Dragon's Chosen Mate

by Riley Storm

  She frowned at his snarky response. “Really? Cause you’re acting like it now.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I caught you out of mid-air. Brought you back to Winterspell. Took care of you when nobody else was. There’s food and drink on your bedside. I’ve been standing—well, lying—down, ensuring nobody can come disturb you while you heal. Yes, I am the rude one.”

  “Why am I in your quarters?” she asked, her eyes drawn to the water and bread on the side table. She was famished. Her stomach was already growling at her, telling her to put food in it.

  “Your building was on alert. Everyone going crazy. I brought you here to sleep better, so you could heal.” He shrugged. “No other reason.”

  “Well, thank you,” she said.

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  “You know, would it kill you to not be a dick to me for thirty-seconds?” she snapped, anger brushing aside the last of her sleep. “I just woke up from a magically induced healing coma. I’m a little out of it, and a lot hungry. I really do not want to get into it with you right now, but if you refuse to be nice, then I will.”

  Altair snorted. “Why do I need to be nice to someone like you? Look where it got me last time.”

  “Someone like me?” she shouted. “Altair, you don’t even know me!”

  “Oh, please. I know exactly who you are. What you are. You’re a manipulative witch who used me to make herself look better for the other witches, so you could be put in command of the response team.”

  He said it with such utter conviction that it took Christine several long moments of staring in disbelief to even process the logic he was using.

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “I’m not joking. I’m right.”

  “No, you aren’t,” she snapped, laughing in his face. “Not even remotely so.”

  “What do you mean?” he said hotly, glaring at her as she continued to chuckle.

  “For me to tell you, you’d have to stop making all sorts of assumptions about me first. Then you could ask me, and maybe you’d know. But until you’re ready to be a mature adult about everything, I’m not going to waste my breath on you, Altair. Now thanks for the bread and water and for saving my life, but I’m done defending myself to you over something I didn’t do!”

  Altair leaned back, staring at her for a long time.

  “What do you mean, you didn’t do?” he asked in a calmer, inquisitive voice.

  For the second time in five minutes, Christine was caught totally by surprise at his attitude change. She looked at him, trying to puzzle him out. Just when she thought she was getting a handle on him, he went and showed that he was capable of much more than she thought.

  “Here,” she said softly, pulling something out of her upper robe pocket. There were some streaks of blood on it, but it had survived intact otherwise. “Read this. All of it this time,” she said. “Not just who it’s addressed to.”

  Altair hesitated.

  “I’m not reading it out loud,” she said angrily. “Here.”

  He reluctantly took it from her, opening the letter.

  “Dear Julian,” he read tightly.

  It was the letter she’d been sending back to him. The letter that Jessie had encouraged her to write. Only, she wasn’t writing what her friend wanted.

  “You’re turning him down,” Altair said quietly, looking up at her.

  “Yes, I was,” she stated. “I was turning him down. Saying no. Telling him to please stop sending me letters. Because I wasn’t interested. Do you want to know why I wasn’t interested?” she asked.

  “Why?” She could see in his eyes that he had a suspicion of what she was going to say, but he asked anyway.

  “Because I found someone else, Altair. Someone that I was interested in. Not to mention, I was never interested in him. We met once, at a bar. He bought me a drink, we talked. He got it in his mind that we were destined to be together. I’ve not responded to any of his letters. I usually read them and throw them away, if I even do that much. The second one, I burnt the second I realized it was from him.”

  “Oh.” Altair looked down, face filling with shame.

  “The only reason I wrote him now, was because I had a reason to say no,” she said quietly. “A reason to let him down. I don’t know why I didn’t earlier, I guess I was keeping my options open or something. We don’t exactly meet a lot of men around here, and the biological clock is ticking, but ugh. I wish I had told him from the start. I didn’t want this to happen.”

  Altair nodded. “I…I understand,” he said, thoroughly embarrassed by this point.

  “The only reason I didn’t do anything with this letter and the response I started writing, is because I got so busy with training, and with spending most of my free time with a certain other person,” she said, looking at him levelly.

  Licking his lips, Altair nodded. “Thank you for explaining that,” he said quietly. “I…I am sorry I leapt to conclusions.” He shrugged. “I don’t really know what else I can say besides that. This is all on me.”

  She thought about telling him that yes, it was his fault. That he’d screwed up and made everything far worse than it had to be. A simple question, a ‘what is this’ and a chance for her to explain would have sorted it all out. But he hadn’t done that.

  But then she would just be holding a grudge, making things worse. And that helped no one. She didn’t want to be mad at him. In fact, right then, the thing she wanted the most was to fall into his arms and cry about everything that had happened at the Outpost, to thank him for saving her life.

  “You were hurting,” she said quietly at last. “You assume everyone hates you. But as you can see, that isn’t the case.”

  Altair looked down. She shook her head. No, that wasn’t allowed. Reaching out, she took his chin and forced him to look up at her as she spoke.

  “But if I’m to forgive you, then I need to know why you leapt to that conclusion, Altair. I need to know what it is that’s eating you from the inside. Making you assume the worst.

  She stroked his cheek. “You need to tell me what your hurt is.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Altair

  He trembled under her touch.

  Tell her?

  “I don’t want you to think lesser of me,” he admitted.

  “You’ve said that before,” Christine pointed out softly. “But you can’t keep using that as an excuse. Not with me at least. Let me in, Altair. I promise it won’t hurt.”

  “How can you make that promise?” he wanted to know. If she reacted badly or said she didn’t want him around after he told her, he would…he would be devastated.

  “Because I know you,” she said, continuing to caress his cheek. “The other dragons have not judged you; they continue to see you as equal. It’s quite obvious that whatever you judge yourself for, nobody else does. That makes me confident in saying that I won’t judge you either.”

  Altair looked down. Rather, he tried to. Again, her fingers gripped his jaw and she lifted his head to force him to keep looking at her.

  “Don’t avoid me,” she said softly. “I’m here, giving you another chance. Opening myself up to you, after the hurt I just experienced.”

  He frowned.

  “What, is hurt and pain exclusive to you?” she challenged. “Are you the only one allowed to feel sad and down after something happens? I opened myself up to you, Altair, and I got something I didn’t even do thrown in my face by you, making me feel like I was a bad person when I didn’t commit any wrong.”

  He grimaced. She was right, after all. Here he was, acting like the victim, but in reality, she was the one that got hurt. If he’d not snooped, or if he’d given her a chance to explain, none of that would have happened. It was his actions that had hurt her.

  Altair’s dragon surged inside him. It did not like the idea that he’d hurt Christine, that he’d left her in pain. That made him feel sick to his stomach, to the point he nearly bent over with nausea.

&
nbsp; “What did I do,” he whispered to himself.

  Christine wisely didn’t respond, giving him time to organize his thoughts, to pull himself together.

  If you want to keep her, you’re going to have to go out on a limb for her. She’s trusting you now with her feelings, giving you another shot. But only if you can do the same. Is she worth it?

  To his utter surprise and visible shock, the answer slammed into Altair like a bullet. When he phrased it that way, there simply was nothing that was worth more to him, in that moment, at that second, than the woman sitting across from him.

  “Who are you?” he whispered, staring at her anew, seeing her in a different light at long last. “How do you hold such power over me?”

  Christine smiled. “I don’t hold anything. Just you.”

  He shuddered. There was something deeper, stronger in that pronouncement, but he couldn’t quite lay a finger on it. His mind was moving too fast to stop and focus.

  “It happened during the war,” he said quietly, speaking while his guard was down, not sure when it would come back. If it ever does with her. “Back on Dracia.”

  Christine nodded, not seeming surprised. It probably wasn’t that hard to discern at least that much. He should give her some credit.

  “The war didn’t last all that long in the grand scheme of a planetary invasion. They simply rolled over us like a wave,” he said. “But we adapted and worked with what we had. As we retreated from city after city, many of our kin were left behind.”

  He got up and moved to sit next to her on the bed at this point. She scooted aside, making room for him, though as soon as he sat down, she was at his side, one arm around the back of his shoulders, the other taking his hand and holding it tight. Still she didn’t speak, letting him take his time, form his thoughts without interruption.

  She’s just perfect.

  “Once we acknowledged the reality that we were going to lose, we started to focus on next steps. How to best keep our race alive,” he explained. “Which meant women. Children. I was part of a stealth team tasked with infiltrating cities that had been overrun and rescuing groups of the two that had been trapped when our forces retreated. It always happened so fast that it was hard to get many of the non-combatants out.” He snorted. “I guess I should say it was mostly children. Dracian women are…well, non-combatant is not a term used to describe them. Except right after childbirth.”

  “I would have liked to meet some of them,” Christine said, speaking at least. “They sound like my kind of women.”

  He grinned, a real, genuine smile. “Yes, yes I think you would have gotten on well with them. Perhaps a little too well for my liking,” he joked.

  Christine smiled and stroked his cheek, running a finger along his ear, but she remained silent, having said her piece.

  “The last mission before we all retreated to Fortress Glacis for the final battle,” he said, laying the stage. “I went in, like usual. Storm dragons are adept at stealth and concealing themselves. I was good. I am good. But this time it was difficult. More of the Infected troops had stayed behind than usual. It took me extra time to reach the children. We moved as fast as we could to escape, but something went wrong. The diversion went off early. The sentries between us and freedom were alert.” He shuddered. “I tried…”

  Silence filled the room as he hung his head. This time, Christine didn’t try to lift him up again. She let him absorb the loss, remembering the pain.

  “We were so close, Christine,” he said, feeling a strange source of strength in his stomach, propelling him to continue. To keep talking. “The wall was in sight. I held off the incoming Infected. They ran for it. Then...” He shuddered. “It came up from the ground. Like a nightmare of shadow and darkness. They…they didn’t stand a chance.”

  “How did you escape?” she wanted to know.

  “Another dragon, one of my team, appeared. They took on the sentries, told me to go after the children.” Altair sighed. “I was caught in the middle. I couldn’t stop the sentries, or the dragon. All this power, this strength, wasted,” he snarled. “I could do nothing while they died.”

  Christine nodded slowly. “You say this was your job during the war?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “How many missions did you run?”

  Altair shrugged. “I don’t know. Dozens. We were always retreating, there was always a city that was lost faster than everyone could evacuate. Dozens, maybe hundreds. It was a blur.”

  “How many times did it go wrong?”

  “Twice. That time, and another, where we got to the coordinates only to find it a hub of Infected activity. We lost a few escaping that time, but we made it.”

  “So, you rescued hundreds upon hundreds of your people on these missions. People who could not fight themselves, helpless noncombatants that lived for another day. Because of you.”

  “But…”

  “Yes. You couldn’t save them all, Altair. But the key is you saved some of them. You did something. You fought and stood. Even the last one, you said that the diversion went off early. Did you set it off?”

  “No,” he said quietly.

  “So how can you take the blame for that?”

  “Well I don’t, but I should still have gotten them out,” he countered.

  “Not every situation has a solution,” Christine said quietly. “As much as we want there to be one. Sometimes, the other side gets the better of us. The key is ensuring that we don’t let one occurrence knock us down. We have to get back up, dust ourselves off and try again.”

  He started to speak, but she pressed a finger to his lips.

  “Tell me. Did any of your missions ever require you to alter it midway through? To adapt on the fly?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “So, you didn’t give up there when the enemy got the better of you, did you? You pushed on.”

  “I guess…” He didn’t really think that was the same.

  “Why are you giving up now?”

  Her words hit him like a slap across the face. “What are you talking about? There’s nothing left to fight for. We lost, in case you missed that.”

  Christine looked like she wanted to hit him in frustration. “That’s not what I’m talking about, Altair. You weren’t fighting on the front lines, were you? No. You were tasked with continuing your race. With ensuring its survival.”

  Bewildered, he nodded in agreement. “What is your point?”

  “My point is you can still work on that. With me, or another woman. We can help you continue the race. That’s, uh, that’s kind of what we’re built for.”

  “We don’t even know if we’re compatible,” he pointed out.

  “Yes, you’re right,” she said. “But have you made the effort to find out?”

  He went still, trying to process her words.

  “You’re saying that if I can’t save any more Dracian young, it’s my duty to create more?” he asked, feeling like he’d finally puzzled it out.

  “Yes. To keep your race alive.” She held up a hand. “Now I’m not saying that I’m willing to be your brood mare. That’s…that’s looking ahead. But there is something between us, Altair. I feel it. If you open yourself up to it, I think you feel it too.”

  He bit his lip, but he couldn’t disagree with her. There was, that intangible tug that he couldn’t ignore. That made him want to always be near her, to keep a smile on her face. To make her happy.

  “I…I’ve never thought about it like that,” he said quietly.

  “I know,” Christine said dryly. “That much is obvious. But it’s okay. I’m here for you. I’ll help open you up to many a new point of view.”

  She kissed his cheek, then forced his head to turn so she could kiss him on the lips.

  They fell back into the bed together, his weight pressing down over her.

  “You would definitely get along too well with female Dracians for my liking,” he murmured, eliciting a laugh before they silenced each other fo
r the time being, more interested in each other’s touch.

  Clothes were removed in quick order as he positioned himself between her legs. There would be no exotic positions or extreme effort this time. Both of them were still tired and recovering from the fight, but they couldn’t deny this need.

  They had survived, though it had been close with Christine. This time, as he lay over her, watching her face slacken and tighten as he stroked into her, there was a lightness to his body that Altair hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

  She was good for him. So very good.

  He could see her tiring, the moment not taking long to arrive as whatever energy she’d conjured up was used. They cried out together as he came, their mutual pleasure making the other side happy.

  Altair was still propped up on top of her, resting his weight on his elbows, staring tenderly into her face when the voice started speaking from behind him.

  “All response team members to the courtyard in one hour.”

  He sagged, recognizing Circe’s voice. “Something must be wrong,” he said quietly.

  “Yeah,” Christine said distractedly from where she’d poked her head out from under his arm. “Um. Her face is still there.”

  He rolled off of her to see that Circe’s face was indeed still hovering in mid-air.

  “Apprentice Sinnclare,” the voice said.

  Altair tensed at the personal greeting. Circe was there. In his chambers.

  “Uh, yes Circe?”

  “It is good to see that you are up and about.” There was a pause. “Well, that you are about.”

  Altair snickered at the snide comment directed at the fact that Christine was most definitely not up, but down. On her back. Under him. He was oddly proud of that fact.

  It earned him a sharp elbow to the ribs, but he was still chuckling as he rolled off her.

  “Thank you, Circe. What can I do for you?”

  “Report to my office immediately.” There was another pause. “Report to my office once you are free of any other obligations.”

  Then the image was gone.

  Altair looked at Christine to see that she was red in the face.

  He just howled with laughter, fully accepting the pillow she swung in his face.