was it really possible that there was no hint of their existence here anywhere?

  Calrian looked at the labelled box of miniaturised newspapers, wondering where to start? Should he start now and work his way back, or start further back and work his way forwards?

  Based on the fact that his clan was not here now but had been in the past, he decided to start as far back as he could. He picked up the oldest newspaper he could find and inserted it into the machine.

  It was a fascinating read. Calrian found himself getting distracted from his purpose and scouring the articles for hints as to the humans’ technological progress at that point compared to now. The pictures of their clothes were quite different, and their buildings far more primitive. They’d come far in a short amount of time, and the change was fascinating.

  He lost himself in the newspapers. Knowing there wasn’t time to read them all, he had to pick a selection and skim through them, trying not to get sidetracked by too many fascinating articles. He could easily spend all day in here, which was funny because he hadn’t been this fascinated by dragon history when his father had been trying to teach it to him.

  This was different though, not quite so ancient. In the last hundred years, these humans had certainly been busy. And the stuff they’d been doing was fascinating. Calrian skipped over most of the pages on current news, all that sad stuff. Oh, he skimmed them, looking for any mention of something that could be a dragon, but once he was sure there was nothing there, it was the science and technical pages he devoured.

  There seemed to be some new invention or innovation every day. Calrian began to recognise some of the names of people and companies that reoccurred often. There were patterns there if you looked, and the more he looked, the more fascinated he became.

  He barely even noticed when Rylee came back into the room. Not until she laughed and said, “Had any luck?”

  Then he looked up from the latest newspaper he was reading, staring at her, startled. It took him a few moments to process her words. “Um… no. I haven’t found any hints of dragons. But I still have a few newspapers to go through.” He waved to a box of the most recent papers, which had yet to be archived.

  He suspected there wasn’t going to be anything in any of them either, but for some reason he didn’t want to go until he’d finished. Almost as if the newspapers held a story he was reading, and he had to know the ending.

  Rylee stared at him for a moment, then laughed. She glanced up at the clock, then shrugged. “If we stay another half hour we can pick Rowan up after school. I’ve parked the car in the shade, so the groceries shouldn’t get too hot.”

  Calrian gave her a grateful smile, then turned back to the newspaper he was reading. He would have liked to talk to her more, but he was very aware that time was short, so he focused on reading.

  Rylee watched him for a few minutes, then said quietly, “I’m going to go look for some books,” and left the room.

  Calrian tried to read even faster to gobble up as much of the information as he could before he had to go. It was just so fascinating. He almost felt like he’d been given a crash course in humanity. He’d learned so many fascinating things, from the development of cars to alternative power sources, to some strange thing called a stock market, where people bought and sold things that didn’t exist.

  Humans were, apparently, even more obsessed with money than dragons had been. He’d seen the growth of that throughout all the newspapers too. If he’d had a coin for every time the word ‘economy’ or ‘economics’ was mentioned, he’d be richer than the richest dragon had ever been.

  But all of it helped him understand. He had a much clearer picture now of the struggles Rylee faced. He’d read several articles on single mothers and boys growing up without fathers. He’d seen the price of houses rise and seen how hard it was not to have one. He’d watched companies develop new ideas and grow from nothing into something prosperous.

  He may have gotten far too distracted from his original goal, but it was clear the newspapers couldn’t help him find his clan. They might be able to help him help Rylee. He was sure there was a clue in there somewhere, he just wasn’t sure where.

  Rylee stuck her head in the doorway. “Are you ready to go? We have to get Rowan.”

  Despite his reluctance, Calrian nodded and stood up. Technically, he’d skimmed through all the newspapers. There were many he would have liked to go back and read more thoroughly, but he didn’t have time. Rylee needed to go.

  He followed her out to the car, feeling different than he had when he’d walked into the building, as though he’d lived a lifetime in the hour or so he’d been there. The world around him, the human world, didn’t seem so strange anymore.

  He still didn’t belong. He still probably stood out like a sore thumb, but he could understand it all. It made a strange kind of sense.

  As he sat in the car outside Rowan’s school, he knew what it meant when a loud ringing sound started, and he was prepared when the children in blue check clothes streamed out the gate. It was all very strange and expected at the same time.

  “Calrian! Mum! I didn’t expect to see you here,” Rowan exclaimed as he climbed into the back seat.

  Rylee smiled. “We were in Mungaloo shopping, and I thought we’d pick you up.”

  Rowan chatted happily about his day, addressing remarks both to Rylee and Calrian. Calrian tried to keep up, though he had to admit, Rylee did a better job than he did.

  For some reason all the information he’d been reading kept bubbling up in his mind, shifting around and rearranging itself as though his brain was still trying to make sense of it all. The strangest things would suddenly appear in his mind out of nowhere, throwing him off.

  But Rylee and Rowan didn’t seem to notice. Rylee filled in any gaps in the conversation and answered any questions addressed to him that he missed, and Rowan didn’t seem to notice his distraction.

  It wasn’t until they were pulling into Rylee’s driveway and Calrian saw her father leaning on the veranda post, a scowl on his face, that he remembered.

  The meeting with Eric that morning, his threat to tell her father.

  The problems this was going to cause for her.

  Chapter 8

  Rylee’s heart hammered in her chest. This was it, the moment that had been haunting her all day. She’d done her b
est to ignore it, to focus on enjoying her time with Calrian and doing her normal tasks, but it had been there in the back of her mind the whole time, refusing to be ignored.

  And now she couldn’t put it off any longer. Her dad came down the stairs even before she’d even opened the car door and was waiting as she stepped out. He glared across at Calrian.

  “So Eric was right. You have been cheating on him.”

  Rylee stared at him, aware that her mouth was hanging open, but so shocked that she didn’t care. She’d known her dad was going to be angry, that he was going to have issues with her and Calrian, but she hadn’t expected that one.

  “Eric and I broke up months ago. I’m not cheating on him.”

  Her father crossed his arms. “A few months isn’t long enough to be sure you’re over him. And it certainly isn’t long enough to be ready to move on.”

  Rylee didn’t disagree with that, not in principle. She’d thought the exact same thing herself only a few days ago. She was tempted to agree with him and to tell him that there wasn’t anything like that between her and Calrian.

  But it was all too mixed up in her mind to even begin to explain. Just thinking about trying tied her stomach up in knots. She could hardly tell her father Calrian was a dragon and that she was just helping him out, especially not when helping him out had involved sleeping with him.

  She didn’t want to talk about any of that with her father. He’d never believe any of it. Not that Calrian was a dragon, not that she was just helping him out, and certainly not that there was nothing between them.

  She wasn’t sure she believed that last one. Sure, it was probably because of the Mesmer bond that making love with him had been so amazing, but even now that was supposedly gone, she still felt something for him. And from his offer, she suspected he might as well.

  Leading her to assume that a couple of months was, indeed, long enough to be over someone.

  That thought shook her a little. For the last couple of days she’d been trying to convince herself that she wasn’t going to get attached. That this was just a brief affair between her and Calrian. That once he found his family, he’d be gone.

  That she’d be okay with that.

  But suddenly she wasn’t sure about any of that. She didn’t want Calrian to go, and he’d kind of indicated that he didn’t want to.

  She had no idea what to do with that information yet, but she did know one thing. Rylee straightened her back. “Things were over between Eric and me long before we officially broke up. And either way, I’m an adult, who I’m with is none of your business.”

  Calrian had come around to her side of the car and now put a hand on her shoulder. Rylee was glad she hadn’t denied things between them because his clear closeness to her would have made a liar out of her.

  And she couldn’t deny it made it easier not to back down as her father glared at her. “While you’re living on my property, it most certainly is my business. No, I can’t stop you, but I can tell you that he’s not welcome here. Tell him to leave.”

  “No,” Rylee said immediately.

  Surprise and disbelief flared in her father’s eyes. “What?”

  Rylee realised it was the first time she’d ever stood up to him, ever actually said what she meant instead of just capitulating to stop an argument. And to her surprise, it felt good.

  Rowan stepped up next to her, and for a moment, Rylee felt bad about him seeing this. He’d already lost several homes in the last few months. Lost his father too. He didn’t need to be in the middle of this. Trust her father not to be able to wait until Rowan wasn’t here. Trust her father not to care if he was upset or worried.

  But Rylee couldn’t do anything about that. This was her father’s fault. He was the one doing this, not her. She wasn’t going to back down to hide this from Rowan. That wouldn’t help him at all.

  Rowan slipped his hand into hers and gave it a squeeze, and it took a moment for Rylee to realise he was supporting her, trying to give her strength.

  And it worked. Rylee squared her shoulders and looked back at her father defiantly. “I won’t tell Calrian to leave. If he’s not welcome here, then we’ll all leave.”

  This time her father’s face showed outright shock. “You’d leave Rowan homeless over this… this…” He stared at Calrian, obviously at a loss for a suitable insult.

  Rylee almost burst into laughter. This felt good. Better than anything had in a long time. When she’d left Eric, she’d expected to feel this kind of relief, but she’d spent most of her time worrying or looking over her shoulder. She hadn’t really felt free until this minute.

  “I like Calrian,” Rowan said stoutly. “I want him to stay.”

  Her father turned his disapproving gaze onto her son, but Rowan didn’t back down, just glared back at him. So he turned back to her. “I can see you’ve corrupted him too. None of you are thinking clearly.” He turned his glare to Calrian. “If you care for her at all, then you’ll leave before she ends up homeless over you.”

  Rylee turned to Calrian, only to see a flicker of uncertainty on his face. He gazed down at her, searching her face. “Rylee, maybe I should go…”

  His words cut her heart, hurting more than she’d expected they could. Panic and fear rose up in her at the thought of him leaving, even worse than it had felt while they’d still been connected by the Mesmer bond.

  Her father’s threats didn’t bother her anywhere near as much as the thought of losing Calrian did, even though they should have. Being homeless was a serious concern. But for some reason, it didn’t bother her. It wouldn’t matter if they were homeless together, and she certainly wasn’t going to leave Calrian to be homeless on his own. He would do the same thing for her, she was sure of it.

  So she smiled at him, trying to put all her trust and certainty into her eyes. Then she looked back to her father. “If you throw us out, Calrian won’t be the reason I’m homeless, you will be. You’re the one throwing me out over daring to live my life. You’re the only one to blame in this. Stop trying to shift that to Calrian.”

  Her dad’s eyes widened again, and he stared at all three of them, confusion spreading across his face. “You really are prepared to leave over this?” he asked disbelievingly.

  Rylee nodded. “I am.”

  Her father stared at her, looking completely lost for words. For a moment, Rylee dared to hope that he might relent, that he might, for the first time in her life, realise that her needs and wishes mattered.

  She should have known better.

  “You have a week,” he said gruffly. “That should give you enough time to find somewhere else to go or to realise that you’re making the wrong decision. But I won’t support this. If you want to be with this man, then you’re on your own.”

  And before Rylee could think of anything else to stay, he stomped away, up the path to the main house.

  She stared after him, having trouble believing he’d just said that. She’d come here to Mungaloo because she’d been struggling to make ends meet, much less try to save anything, while paying for rent and food. Now she’d be right back there again.

  “I’m sorry,” Calrian said, his voice sad and regretful. “I should leave. This will all blow over and your father won’t be angry if I’m not here.”

  “No, you can’t.”

  Rylee and Rowan spoke at the same time.

  Her son’s support warmed Rylee’s heart. They could do this if they worked together. She knew it. And Calrian’s presence would only help.

  “We’ll find somewhere else to go,” Rylee said firmly. “There’s no way I’d want to stay here anyway. It’s clear that Dad doesn’t support me at all. It was a mistake to come here in the first place. We’ll all be better off somewhere else. Together.”

  As soon as she said the word out loud, Rylee wished she could take it back. She’d just assumed Calrian wanted to stay, guessing that he did based on him offering her a place with his clan earlier.

  But maybe he didn’t w
ant to. Maybe he’d only said that to be polite.

  Maybe he didn’t feel the same way she did.

  Chapter 9

  Calrian’s heart warmed at Rylee’s words and at how she and Rowan had defended him despite the obvious disadvantages to themselves. And when Rylee had said they would be better off together, it had almost overflowed.

  He wanted that. So much.

  He would almost say more than anything else.

  Except that would be disloyal to his clan. What he should want most was to find them, to know they were safe. If he didn’t, it would only prove that he was a hopeless prince and a bad brother.

  But he could no more change what his heart desired than he could will his clan to pop into existence. And what he wanted most had little to no bearing on what happened. He would continue to search for his clan for as long as he drew breath because that was his responsibility.

  But there was nothing to say he couldn’t be with Rylee in the meantime. “I would love to go with you,” he said, giving her a warm smile. “But I don’t want to make things difficult for you. Are you sure it wouldn’t be easier if I just left?”

  He could see her immediate response in her eyes and in the downturn of her lips into a frown. “I don’t want you to leave.”

  “You can’t go,” Rowan said just as quickly.

  Rylee wasn’t the only one attached to him. Rowan was too apparently, which was just what Rylee hadn’t wanted to happen. He glanced at her, and she just looked determined. Apparently she wasn’t so worried about it now.

  “Come on, let’s grab the shopping and go inside. Then we can talk about it,” Rylee said firmly. “We can’t really discuss it out here.” A glance back at the direction her father had disappeared in explained her words.

  Calrian had no problem grabbing some of the bags of stuff and following her inside. Rowan did the same. Between the three of them, they managed to take it all inside in one trip.

  Calrian felt a little better once they were inside, away from her father. The man might have seemed worried about Rylee previously, but it was clear he was more concerned with her following his orders than in being happy. Calrian had little respect for him after that.