“Very well,” he said. He departed for her bathroom and its mirror, and this time she didn’t follow. She waited what felt to her like an awfully long time, and then stripped her bed, shoving his nice new sheets into a laundry bag, before putting everything he’d given her out in the hall and retrieving her spare set of penguin sheets out of her and Sammy’s linen closet.
She couldn’t keep anything that smelled like a dragon in her room, and that included herself. She walked back into her bathroom with still-not-entirely-dry hair for what felt like her fortieth shower of the day.
* * *
Damian’s dragon gave him surprisingly little shit as they re-emerged into the green room of his castle on the mirror’s far side.
Aren’t you worried? he asked it as he strode through his house, heading for the stairs to check on Austin and Ryana.
No. She is frightened by the pull.
Damian grunted. It’s pulling me, too, you know.
But you know what it is, his dragon told him. I do not understand why you cannot tell her she is your mate.
Damian inhaled deeply. He’d been about to when she’d told him she was afraid before she’d snapped at him. But if he felt like this, and he was part dragon, how much more disturbing must it be to be human and have these feelings and not know what to do with them, as they rushed in your blood and rang in your ears. Hell, if he hadn’t had his dragon tell him what was going on back when they’d been together in his car, he still might not know. Might even still be afraid of being with her because it was a humbling thing to feel so exposed to someone. To be fully seen and heard. To have someone watch over you with love.
But what if she never admitted her feelings to herself? What if she always kept him at arm’s length, or worse yet, he told her she was his mate, and she still pushed him away?
She will not.
How would you know?
Because it is our destiny to be with one another, his dragon told him. At least for a moment in time.
Damian paused on the stairs he was walking down. How long is that?
His dragon didn’t answer; he felt it disappear inside him entirely.
Damian traversed the rest of his house in a rush because he needed to stay busy, and burst in on his sister Ryana just as he’d left her, nestled in the hospital bed with her red bird guardian Lyka and his own ‘magic-cat’ Grimalkin at her feet, with Austin sprawled out on a couch across the room from the bed. He walked over to Austin, not knowing what to make of the numbers on the monitor screen that Ryana was attached to, and bit back a reproach. Of course, the werewolf had to sleep eventually. At least he was sleeping here.
“I’m awake, you know,” Austin muttered, inhaling deeply and looking up at him. “Mostly. I’ve got all the alarms turned on.” He swung himself upright on the couch. “And I figured between the actual bird and the bird-brain, if she woke up, one of them would let me know.”
Grimalkin muttered something unkind about dogs and fleas in response to the insult but didn’t move.
“How is she?” Damian asked, pulling up a chair. He reached over to pet Grim, setting him back to purring.
Austin put his head briefly in his hands. “I don’t know. Either she’ll get better or she won’t. It’s only been one day, though.”
Damian nodded as everything he’d been through with Andi flowed through him in a rush. It felt like it’d been a year of a day—too long, but also, not nearly long enough.
“How’s your nurse?” Austin asked solicitously after yawning and wiping his face with one hand. “Zach told me about what happened to her earlier tonight. I can’t imagine what that’d be like, finding out that your entire family was filled with liars. I mean, wolf packs have fights, don’t get me wrong, but at least when we’re assholes, we’re forthright.”
“She’s traumatized, yes.” Damian put his hands between his knees and had a strange urge to confess. “Her brother gave her a photo album in the morning. She asked me not to look at it because she was mad at him, but I did anyhow.”
“So, what?”
“Her mother was in the album. Surrounded in multiple photos by piles of skulls.”
Austin’s eyebrows rose. “Whoa.”
“Yeah. It didn’t go over well. Plus, apparently, her mother’s been alive since at least the mid-eighteen-hundreds?”
“Hooboy.” Austin let out a low whistle and gave Damian a long look. “That explains it, then. I don’t have to be a dog to know you’re in the doghouse.”
Damian snorted. “How could you tell?”
“You’re here, for one,” Austin said. “And, I don’t know, you’ve just got that look about you. Don’t worry…usually, you’re too tightly wound for me to read. No, I only recognize this,” he said, waving his hand in Damian’s direction, “because I recognize it from myself.”
“How’s that?” Damian asked as his brow rose on his forehead.
“You’ve got the look that says you were caught making a mistake. It’s the kind of look I give women all the time, usually when they catch me out with someone else. Only yours is all sad and shit. Mine’s more, ‘I swear I didn’t mean to, baby.’” He said the last like he meant it—like he was actually apologizing to a woman—and Damian groaned.
“Grim’s right. You are a dog.”
“Et tu, Brute?” Austin said, clutching his heart like he’d been stabbed. Damian rolled his eyes.
“In any case,” Damian went on, “I don’t have to have looks like that because I’m never in relationships. You can’t fail to meet people’s expectations if you never let them have any.”
Austin eyed him. “Until now.”
“Until now,” Damian agreed slowly, as Austin continued to stare. “What?”
“You tell me,” Austin said.
“Fucking hell, Austin—”
“You really like her. Obviously.” The man was squinting at him, and Damian fought to maintain equilibrium.
“Yes, obviously. I’ve only come home smelling like her on multiple occasions. Congratulations, you’re the werewolf version of Sherlock Holmes.”
Austin moved forward to perch on the edge of his seat. “You’ve never given a shit about anyone romantically before…not even Guinevere.”
“So? Maybe it’s time for me to settle down,” Damian said, and Austin started laughing. “What?” Damian said, getting angrier by the moment.
“Please. You? Settle? As if.” Austin kicked back on the couch and gave a sharp snicker. “But if you’re not settling, and if you’re really settling down,” he said as his jaw fell slowly open. “Holy shit, Damian, she’s human! Does she know?”
Damian’s hands clenched into fists. Werewolves could also find their mates, so it wasn’t so unnatural that Austin could guess. “No, but if you tell her, I will gut you,” Damian swore.
“Tell her what?” Mills asked, padding into the room barefoot with a yawn. She was wearing pajamas almost exactly like the ones he’d given Andi, and Damian had been so intent on Austin not figuring out what Andi was to him that her incoming presence hadn’t even registered. She looked between them, sending the thick braid of her salt-and-pepper hair rolling across her back. “Hmm. Ryana’s still out cold, so if you’re talking about me—”
“We’re not,” Damian said definitively.
“He thinks Andi’s his mate,” Austin blurted out. Damian whipped his head to look at the werewolf, who threw his hands in the air. “I had to tell someone! And Zach’s not up!”
“Goddammit, Austin,” Damian cursed.
“Don’t gut him,” Mills counseled. “I mean, it’s not a big surprise, really.”
“Oh, so you’ve been talking to my dragon too?” Damian said, lowering his head to his hands.
“No, I mean, you’re different around her, is all. How many times do I have to tell you that I can read your aura when you’re feeling human?” She walked across the room to lay a warm hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Damian. You two suit each other…I’m happy for you.”
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He looked up at her and found her smiling. “Does everyone know?”
“Not literally, no. But now that you’ve told the mouth of the south over there, chances are they will shortly,” Mills teased, giving Austin a glance.
“I can keep secrets,” he protested.
“I can’t agree with you because I can’t lie,” she said, laughing.
Austin groaned, and Damian reached across his chest to squeeze Mills’s hand. He found the thought of Mills thinking he and Andi were suited for one another somehow more comforting than all his dragon’s talk of destiny. “What are you even doing up?”
“Jamison’s snoring woke me, so I came down to get a snack.”
“Just put a pillow over his head,” Austin snarked.
“Or just wake him,” Damian said, more reasonably.
Mills ignored Austin’s comment. “Why would I wake him up to stop him? It’s adorable. And it lets me know he’s still alive.”
“Do you worry about him dying often?” Damian asked. He hadn’t even thought to add ‘stopping breathing in the middle of the night’ to his list of fears for Andi until now.
“No,” Mills said with a shrug. “If he dies, I’ll bring him back.”
Austin and Damian looked to one another. “Now I kind of want to put a pillow over his head on purpose,” the werewolf said.
“This is, perhaps, why you’re single,” Damian said.
“Eh,” Austin shrugged. “Well, I guess no one wants a zombie Jamison wandering around.”
“No one said anything about zombies,” Mills said primly, sitting down on the far end of Austin’s couch.
“If you could bring people back from the dead, why didn’t you bring back Michael?” Damian asked her in all seriousness.
“Because I’m not entirely sure it can or should be done, or that I would be left whole after doing it. But if something happened to Jamison,” she said, looking off into the distance, thoughtfully, “I would be forced to try.”
Considering the things Damian had seen Mills do before, he said, “Understood. Although, let’s hope it never comes to that.”
“Agreed,” she said, giving him a cordial smile
“What’re we agreeing to?” Jamison asked, coming into the room with a plate full of cheese slices and a pile of crackers. Damian heard Grimalkin make a high-pitched whine.
“That you’re a snorer,” Austin told him.
“That if you die, I’ll be forced to attempt to resurrect you,” Mills explained. “So please, don’t.”
“Are we talking Walking Dead-style or Dawn of the Dead-style? Or 28 Days Later?” Jamison guessed, moving to sit by Mills on the couch, between her and Austin. “Ooooh, would my robot arm be a zombie arm too?”
Austin pointed at Jamison, proving his point with his eyebrows raised, as Mills leaned in to kiss Jamison’s cheek. “None of the above,” she said, before reaching over to grab a piece of cheese.
“Only Mills is allowed to eat my cheese, Damian,” Grimalkin clearly grumbled in his cat-language that only Damian could understand, from his spot on Ryana’s bed.
“Which, oddly, reminds me…there’s something I have to tell you all,” Damian said, leaning forward, ready to tell them about the Heart of the Dragon he’d had Grimalkin hide in his Forgetting Fire’s room earlier.
Austin rocked forward and looked at Jamison, “Damian thinks Andi is his mate.”
“What. The. Fuck. Austin,” Damian hissed.
“I’m sleep deprived!” Austin said chuckling. “Also, sharing good news is fun.”
Jamison appeared caught between at least three different emotions. “Is this a high-five situation? Or a congratulations thing? I want to be supportive but not tacky.”
“Does she know?” Mills asked Damian.
“No.” Damian shrugged. “She’s human.”
“How does that even work?” Jamison asked, setting himself up a bite of cheese on a cracker. Grimalkin hopped up to all fours on the bed and attempted to stare the man down. “Mister Grimsley, did you want some cheese?”
Grimalkin turned to stare at Damian, ears high and fur bristled. “Tell him if he calls me that, there will not be enough of him left for Mills to save,” Grimalkin growled, but then Mills cut in.
“Oh, no, no, Jamison…only I can call him that,” Mills corrected him, as Austin gestured for the plate to be passed.
“Mister Grimsley,” Austin said with a snort, as Mills handed the plate over.
“That goes double for him. I mean it, Damian,” Grimalkin warned.
Damian made a time-out gesture with his hands, gathering their attention. “First things first: no one else except Mills is allowed to touch cheese in this house without prior permission.”
“Why?” Austin asked, halfway through a bite.
“Damian, you can’t tell them!” Grimalkin protested with a yowl.
“Because…reasons,” Damian said, slicing through the air with a hand. “If you want it yourself, you can buy it. You can even buy it with my money, but if I buy it, it’s mine, okay?”
Jamison’s face lit up with a happy smile. “Andi really likes grilled cheeses, eh? No wonder she’s mate material.”
“Secondly,” Damian went on, talking over him, “yes, she’s human, and no, she doesn’t know, so no one here needs to go and tell her. Not that you’d get a chance to anyhow because, as Austin somehow surmised, I am currently in trouble and over here, alone.”
Austin clucked his tongue and rolled his eyes back in his head like he might go back to sleep. “Uh, with all your best friends and fighters, eating night cheese. This is hardly alone, brother.”
Damian looked around the room at them, even at his sleeping sister, who he hoped for his sake did not wake up to the chaos of this. There was no corollary to this comradery in the Realms, no way he could hope to explain it. “Fair enough,” he granted, relaxing enough to reach over to take a piece of cheese for himself. “Thirdly, and I meant to tell everyone this in the conference room earlier before you all decided that I was an asshole—”
“A fact which Andi seemed to agree on,” Mills interjected.
Damian glared at her, and she winced apologetically with a shrug. “Yes, well,” he recovered and continued, “my sister brought an object of power from the Realms through with her.”
Austin perked up again. “What kind?”
Damian inhaled deeply, about to tell them, then heard Max loudly clearing his throat in the hallway.
“Is Grim still in there, Austin? Is there a reason that I can’t get into the room with the Forgetting Fire?” Max said, coming into the room to find all of them present with a look of surprise, his blond eyebrows arched above his goggles. He was wearing black workout gear and looked ready to go outside. “Why is there a party without me?”
“It’s a cheese party. This is the last of the cheese that the men are allowed to have,” Mills announced, handing the cheese plate over to him. He took it, looking highly out of place, and Grimalkin began a snort-purring kind of laughter.
“Where are you off to this late?” Jamison asked.
“Running,” Max said, plucking at his black shorts with his free hand, which made the paleness of his skin even starker. “I go out in the dark, so no one sees the goggles, or if they do, I can say they’re night vision or some nonsense.”
Austin took all of the bear-shifter in. “Christ, do people driving by you think they’ve seen a ghost? Should we be offering small children therapy?”
Damian pinched the bridge of his nose. “Max, the reason you can’t get into the room with the main brazier of Forgetting Fire is because my sister brought the Heart of the Dragon through with her, and I had Grimalkin hide it there.”
His old weapons master instantly began cursing. “You’re kidding, right? No…you wouldn’t…not about that.”
“What’s that?” Jamison asked around a mouthful of crackers.
“Trouble, I’m guessing,” Mills said.
Austin leaned forwar
d, put a hand to his mouth, and whistled loudly enough to make Mills cover her ears.
“What the hell, Austin,” Jamison complained on her behalf.
“Look, if we have an impromptu meeting without Zach he’ll feel left out, so whatever the fuck this is, hang on. Also, cover your ears again,” he said, and then whistled one more time. They all heard a distant slamming door.
“Coming!” Zach shouted from somewhere above.
“Okay? So. Hold off,” Austin said, looking around.
“Bad news is better with cheese at least,” Maximillian grumbled, taking a slice from the plate he held.
Damian closed his eyes and shook his head. This…was insane. But it was good. And without Andi in his life right now, being here with his crew was the next best thing.
Zach thundered into the room shortly thereafter. “Whoa…why’s everyone up? What’d I miss?”
“Dragons and hearts,” Austin said, drawing a heart in the air with his forefingers like a schoolgirl, giving Damian a knowing smirk.
Chapter 11
Damian gave them the truncated version of the story he’d told Andi, about his great-whatever ancestor having forged an alliance with a dragon only to betray it completely, stealing its power, but in doing so bringing a curse down on his house. And…that in the fight between Damian and his dragon, his dragon would eventually win.
“So, you’re going to give the Heart over to us to study, right?” Mills asked when he was finished.
“Yes, but any time you open the box it’s in, you’ll have to warn me first.”
“Why?” Zach asked.
“Because the box it’s in is a magical dampener. When it’s open, its effects work faster, and my dragon….” Damian inhaled deeply, remembering how wild the thing was when they were at the mall. “It lets it be more in charge,” Austin grunted warily, and Damian nodded at the man. “Yeah. We don’t always agree on things. It hurts. And it’s hard to control.”
“Which is why you’ve been making me work on that gun to kill you,” Jamison stated.
Dragon Fated: A Billionaire Dragon Shifter Romance (Prince of the Other Worlds) Page 18
