by Rinelle Grey
Rowan though, had no such issues. She’d half heard her son telling Calrian all about the TV show he was watching, and had giggled to herself a couple of times at simple things that the dragon shifter didn’t seem to understand.
Rowan seemed to find it amusing too.
They both came in together, still talking.
“But how can a car transform into a human?” Calrian asked.
“They’re not humans, they’re robots,” Rowan explained patiently. “They’re cybernetic beings, machines, but they’re intelligent, like we are.”
Calrian shook his head, as though he still didn’t understand. “Does your car have intelligence? Can it change into one of these… things?”
Rowan shook his head. “No, of course not. It’s just an ordinary car. Like… like I’m just an ordinary human, but you can change into a dragon.”
Calrian nodded seriously. “I can see the similarities. So the intelligent cars that can shift are elsewhere in your world?”
Rowan giggled. “No, they’re just a made up story. They’re not real.”
“But they looked real. They moved and talked as if they were real.” Calrian’s confusion was definitely real.
Rylee took pity on him. “They draw and animate them. Like pages of a book moving really fast.”
Calrian still looked perplexed, but he nodded as if he understood. “So I should take things on this… TV… with a grain of salt?”
“Definitely.” Rylee nodded. “And right now, you should eat your dinner.”
Neither Calrian nor Rowan argued with that. They sat down and started eating the spaghetti and meatballs with gusto. Rylee sat down too, and she couldn’t help comparing this to dinner with Eric. He’d always complained if Rowan talked with his mouth full. He’d complained if she’d done it too, if she was being honest. Dinners had been a mostly silent affair, with no one wanting to risk setting him off, and Rowan eager to be given permission to leave the table and return to his room.
He certainly hadn’t been talking eagerly, shovelling his food in between sentences, as he was now.
She smiled as she watched him, and couldn’t help thinking that this was how it was supposed to be. This was what she’d imagined when she and Eric had started out.
She’d only known Calrian for a few days, but already she knew he was a far better man than her ex-husband had ever been. The thought caused her heart to do a little somersault.
“After dinner, we can watch some more TV,” Rowan promised. “The soapies are on then though.” He made a face.
“Soapies?” Calrian asked. “Is that something to do with bathing?”
Rowan laughed. “No, they’re… like… shows about real people. Well, not real people. The things that happen are still pretend, but the actors are real, and they’re about things that could happen in real life.”
“So people drive in real cars in this show?” Calrian asked.
Rowan nodded and paused for a few moments while he chewed and swallowed another forkful of food. “Yeah,” he said eventually. “They meet each other and fight and talk and sometimes get married.”
“Married?” Calrian raised an eyebrow, and for some reason he looked over at her.
Rowan didn’t seem to notice and kept talking. “Yeah, married, like when two people fall in love and want to live together. Don’t dragons get married?”
“We call it mating,” Calrian said.
Rowan’s eyes grew a little rounded, and Rylee could almost see his focus shift from explaining TV to Calrian to being curious about his life as a dragon.
She had to admit, she was curious too. Especially about this mating thing. She both wanted to know more and was afraid to ask. Not that the things she wanted to know were the type of things to discuss in front of her eleven-year-old son.
But Rowan’s next question wasn’t the one she’d expected. “Do you have a mate?” he asked Calrian curiously.
Even though Rylee was pretty sure he didn’t, the question caused her heart to skip a beat for a second.
She felt an inordinate relief when Calrian shook his head. “I had not yet found a woman I wished to spend my life with before I went to sleep,” he said solemnly.
Rowan nodded. “It must be hard to find someone you like enough to want to get married to.”
Calrian nodded seriously. “It is.”
Rowan started to eat another meatball, but froze with his fork halfway to his mouth. He looked from Calrian, to her, then back again, and Rylee could almost see the cogs turning.
Maybe because her own thoughts were going that way too, no matter how hard she tried to tell them not to.
“Does anyone want a drink of water?” she said, her voice a little too loud. She pushed back her chair and stood up.
Her diversion worked. Rowan nodded and ate his meatball, and Calrian said, “Yes please.”
Rylee headed to the fridge to get the cold water.
Unfortunately, Rowan was only diverted for a short time. As Rylee poured water into the glasses, he said, “It would be cool if you and my mum fell in love and got married. Or mated, I guess. Can humans and dragons mate?”
Rylee winced and kept pouring, not wanting the task to end. She actually wanted to know the answer to that question, even though she knew she shouldn’t, but she didn’t want to see Calrian’s expression as he answered. The silence behind her was deafening.
When she turned around, Calrian was saying, “Yes, humans and dragons can mate, although it was very unusual in my time. While your mother is, indeed, a wonderful person,” he looked at her and smiled, then turned back to Rowan, “I have a job I have to do right now that takes precedence over everything else. I need to find my family. I can’t think about mates until I know they are safe.”
Could Rylee hear a hint of regret in his voice?
Why was she even thinking about this? It was irrelevant. She was keeping her distance either way. She knew nothing could happen between them. She’d made that clear before Calrian had even had to.
And it wasn’t like she could blame Calrian for wanting to find his family. It made sense.
Rowan was nodding too. “I understand,” he said. Then he leaned in closer to Calrian. “But just in case, when that’s done, my mum is awesome. I can put in a good word with her for you if you like. Having a dragon for a stepdad would be amazing.”
Rylee’s heart gave a little squeeze. She knew, objectively, that even though Rowan didn’t miss Eric, he did miss having a father figure in his life. She’d seen him look longingly at other dads playing catch or having a barbeque with their kids in the park, though he pretended not to.
But she refused to feel guilty about that. Having no father was far better than what he’d had with Eric. She had no doubt about that.
Calrian’s eyes met hers, and she could see the sympathy and understanding in them. Somehow, that made it worse.
Rylee returned to the table and handed everyone a glass of water. “Eat up,” she told them, her voice falsely cheerful. “There’s ice cream for dessert, but only if you empty your plate.”
“Oh, you’re going to love ice cream,” Rowan told Calrian.
The moment passed, and he was onto talking about the next thing he wanted to show Calrian.
Rylee just wished she could forget as easily.
Chapter 18
Rowan settled down to watch more TV after dinner, but even though Calrian suspected that the strange device could tell him a lot about humans, he only half listened as Rowan tried to explain the convoluted story on the ‘soapie’.
Rylee was moving around in the kitchen, carrying the dishes from the table to the sink, and filling it with hot water.
Calrian felt bad sitting around while she was working. Whatever she had been doing earlier, that had not been because of him. But he had eaten with her, helped make those dishes dirty. He couldn’t just leave her to deal with the mess alone.
“I’m just going to go see if your mum needs help,” he told Rowan.
Calrian suspected that his suggestion was motivated by the desire to see him mate with his mother. He could see that Rowan liked that idea, even though he wasn’t quite sure why.
Calrian wasn’t completely averse to the idea. The truth was, the idea of settling down with Rylee held a lot of appeal. If he couldn’t find his clan, then he would need to find a place in this world. And being with Rylee, making a family with her and Rowan, that would be easy. Sweet and tempting.
Calrian shook his head.
He would find his clan. There was no point in thinking about what he would do if he couldn’t. That would be accepting defeat, and he refused to do that.
But there was no denying that he had a good excuse to spend time with Rylee right now. He needed her assistance. That meant he could justify walking into the kitchen and saying, “Can I help?”
She looked up, a little startled, and stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment.
Calrian wondered if he’d inadvertently spoken the wrong words. “Rowan said I should offer to help you dry the dishes?” he suggested. “I would be happy to do so, if you would explain what to do.”
That seemed to snap Rylee out of her confusion. “Of course. There’s a tea towel there. You just dry them, then stack them with the same ones in the cupboard there.”
The job seemed simple enough, though Calrian did have to concentrate a little for the first few dishes. But the silence, as he worked next to Rylee, wasn’t in the least bit uncomfortable.
In fact, it was something he could get used to.
Calrian shook his head. He needed to stop thinking like that. Needed to stop wondering if he was ever going to find his clan and if all this searching was pointless. He couldn’t even begin to think of settling down with Rylee without having exhausted all possible options to find his clan. He owed them that much.
He was a prince. A leader of his clan. If his brothers and sisters were all still asleep, or worse, gone, then his clan had been leaderless all this time. He had an obligation to them, one that took precedence over any personal wishes he might have.
No matter how tempting they were.
“I’m sorry about Rowan earlier,” Rylee said, breaking the silence. “He misses having a dad around, that’s all.”
Calrian wanted to ask more, like what had happened between her and Rowan’s father. But Rylee’s face was closed. She wouldn’t meet his eyes, concentrating instead on the washing up with far more attention than the shiny clean plate she was holding needed.
“That’s all right,” Calrian said, not sure what else to say. “He’s a good kid.”
They returned to working in silence, Calrian listening to the TV in the other room with half an ear. It would have been hard not to as a young woman was having a loud argument with… a parent, Calrian suspected, who objected to her choice of mate.
“Thanks,” Rylee said, when the last dish was dried and put away.
“It was no problem,” Calrian insisted.
And it wasn’t. The task certainly hadn’t been onerous in the least, and the company certainly had been pleasant.
Commenting on that wasn’t in line with keeping his distance, as Rylee had requested, so he didn’t voice it, just smiled at her.
She smiled back.
They headed into the living room and sat down. Rylee picked up some metal sticks and some long, thin, pliable material, and began to do something, moving her hands in a quick rhythm that was strangely hypnotising.
“What are you doing?” Calrian asked after a few minutes of staring at her.
Rylee looked up, her eyes meeting his, but her hands kept moving as though of their own violation. “I’m knitting. Making slippers.” She held up one of the sticks with a square of the long string tangled together into some kind of pattern. He could see that it was similar to those on her feet.
Even human clothes were different to dragon clothes. If dragons bothered with clothes at all, it was simple leather coverings. Nothing like Rylee’s knitting.
“That’s amazing,” Calrian said.
Rylee blushed and shrugged. “My mum taught me when I was little. I find it calming. Plus, it’s useful.”
Calrian nodded, and watched her for a few moments, but he could see that his attention was making her nervous. Her fingers fumbled, and she almost dropped the metal sticks once. So he forced his attention back to the TV, only peeking at her when she became relaxed again, careful not to do so for too long and be noticed.
He had no idea why he found her so fascinating. Perhaps because the things she did were so unfamiliar and foreign to him. Or perhaps it was just the Mesmer bond that still throbbed in the back of his mind, making it impossible to ignore her.
It didn’t matter where she was in the house, he was achingly aware of her.
Achingly aware that he couldn’t have her.
He knew the drill. The things you couldn’t have always preyed on your mind the most. He tried to tell himself that was all this was—the fact that he couldn’t have her, combined with the powerful magic of the Mesmer bond.
But it didn’t matter. It didn’t make it any easier to bear.
Sometimes, for short periods of time, he managed to forget about the aching desire. Usually though, those moments were when he was closer to her, or interacting with her in some fashion. Right now, when they sat on opposite sides of the room, their distance was painfully obvious.
“Time for you to get ready for bed,” Rylee said to Rowan firmly, after music began to play and words scrolled across the screen, a sign Calrian was coming to recognise as indicating that the TV show was coming to an end.
Her son grumbled, but not too much. He got up off the couch and headed into the bathroom to clean his teeth. He was half way across the room when he paused. He turned around to Calrian and asked, “Where are you going to sleep?”
Calrian froze. He’d forgotten about Rylee’s worry that her son would figure things out. He hardly dared look at her for fear that her son would guess where he wanted to be sleeping. He hoped though, that she’d answer the question before the silence became too painfully obvious, because he had no idea what to say. They’d discussed this possibility, but he couldn’t remember what they had decided.
“I’ll take care of Calrian,” Rylee said, her voice firm. “You worry about cleaning your teeth.”
But Rowan didn’t budge. He looked from one to the other, waiting for an answer.
Rylee sighed. “Calrian needs to stay close to me, so he’ll be sleeping in my room.”
Calrian watched her son closely.
Rowan stared at each of them one last time, his eyes widening a little. He opened his mouth, as if to say something, then snapped it shut. Then he just nodded and disappeared into the bathroom.
Rylee sighed and bit her lip. “I don’t think that went so well.”
“I’m not sure it could have gone better,” Calrian pointed out.
Rylee gave a humourless laugh. “I guess not.”
Calrian suspected that if they found one of his brothers or sisters tomorrow, she’d be glad to get rid of him and the problems he was causing.
And he couldn’t say he blamed her.
Chapter 19
“We’d better get going,” Rylee said. “We need to be back before Rowan gets home from school.”
She had no idea how long it would take to find Calrian’s brothers and sisters, or if they would even be able to find them, but she couldn’t help feeling excited. This was far more exciting than the weekly shopping that she’d decided to blow off. And a little dangerous too.
That thought sobered her a little. Rowan was safely off at school, and Rylee hadn’t even told him what they’d planned to do, knowing he would want to come with them if she had.
If anything happened to her, she’d never see him again.
&
nbsp; But it wouldn’t, would it?
Even though she no longer had any doubts about the fact that Calrian was a dragon, she still found it hard to really comprehend what that meant. He’d said the enemy dragons threw lightning. That thought was more than intimidating.
But he’d also said they should be unaware that he and Rylee were even there. And that if there was any risk to her at all, they’d leave at once. He seemed certain that the car could outrun a dragon.
She’d be fine. And once she helped Calrian find his family, he’d no longer be alone. He wouldn’t need her as much. And maybe he’d be distracted from his focus on her. Maybe his family would have more of an idea how to find his clan than he did, and then she’d be able to escape his tempting presence.
That thought made her feel more sad than relieved.
As if guessing the turn her thoughts had taken, Calrian took a step closer to her, his strong presence and masculine scent hitting her full force. “You don’t have to do this, Rylee. You have already done so much for me.”
She was going to miss him so much when he was gone. Miss his presence, his sweet, caring nature.
The way her blood heated and her heart leapt whenever he looked at her or said her name in that deep, sexy voice of his.
Rylee bit back a sigh. This Mesmer bond was really messing with her mind.
Yeah, she could blame it on that, but the truth was, she wasn’t sure she’d react much differently without it. He was not only the sexiest man she’d ever met, he was also the most considerate.
She still couldn’t help smiling to herself when she remembered him helping her with the washing up last night. Eric had certainly never done that. And she didn’t think her father had ever helped her mother either. After her mother had died when Rylee was in her late teens, up until she was married, the job had fallen to her.
Yes, it was certainly easy to understand why she felt this way about him, even if she knew it couldn’t come to anything more permanent.
