“Don’t even,” Andi said. “Mom would be mad at you, too, if she were here, Danny.”
Danny wheeled back to face her, tilting his head. “Yeah, so, that’s where you’re wrong.” He leaned over behind the tombstone and pulled out a plastic bag, handing it over to her. “I’ve gotta go.”
Andi blinked. “Wait…what?”
“I still have to be careful. I’m not in control all the way yet. I shouldn’t be alone very long—especially outdoors.” He put his hands in his pockets and started down the hill.
“But I still have questions!” Andi shouted after him.
He shrugged. “There’s no point in me answering them if you don’t bother to listen.”
“Danny!” Andi yelled, reprimanding him with his own name, and he looked back at her for a still moment, recreating every time she’d ever been disappointed in him in the past. She reached into her bag to grab Eumie’s pastries and threw them at him, to land at his feet. “They’re your favorite, dammit!”
He picked them up, then turned and kept walking.
Chapter 3
Andi sagged onto her heels just off to the side of her mother’s grave, holding the bag Danny’d given her across her lap, her whole body trembling.
After everything she’d been through—that he’d put her through!—how dare he. And fuck him in the neck for being right about her listening because she shouldn’t have to listen to him when he was wrong in the first place!
Andi tightly grabbed the thing inside the plastic bag and went to tear into it as her phone buzzed. She yanked it out of her bag and swiped the screen open.
Where are you? It was Damian. She put a hand to her face. In her anger over her brother, she’d almost forgotten that she needed to be angry at him, too. For either ditching her or worrying her, take her pick.
At the Morganhoff Cemetery.
Are you okay? he asked her.
Andi stared at the phone in her lap, unsure how to answer. Maybe, and then she quickly added, Are you?
The dots on the screen danced for an exceptionally long time before she got the simple answer: No. Her heart sank into her stomach as he continued. Can you give me twenty minutes to get there?
His house in the Briars was at least a thirty-minute drive away. Andi looked around at the rolling greenery and fountains. Maybe he really was going to fly. Sure, she responded. I’m in the back. Blue coat, in front of a red marble tombstone.
I’ll find you, don’t worry. Wait for me.
Andi stared at her phone for a moment longer before putting it back into her pocket and returning her attention to the package in her lap. It was in a plastic grocery bag, and if Danny’d brought her something stupid like a stuffed bear in an attempt to get back on her good side—or candy…. She sighed, exhausted by the idea of being angry at him again.
She peeled the plastic bag open and found another bag inside, only this one was made of silk. Andi jammed the trash into her pocket and flipped the silk over. It was heavy, and there was a roped frog-knot lock on the other side. She undid the loop and let the object inside slide out.
It was a photo album—one she was sure she’d never seen before. She knew because when her mother died, it’d been her job to go through all of her mother’s things. Danny had ditched her for most of that, too. The cover was coarsely grained leather, and inside were sheaves of photos placed in between cardboard pages and cellophane.
Andi sighed and flipped through them at random. A lot of old photos. What good would looking through them do? Make her miss her mom more? She already missed her enough. It was hard not to feel like if her mom had been around that nothing bad would’ve happened to Danny. Even if Uncle Lee had still been a murderous bastard, he could’ve kept that to himself, and they could’ve just been at a cordial arm’s-length red-envelope status.
Andi looked instead at the sepia-toned woman on the tombstone in front of her. She didn’t remember that photo either; she assumed it was just one Uncle Lee had laying around somewhere, seeing as he’d never asked her for one.
People used to tell her that she and her mother looked alike, but Andi never saw it. Her mother was always much more beautiful than she was. Her mother always cared more, for one. She never left the house without makeup on and always had her hair coiffed up just so. Andi could count on two hands the times she’d ever seen her mother’s hair down, and most of those were at the end in the hospital when they both knew she wasn’t going to make it out. She’d helped her mother braid it into one long plait. It was so strange for her mother to have kept her hair during chemo that every single nurse had to comment on it—so much so, that Andi was worried her mother was getting the wrong drugs, but by then, she was a nurse and could read the labels herself.
Not only that, but her mother had had a perfect birthmark—somewhere between a Cindy Crawford and a Madonna—just a dot over the corner of her smile. When it moved, you knew she was genuinely happy and not just smiling because it was expected of the “nice Chinese lady” or whatever hell else her neighbors and coworkers were calling her this week.
Andi reached out to touch her mother’s portrait on the stone. “I wish you were here, Mom.” Because if she were, she’d somehow make everything better.
“Andi,” called a familiar voice from behind her.
She turned to look over her shoulder to find Damian there. He was in a suit as black as his hair, with a white shirt and a black tie, striding up the hill with ease. Something about seeing him again—and seeing him here, of all places—made her chest so tight it hurt, like her ribs didn’t fit her anymore. She stood up to give herself room to breathe, tucking the album under one arm.
Damian was careful not to walk on any of the other graves as he made his way to her side, and then he stood beside her, making to catch her hand with his. She let him and felt the way his bigger, slightly rougher, hand held hers, their fingers intertwining naturally like he’d already been standing there the entire time.
“Damian, this is my mom,” Andi said lightly. “Mom, this is Damian.”
Damian surprised her by making a precise bow in the direction of her mother’s tombstone, as though he’d done this sort of thing before. “I am honored to be in your presence,” he said, sounding one hundred percent sincere, and Andi realized that maybe he was. Did dragons have ghosts? Souls? Religion? She would have to add all of those things onto her list of Things to Eventually Ask Him.
He turned to look down at her with his golden eyes. “I can see the resemblance. You’re both very beautiful.”
“My mom was prettier,” Andi said. Damian inhaled to fight her, but she put a finger on his lips to stop him. “You can’t argue with me here, or she’ll hear you.” His lips curved into a smile behind her touch as she took him in. “Why is your hair wet?”
“Because I didn’t want to meet you—or your mother—without showering.” There was a tightness in his shoulders that hadn’t been there when he’d left her that morning. It made her want to knead it out of them, to turn him back into the person he’d been when he’d seemed like he was happy.
Andi took a small step back but didn’t let go of his hand. “Why didn’t you come back?”
He exhaled deeply, and the tension around him increased like the pressure change before a storm. “Duty called,” he said, then his lips pressed together in a thoughtful line. “I messaged you as soon as I felt I safely could. I hope I didn’t worry you.”
She gave him a small frown. “No. I mean, I only partially thought you’d died. And then I was a little mad at you for not telling me that you died, I think.”
“And so, you came here to head me off at the pass?” he teased, glancing around at their surroundings.
Might as well admit the truth. “No, I came here to see my brother.”
Damian’s attention whipped back to her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Andi blinked. “Did you really just ask that?”
She watched his jaw grind as it clenched and unclenched. “I suppo
se that was unfair.”
“Pretty much. I mean, if you’re too busy to tell me what’s going on with you, then,” she said, looking out over the rolling hillsides, “I didn’t want to distract you from…world saving or whatever it was with my small problems.”
Damian abruptly focused all of his attention on her, and for the first time since he’d joined her, she felt like he was fully present in that way that was almost too much for her to handle. “Your problems are my problems, from here on out,” he said, looking at her as though he was willing her to believe. Andi’s heart beat in her throat. No, the rhythm took over her whole body, pounding so hard she could feel it down to her wrists and ankles as she pulled both her hands away from his. “What?” he asked her, confused.
She took a moment to gather herself, free of him. “You can’t just say things like that, Damian,” she explained, shaking her head, unwilling to meet his gaze. How could he not hear the words that came out of his mouth? How could he not know?
“Why not?” he asked, sounding pained.
Mother, I’m so sorry you’re having to watch this, Andi thought, and made herself look at him again before saying aloud, “Do you really not understand?” His expression was so bewildered that she went on. “Have you ever said anything like that to a girl before?”
It was his turn to shake his head. “No.”
Andi closed her eyes for a long moment before responding. “I googled you, Damian, so don’t you dare lie to me, plus you swore—”
“No,” he said again, more firmly.
“All those other women. All the photos, all the smiles? You were playing them all along?”
“Or they were trying to play me,” he said, his voice low. “I’ve been told I’d be quite a catch, but I never once promised any of them anything, Andi.” He licked his lips slowly as he seemed to search for the right words, staring at her with smoldering intent. “I’ve never done this before, but I want to…with you.”
His eyes were hot on her, and she felt irradiated by his attention. It made the little hairs on her arms prick up, and a shiver crawled over her scalp in a rush. When it was done sparking over her, it settled in her hips like red-hot coals. “Want to…what?” Everything else in her life was so surreal at this point. If he really wanted something—wanted her—she needed to hear the words.
“Be in a relationship. With you.”
Andi crossed her arms and swallowed, shielding her heart with the solid thump of the photo album. “You’ve never been in a relationship with a human?”
His head tilted as he tried to read her. “Not with anyone.”
The wind picked up and pushed locks of her hair toward him like they were reaching out. “And what if I’m not ready for that?” she asked, then bit her lips. “I know what I said last night about you not leaving, and I meant that. I like having you around, but I’ve also known you less than two weeks.” She was now looking anywhere but at his face, because she was scared of the earnestness she’d find there. It was too much, too soon—too insane, even for her—which was saying something.
“I know,” he agreed slowly, then he stepped forward, closing the space between them. “But I know everything about you, Andi. Things that no one else does. And I don’t want to say that you can’t live without me because I know you’re strong and you can. But I can tell from the way your pulse jumps at your throat when I’m nearby that you don’t want to. Not yet.”
She closed her eyes. He wasn’t wrong. But that didn’t make it right. “It doesn’t matter; you still can’t say things like that,” she told him. No matter how easy it is for you to read me and somehow know what I want before I do.
“Why not? If I mean them?” he asked kindly.
“Because it’s cruel.” She bowed her head and breathed the musty scent of the photo album in deep. “Because if you’ve never been in a relationship before, statistically speaking, I’m just breaking you in for the next girl.”
“Andi,” he said, and she could hear the smile in it. “I’m a dragon. I’m not bound by statistics.” His hands reached for her jaw and gently raised her head up to face his golden gaze. “Can I take you back to my place?”
Old cautious Andi would’ve fought him, but there was a chance that Elsa was still staking out her apartment, and who the fuck was she kidding, even if he said utterly ridiculous things and made promises he couldn’t possibly keep, she didn’t want to leave him just yet. She nodded slowly against his hands, and he smiled, releasing her, sliding one of his hands down her arm and back to her hand, leaving a fresh trail of fire in its wake. “Let’s go,” he said, pulling her to his side.
Damian gave her mother’s grave another courtly bow and then led her confidently down the hill heading to another part of the cemetery, with his arm looped around her waist. She was walking fast to stay up with him, then he noticed, slowing down to her pace without her asking him to. His hand on her hip felt hot even through her coat, as it did where she leaned against him, all the places where they touched. She rested her cheek against him briefly and felt him pull her tight.
Then he took them up another hill, and she paused to crane back. She was intimately familiar with this cemetery; she’d been here often enough. “Where are you parked?”
“I didn’t. I was in a rush,” he said, like that explained things.
She stared up at him, doing origami in her mind, trying to imagine him transitioning to fly. Would she need to run half a block away to not get squished? “I’m not sure if I should ask where or how.”
He chuckled. She felt it reverberate in him. “Michael’s buried here. The cemetery’s only open during the day. Sometimes I wanted to come at night, so I had to find another way in.”
“Oh,” Andi gasped. Michael was Damian’s friend who’d died doing the exact same thing Damian did. Like whatever he’d bolted from her this morning to do. And even though he was still right here beside her, she felt worried for him all over again. Damian led her to the edge of a shallow pond, bounded by cement pavers, and stopped. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said, knowing it was never enough, because how many people had told her that exact same thing before?
“I promise you, there’s nothing for you to be sorry for.” He moved to stand in front of her, on the large stones surrounding the pool. He reached a hand out, and she took it without hesitation. “I’d like to tell you about him sometime.”
“I’d like that too.”
He smiled down at her, easy, earnest, disarming. “Can I pick you up?”
Andi blinked and looked around herself quickly. “Why?”
“Just say yes again,” he counseled.
“Yes?” she guessed. He swooped her up against his chest like she weighed nothing, her bag swinging as she clutched the photo album to her chest. She remembered the time he’d run through his house with her to throw her in a pool, then realized there was quite a large body of water behind him. “No…no, no, no…it’s too cold for that, Damian—”
“I’ll keep you warm.” He pressed her tightly to his chest. “Hold your breath. Trust me,” he said and stepped forward into the water.
Everything went black. She expected water to rush up and leave her sputtering—or for Damian to be standing in half a foot of mud—but what happened was that she couldn’t see anything around her, and she didn’t even have a sense of how big the darkness was. It could’ve stretched on for miles in all directions.
But what she did know was that it wanted her. It was hungry, thirsty, lonely, all the “y” words that meant that you wanted something you would never get to have—that made you angry with its lack. Freezing hands reached out to grab her, and she screamed as Damian pulled her close against the radiating heat of his chest, and then they were somehow through, stepping out into a room she recognized at his house.
The one with the green velvet walls and black leather furniture—not all of which was designed for comfort. Functional benches with what looked like tie-downs, ornate couches with swooping scrolled backs,
and off to one side a made bed that looked loosely caged by metal.
“What the fuck…and how?” Andi gasped, looking around as Damian set her down. She was still clutching the photo album to her chest.
“If you’re strong enough magically, you can jump through any reflection that will fit you. The pond was reflective enough for me, especially coming back home.”
Andi took a step, appreciating the solidity of the ground and the warmth of the room, then looked around again and back at the mirror, reflecting them both behind her. “And out of all the mirrors in your house, you picked here?” she asked. She supposed that walking into his sexy times dungeon wasn’t any worse than walking into his bedroom, which she knew had mirrors lining one entire wall, but still.
Damian looked around and snorted. “I didn’t think of that. I just didn’t want to be in my bedroom right now. Too many mirrors there…too many memories.”
“So that’s too many, but this one is just right?” she questioned, gesturing at the huge rectangular one they’d arrived through.
He walked over to it, grabbed a corner of its frame and flipped it around, revealing a massive plush leather-covered X on the other side, with bolts up and down the margins to chain someone down. She blanched, and he laughed. “It’s a safety measure. No one wants to get hit by broken glass.”
“I don’t think I want to get hit by anything,” she said, looking around the room. If this was who he was and what he needed, this was not her. She was adventurous, yes, but if this was some kind of lifetime compatibility commitment thing, all the more reason to keep him at arm’s length.
Except for all the times when she wanted him a lot…a lot closer.
“I would never do anything to you that you didn’t want me to, princess,” he said, watching her like he always did.
Andi went over to what might as well have been a weapons rack and lifted something that looked very much like a bullwhip up in horror. “Good, because this shit is off the table.”
Dragon Fated: A Billionaire Dragon Shifter Romance (Prince of the Other Worlds) Page 5
