Oh, My Dragon

by Lani Lynn Vale

  “Nothing happened or ‘passed’ as you say,” I said. “I can just read her. I know.”

  “You know what?” Keifer asked tiredly.

  “That she dream walks. Your son isn’t your son…”

  Chapter 7

  I was asked why I use the f-bomb so much. I replied with, “What the fuck is an F-bomb?”

  -Why Ian can’t be taken to nice places

  Ian

  The moment Kiefer’s hand smashed into my face, I was running.

  Not because I was scared of Keifer, but because the motherfucker had hit me.

  And whatever happened to me was now transferred to my mate.

  My mate.

  Even the words sounded foreign to me, but it was what it was.

  I hit the stairs at a dead run, wiping blood away from my nose as I went.

  It kept pouring out, so I ignored it in favor of concentrating on the steps.

  I was glad I did as I came up to the last one and found Wink lying at the top of them, unconscious from the psychic blow she’d just received.

  Keifer’s fist slamming into my face had hurt like a motherfucker, but it’d only stunned me for seconds at most.

  Keifer’s punch straight to Wink’s face, psychic as it was, was not only enough to stun her, but it’d knocked her out cold.

  “Wink,” I whispered, dropping down to my knees on the top step and bending over so I could run a scan.

  Placing my hand on her cheek, I closed my eyes and let my mind drift out of my own body and into hers.

  Doing this left me vulnerable, but I knew I was safe here among the dragon riders, despite the fact that Keifer had just punched me in the face, and essentially, my mate.

  He hadn’t thought through the consequences of his actions, otherwise he would’ve never hit me, which, in turn, hurt Wink.

  That didn’t mean I didn’t want to punch the shit out of him.

  But I, at least, thought about the consequences of my actions.

  Meaning I didn’t beat the shit out of the motherfucker like I wanted to do.

  Badly.

  “Shit. Fuck,” Keifer said from the stairs behind me.

  I didn’t bother answering him as I finished my scan of Wink’s body.

  The only damage I could find was to her face, and that was only superficial.

  I didn’t leave her where she was.

  Instead, I picked her up, turned on my heel and moved down the stairs.

  Keifer wisely moved out of my way, but I still flayed him alive with my glare as I walked past.

  “Ian,” Keifer said softly. “I’m sorry.”

  Sorry wasn’t good enough.

  I didn’t bother to reply, walking past everyone that stood watching me without a word, straight out the door.

  For once in his life, Mace was where I needed him to be—right outside the door.

  Guess I’d be leaving my bike here in a safe place instead of on the side of the road when Mace finally deigned to grace me with his presence.

  “Thank you, Mace,” I said gruffly, walking up to him and mounting his back with practiced ease.

  Mace took off without another word, and I used my legs to hold myself on Mace’s back as we flew back to my property.

  He landed in the backyard just as Wink was rousing.

  She moaned and tried to turn, which only brought her deeper into my arms.

  She snuggled deep and sighed, her eyes fluttering open slightly before they slammed back closed.

  “The sun,” she whined. “It burns!”

  I laughed and slid off of Mace’s back, going up to my door and pressing my thumb against the scanner.

  It read my fingerprint and immediately opened.

  “My face hurts,” she said, twisting slightly.

  Her eyes opened once we were in the darkness of the kitchen, and she stared at me in confusion.

  “You have blood all over you,” she whispered, pain filling her voice.

  “You do, too,” I said, taking her to the kitchen counter and dropping her on her bottom next to the sink.

  “What happened?” her voice cracked, as well as her jaw, as she asked that.

  I winced, turning to face her fully.

  “I forgot to mention something this morning,” I said.

  Her brows rose.

  “Okay,” she drawled. “How about you tell me as I clean your face.”

  Her eyes studied my face, and I pushed her hand away before she could grab the washcloth.

  “No,” I said. “You’ll let me do you first. Listen as I clean.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “I bet that’s the first time you’ve ever said that,” she said cheekily.

  I started to clean her face as I spoke.

  “I told you about the powers we acquire from our dragons. What I forgot to mention was that when you and I bonded, you also acquired the ability to feel what I feel. Whether that be happiness, excitement, anger. Or pain.”

  She blinked.

  “Pain?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “These tattoos,” I dragged my finger across her neck. “They do more than just show everyone that you belong to me.”

  “What else do they do?” she asked warily, her eyes scanning my face.

  I threw the washcloth into the sink, which she promptly picked up and turned back to me. This time she cleaned me up.

  “When I feel pain, you feel pain. Such as when Keifer slammed his fist into my mouth about ten minutes ago, it not only affected me, but you as well,” I informed her.

  “What about when I have my period?” she asked. “Or when I have a baby. Will you feel that pain, too?”

  I was shaking my head before she finished, trying to will my heart to slow upon hearing ‘when I have a baby’, and said, “No. Anything that your own body does to you, will stay with you. Such as if I acquired cancer and died, you would feel none of that pain that was directly involved with it. I would be very aware that you were going through childbirth or cramps, but I wouldn’t necessarily have to feel everything.”

  She shivered.

  “Cancer sucks.”

  I nodded.

  “It does,” I agreed.

  “My dad died of cancer,” she said.

  I knew, but I didn’t want to let on that I did.

  I’d had her thoroughly investigated before I’d allowed her to come into my home. In fact, I’d had her investigated so deeply that I knew that she sucked at science, but excelled greatly at art, and music in high school and had actually taken up photography while still in school.

  She was also dyslexic, something I’d found out when I had Nikolai hack into her school records.

  That was something I was fairly sure she wouldn’t want me to know, at least not yet.

  Likely not anytime soon, either.

  “I’m sorry. So did my parents,” I said softly.

  Her eyes widened.

  “Both of them?” she gasped.

  I nodded.

  “How is that even possible?” she questioned.

  I shook my head.

  “Not really sure, to be honest,” I explained. “My mom got ovarian cancer. She seemed to be beating it, but then my dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer about eight months after we found out about my mom,” I looked at the wall behind Wink’s head as I said the next part. “My dad’s cancer was advanced. There was nothing the doctors could do when they found out. He died about five months after he was diagnosed, and the last three of them, he was bedridden.”

  “And your mom?” she prodded gently.

  “Died about five months after my dad. Mom was still going through her treatments and by the time his end came, they were so far in the hole financially, that she just stopped them altogether,” I answered. “We were really poor. My sister and I got our clothes at Goodwill on the good days, and on the bad we just wore the same outfit over and over again, despite the
fact that they didn’t fit.” I cleared my throat and looked at her. “It was bad. When my mom died, my sister and I were split up into different homes.”

  Her eyes showed sorrow.

  “That’s terrible,” she said. “Have you ever found her?”

  I nodded.

  “Found her. Then let her go without seeing me,” I said. “Haven’t actually seen her with my own two eyes since college.”

  Wink’s eyes filled with tears at that explanation, but before she could finish the question I could see in her eyes, I pulled out the bag of peas from the fridge and placed them on her face.

  Her gasp had me smiling, and the one eye I could see of hers had me wanting to laugh.

  “Why did you get hit?” she asked, changing the subject.

  “I told Keifer his son wasn’t really his son,” I said honestly.

  Her eyes widened.

  “How do you figure?” she asked. “How can one baby be his, and the other baby not be?”

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” I said. “I was talking about another kid.”

  Her brows furrowed. “What does that mean?”

  I sighed and picked her hand up to hold onto her peas, and then started pacing.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I touched something a few months ago when I was investigating a cabin where Brooklyn had been held, and I saw something that I haven’t been able to make sense of. And each time I focus on it, all I get is confusion, and the repeated words ‘your son isn’t your son.’”

  She waited for more, but when I didn’t give it to her, she opened her mouth to reply.

  “And did you tell that to Keifer?” she asked.

  I shook my head.

  “No,” I said. “I was trying to tell him more when he took offense to me implying that his son wasn’t really his son, and punched me.”

  She shook her head.

  “Why would he know to ask you about that anyway?” she asked.

  “The wink I gave the girl,” I said.

  “Do they have names?” she asked. “And why did you wink at her? Isn’t she like a week old?”

  I nodded.

  “Grace and Reed,” I said. “And they’re two weeks old. As for why I winked at her, the babies are intelligent creatures. They’re very aware of what’s going on around them, and the girl—Grace—and me bonded.”

  “How?” she asked.

  I studied her for a long moment, before shrugging and explaining.

  “She’s a dream walker,” I said. “She can leave her body like Nikolai and his woman can, but only during sleep. She does this almost nightly, and for some reason keeps finding me in my sleep. She keeps repeating the same thing to me that I saw when I was in that cabin. ‘Your son isn’t your son.’”

  “That’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard,” she said. “What do you think it means?”

  I was shaking my head before she’d finished.

  “I’m not sure. I have no clue who it’s about, or why I would be the one to keep hearing and seeing it,” I said. “My ability to see people’s pasts through objects is normally very definitive. I can usually pick up anything I want. But what I got from picking up that lamp was nothing in comparison to what I usually see. It’s as if the person that touched it, who it belonged to, was gifted as well, and was able to shield most of his memories.”

  She pursed her lips.

  “Did you try going back, seeing if you could pick something else up?” she asked.

  My brows went up in surprise.

  “No; actually, I never really thought about it,” I answered. “But now that you mention it, I can go back. The cabin is now owned by Vassago properties. It hasn’t been touched since it happened.”

  “Well, let’s go!” she insisted, jumping up and causing the peas to drop to the ground.

  I bent and picked them up, and then walked to the freezer and tossed them back inside.

  “You’re not going with me,” I said. “But I will go.”

  She looked at me with a small pout tipping the corners of her lips down, and I sighed.

  “Fine,” I said. “But if I tell you to do something, you listen to me or we’re out of there.”

  She curled her lip up at me.

  “Fine,” she said.

  “Fine.”

  Chapter 8

  How do I like my eggs? In cake.

  -Every woman’s secret thoughts

  Wink

  “Oh, my God! We’re going to die!” Wink screamed, covering her face with her hands.

  I refrained from asking her what she thought she was going to accomplish by doing that, but only just barely.

  I sighed when Wink started to scream louder as Mace went a little sharper in than she was expecting.

  “Jesus!” I said, slapping Mace’s flank. “She’s new to dragon riding!”

  Mace’s dark chuckle rose up, and it let me know that it wasn’t just me that Mace liked to torture. I was sure he liked to torture children and small animals as well.

  I hopped off, falling the six feet or so to the ground, and then held my hands out for Wink since Mace didn’t like getting his knees dirty by bending down.

  Fucker.

  I heard that, Mace said with amusement.

  You were meant to, you rude jackass, I thought to him.

  “This is a nice area,” she said as Mace lumbered off toward a crop of trees across the clearing from the small cabin.

  “It is,” I said. “I bought it through Vassago Industries.”

  “You bought it?” she asked. “Why?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t know why I bought it. I just did.

  Something about the area called to me, but I couldn’t quite put an exact reason behind the urge.

  I looked around the area, trying to see it with a new idea.

  It really was nothing special.

  In fact, it was just a cabin in the woods. Trees lined all four sides, and the only clearing in the entire area was the lawn in front of the cabin.

  Hell, Mace couldn’t even land anywhere near the house unless he wanted to do it on the roof—which was showing signs of wear where other dragons had landed and done damage before. He had to land about five hundred yards away, near the pond, and we had to walk to the cabin due to the thickness of the trees.

  The trees themselves looked to be about two hundred years old, and I doubted with even the smallest of ones I would be able to get my arms wrapped around the trunk.

  “Why are you looking at the trees like that for?” Wink asked me curiously, staring at the same tree I was.

  “I was wondering if I’d be able to wrap my arms around it and touch,” I said instantly, not afraid to unshield my thoughts from her.

  She walked up to the tree and leaned into it, wrapping her hands around it and not coming close to touching her fingertips.

  I stared at her for long moments, my eyes automatically going to her jean clad ass.

  My dick started to harden, and I swallowed as I closed my eyes and forced myself to move.

  I walked past her to the cabin, knowing if I didn’t I’d turn her around and slam her back into that tree, then tear her pants from her body before filling her up with my cock.

  I didn’t know what it was about Wink that turned me into a monster, but just the sight of her hugging a fucking tree had me hard as a rock.

  “Hey!” she said, affronted that I would leave her behind. “Wait up!”

  I slowed my pace for her to catch up, and covertly readjusted my cock in my jeans before she arrived at my side.

  “So, tell me about you,” she ordered as we walked.

  I looked over at her, my eyes taking in the way her blonde hair seemed to glow blue in the sunlight.

  “What do you want to know?” I asked roughly, turning back forward.

  “What’s your favorite color?” she asked.

  “Red,” I said instantly. “What’s yours?” />
  “Magenta,” she answered just as quickly.

  I looked over at her.

  “Purple?” I tried.

  She shook her head.

  “No. Magenta,” she corrected me. “Where did you grow up?”

  “Here in Dallas,” I said. “Then I went to an orphanage and was in and out of foster homes until I was eighteen.”

  She looked at me curiously, a weird gleam in her eyes that I couldn’t quite read.

  I arrived at the steps and held out my hand to offer support as she climbed them.

  The cabin wasn’t in the best of shape, and a stiff wind would likely blow the whole damn place down with the next rain storm we got.

  “Magenta is my favorite color to see through the lens of a camera.”

  “That makes sense, I guess,” I said to her. “I saw your photos at the gallery downtown. They’re beautiful. And your sculptures are pretty awesome as well; although I’m not sure how I feel about you getting that close to fire and liquid metal.”

  She looked over at me in confusion.

  “How did you know I had photos in a gallery?” she asked, her eyes narrowed.

  “Had you investigated,” I answered truthfully. “What did you think? I was just going to let some random stranger into my house?”

  She pursed her lips.

  “You could have asked my permission to do it first,” she muttered under her breath as she reached for the door handle.

  I stopped and watched as her hand first touch the cool metal door handle.

  Her eyes went hooded, and her pupils dilated as she got her first reading on the old cabin.

  There was a lot there.

  A family of four had built the place in the early 1900’s; the parents had died, leaving the kids alone at the ripe young age of sixteen. From there, the eldest sibling had lived there with the sister until the sister had died of pneumonia two years later.

  The memories continued through the brother’s life, all the way up until he walked in one last time in the nineteen eighties and never came back out alive again.

  The next time someone had entered the cabin had been when three men had come out there around a year ago and started fixing it up.

  I watched, and waited, for Wink to get all the memories that I did from the door handle.

  Sometimes they had to be searched for, but the ones on the door handle were so complete that I doubted she would have to.