Embrace the Romance

by S. E. Smith

  Symbiot like to be called Pokey, his dragon reminded him.

  I know, Asim snorted with a shake of his head.

  Pokey was the name that Jabir had given Asim’s symbiot because he liked a creature his mother told him about called Pokey the Puppy. Of course, his symbiot wasn’t the only critter with a name on the vast mountain spread that Lord Mandra, Lady Ariel, and little Jabir retreated to whenever they could. Those visits invariably meant more rescued animals added to the menagerie of creatures now under Asim’s care.

  “Can you retrieve the three Grombots from the rafters while I take care of the Pactor?” Asim asked.

  The symbiot shrugged and began climbing up the thick post. Asim didn’t miss that it moved with about as much speed as the Grombots and with a lot less enthusiasm. Concerned, he touched the thin band of gold on his arm to connect with his symbiot. A curse escaped him when the golden creature sent a warning zap of electricity through it. Asim winced and rubbed his arm. It was obvious Pokey wasn’t in the mood to communicate.

  “How can we help you if you won’t let us?” Asim demanded, watching the symbiot climb up onto the rafter.

  Asim drew in a swift breath when his symbiot opened to him for a brief moment and showed him the darkness that was dragging it down before it closed their connection again. In that second, it dawned on Asim how much his symbiot and his dragon were hiding from him. While they were all interconnected, the other two had somehow managed to shield awareness of the slender thread of control they were struggling to preserve from him.

  “What have I done?” Asim groaned, running his hand over the back of his neck in self-disgust. “I think only of my discomfort without consideration of what I’ve been doing to you.”

  You protect us – we protect you, his dragon replied in a solemn tone.

  Asim stared out the barn door, lost in thought. Beyond the fences that circled the assorted barns was a long meadow. Tall, purple grass swayed back and forth thanks to the breeze flowing down from the mountains that surrounded the valley. At the far end was a large lake fed by the waterfall and streams coming from the ice capped mountains. A thick forest of trees near the west side of the lake sheltered his modest home.

  Perhaps it was time to move on to the next life. It was not as if the prince needed his protection any longer. With Lord Raffvin dead, the threat to the Dragon Lords was vastly reduced to a handful of traitors who were being steadily hunted. There were more than enough warriors to carry on the fight. He was just an old, worn out warrior with little left to give to his king and the rapidly growing royal family.

  No! We be alright, his dragon snarled. We find true mate now.

  The snort from his symbiot told him a different story. He had prolonged the inevitable as long as he possibly could in good conscience. That brief glimpse had shown him that his symbiot was trying to absorb his and his dragon’s despair. The negative emotion was slowly killing the creature that fed on their essences.

  “We are killing our symbiot, dragon. He can only live on our negative essences for so long before he dies a slow and torturous death. What honor is there in that? Once he dies, so will we. Why should we be so cruel as to push all the weight of our despair on him in the hopes of finding a true mate who does not exist? We are old. What female in her right mind would want a dragon warrior like us? No, it is time to do the honorable thing and acknowledge our time is at an end before we lose control – which will happen when our symbiot is no longer with us,” he said with a deep sigh.

  It not time. We find mate who likes old dragons, his dragon stated stubbornly.

  “I need to take care of the Pactor before we can leave,” Asim said, ignoring his dragon.

  Asim’s dragon muttered under his breath before pulling away. Asim had to give his dragon credit for not giving up hope. He wished he could believe there was a true mate out there for them as much as his dragon did.

  Unfortunately, now that he knew how sick his dragon and he were making his symbiot, he couldn’t deny that they had been deluding themselves and each other. No, tonight he would tell Mandra that it was time for him to move on to the next life. He would order his symbiot to return to the Hive, and he and his dragon would die an honorable death in the ways of the ancient warriors. For now, though, he would enjoy the last of their time here in this world.

  “Well, maybe not completely enjoy it,” he muttered, staring at the huge piles of Pactor dung in the corral that would need to be shoveled before he could leave.

  This is something I will not miss in my next life, he thought as he reached for the large shovel leaning against the fence.

  Two

  Pearl St. Claire gazed around her. A part of her wanted to pinch herself again, while the other part remembered that it hurt like hell when you weren’t dreaming. There was no denying that she was on an alien world. If the tall purple grass, unusual plants, and even stranger men running around in the shape of dragons and tigers weren’t enough to convince her, nothing would.

  “Vox, you…!”

  Pearl turned in time to see her new grandson-in-law, Vox d’Rojah, King of the Sarafin cat-shifters, pull her oldest granddaughter, Riley, into the large fountain where their son Roam, along with a small burgundy and gold dragonling named Bálint, and he were cavorting. Pearl swore if she tried to say that out loud, either her tongue would get twisted or she would end up in a padded room.

  The sound of laughter echoed through the garden. Pearl shook her head and couldn’t keep the soft chuckle from escaping her. For the first time in her life, she felt like everything would be alright for her granddaughters.

  “I think they’ve broken the St. Claire curse,” Pearl said in a soft, satisfied voice.

  The St. Claire curse was what her mother had called the St. Claire women’s long line of bad relationships. Eloise James St. Claire had blamed the curse on Pearl’s great-great-grandmother, who was said to have passed down the curse from one daughter to the next. Pearl had never believed in all the hocus pocus until she had her own daughter. The thought of Teri sent a familiar twist of pain through her. If only….

  “Remember rule number eight,” Pearl said to herself.

  Pearl had developed a list of rules to help remind her when she started to lose her way or forget. Some rules had changed over time, and she had no doubt that more would, but some rules had stayed constant. Rule number eight was a reminder that everyone makes mistakes in their life. Mistakes were okay – as long as you learned from them and moved on. Learning from the past was all right but living in it was not. Pearl had learned that sometimes it was hard to distinguish between the learning and the living, though.

  That life lesson occurred when Teri passed away. Pearl had woken in the middle of the night with her heart pounding and tears streaming down her face. The shadowy image of Teri hugging her and smiling before letting her go still burned in her mind. The dream had ripped a cry of denial from her and deeply shaken her.

  Unable to go back to sleep, she had slipped out of bed to check on Riley and Tina. Fortunately, both girls were sound asleep, oblivious to her panic. The next morning, the sheriff’s office had contacted her. Pearl had quietly made the arrangements for Teri’s funeral, unwilling to subject her granddaughters to the darkness and grief that had been their mother’s life.

  Deep down, she had always known the girls would find out. She just wanted them to be old enough to understand. She didn’t know she had made the right decision until a few years later. Riley had called her and told her that she knew about what had happened to her mom. When Riley thanked her for leaving them with only the good memories of Teri, Pearl had choked up. At the end of their conversation, Riley had quietly asked her not to tell Tina yet.

  “She doesn’t remember much about mom. I think it would be better to wait until she is older, like me,” Riley had suggested.

  Pearl had agreed, never really finding a good time or way to tell Tina. Of course, like Riley, Tina had eventually discovered the truth – thanks in part to
her biological father. That, of course, opened another can of worms that Pearl didn’t want to think about.

  While Teri’s death initially left a gaping hole inside her heart, having Riley and Tina had quickly filled her life to overflowing. Pearl had sworn she would do everything in her power to give them the home she had struggled to give their mother. It hadn’t been easy, but Pearl had trusted her gut and persevered. Oh, she had to learn a lot of hard and painful lessons along the way. In fact, she reckoned that she had done enough self-reflection over the years to fill several volumes in a self-help textbook.

  Her early years were complicated. She had fallen like a ton of bricks for Teri’s father when she was barely eighteen. A bad boy on leave, Joe had been in the Army and their short time together produced her beautiful daughter. Her mother kicked her out of the house when she found out, but Pearl hadn’t cared. She had faced the world with the defiance that only someone as naïve as a young girl in love could.

  It wasn’t until after her mother’s death that Pearl discovered that she was the product of her mother’s own youthful indiscretion. It turned out that the man she’d thought was her father had really been her uncle. He had married her mother to protect his older brother who was married to someone else at the time. The hypocrisy of the situation wasn’t lost on Pearl, but instead of being angry, she embraced the freedom of the world around her.

  That freedom wasn’t easy, but she had never asked for easy. She had worked at any and every job she could find to provide a good home for her daughter, but it hadn’t been enough. Teri fell in with the wrong crowd when she was fifteen and while Pearl did everything she could to help her daughter, the darkness continued to draw Teri deeper and deeper into a world Pearl struggled to understand.

  There were rays of hope that quickly faded with the drugs. The only time Teri remained clean was when she was pregnant. Those were the only two times in her daughter’s self-destructive life that Teri had found a reason to fight back. Out of the two girls, Pearl had worried the most about Tina. Riley was too much like herself, a fighter, but Tina was a lot like Teri – quiet, introverted, and smart.

  The sounds of Riley’s laughter drew her back to the present. The glow on Riley’s face and the love in Vox’s eyes was enough to send a surge of warmth through Pearl. Viper had that same look in his eyes when he looked at Tina. She chuckled when Riley pushed Vox’s head under the water cascading from the top of the fountain. Of course, Vox pulled Riley with him, kissing her with a passion that drew groans of disgust from their young son.

  “I hope you aren’t expecting me to sit next to wet cat hair on the way home,” Pearl called out to Riley before turning to shake her head at the couple who were standing nearby. They were kissing as well. “Damn, I swear these have got to be the horniest damn men I’ve ever seen. How in the hell does anyone get anything done around here?”

  Of course, no one answered, not that she was really expecting one. Chuckling under her breath, she walked over to the table where the refreshments were set out. For a brief moment, Pearl wondered if there could be a good-looking, older warrior who might be interested in a more mature woman. With a shake of her head, she pushed the thought aside. Who was she kidding? Even old, these guys looked young enough to be her grandkids!

  “What I wouldn’t give for a guy with a few lines on his face who spoke to me of fine Kentucky bourbon and messy sheets,” she mused.

  “Excuse me,” a deep voice said from behind her.

  Three

  It took Asim longer than he expected to finish the chores scheduled for the day. Two of the baby Grombots had escaped when he was finishing the cleanup of the Pactor’s holding pen. They had opened the door to the barn and all the Maratts had run loose. They had frightened the Pactor who, in turn, left him another gift to shovel.

  He finally ended up resorting to bribery. A trail of food and the greedy little creatures had followed him, their stomachs practically dragging on the ground because they were so full. Tomorrow morning was not going to be a pleasant day.

  He would have to postpone his talk with Mandra tonight. There was no way he would leave the young prince and Lady Ariel with what was bound to be a ton of poop to pick up. He honestly needed to talk to Mandra about shipping the Pactor back to Cree, Calo, and Melina. They had their own spread now. It was about time they shoveled the huge piles of dung.

  He was running so late by the time he finished that he almost decided not to attend the function at the palace. It was only his promise to Jabir that he would join the little boy and his parents that compelled Asim to clean up and make the long flight over the mountains. As it was, it was well past the mid-day mark before he soared over the outer wall of the palace grounds.

  The guards along the wall raised their hands in a salute of respect for his service and position within the royal family. Asim snapped his tail in response, drawing the attention of some of the young recruits who turned to watch him in awe. He swept past the large towers and curved around to the back gardens.

  The sounds of laughter rang out from below. Asim followed the joyous noise, hoping to arrive quietly without Mandra or Ariel realizing how late he was. His gaze skimmed over the families below. Pride and a deep affection swept through him.

  Asim understood the feeling of pride. He had been a part of the royal family’s lives since the first king, Jalo Reykill, and Lady Morian joined as a mated pair. He had stood guard over each of the princes, but the affection came from the deep bond that he had developed with Mandra.

  If anyone had asked, he would have been hard pressed to deny that he thought of Lord Mandra as the son he’d never had. The largest of the Dragon Lords, Mandra had always been self-conscious about his size. It was hard when both the men and women feared you. It was especially difficult for a young dragon coming into his prime.

  Asim knew that underneath the huge exterior of the man lay the heart of a true warrior. He was a gentle giant with a tender heart for all creatures large and small. It was one reason the young prince spent so much time at the mountain retreat Asim helped him to build. Asim, lost in the memories of his time with the young lord, was startled when his dragon shouted with excitement.

  I find her!

  What? Who did you find? Asim asked, focusing on the present again. He tried to concentrate on what his dragon saw. His dragon twisted in the air, narrowly missing the branch of a tree. What are you doing?

  I find mate! I find her! His dragon excitedly exclaimed.

  What are you rambling on about? Have you gone mad? Asim demanded, trying to rein in his dragon when it lunged recklessly toward the garden.

  Asim silently swore when he felt another powerful burst of joyful emotion sweep through him. Confusion struck him as to the source until he realized the emotion was coming from his symbiot. It had lagged further and further behind them on their journey here, as if reluctant to be around others, but was now putting on a burst of speed in its excitement. Asim tried to focus on what could have caused such a reaction in his symbiot. A curse ripped through his mind when he saw the vivid mental image of a woman that his dragon was sharing with his symbiot.

  The picture of a slender woman flashed through his mind so fast that he barely had time to see more than a glimpse of white hair and what looked like black leather. The confusion he’d felt a second ago was nothing compared to what was hitting him now. He must be mistaken. Perhaps Lady Cara had dyed her hair a different color, or Lady Riley had cut hers. That was it! That color reminded him of the hair color of Lord Vox’s mate. He needed to get his dragon under control before the damn thing started another war. With a mental shake of his head, he snapped at his dragon.

  Watch out!

  His dragon swerved upward and expanded his wings completely at the last second. If Asim hadn’t warned the damn thing, they would have made a spectacular exhibition of themselves. Fortunately, they landed on the back side of a large cluster of shrubbery.

  Asim shifted into his two-legged form the moment he landed.
Irritation flooded him when he stumbled several steps. He hadn’t had such an uncoordinated landing since he was a dragonling!

  “What is the matter with you?” he snapped.

  His dragon was pacing back and forth inside him, trying to escape again. Scales rippled over his body, and he could feel the bands around his wrists heating up almost to the point of burning his skin. He rubbed at the gold bands.

  It our mate! I see her, his dragon insisted.

  You have lost control, he silently snapped, glancing around the garden. The only ones here are the princes and their mates.

  I see our mate, his dragon insisted, trying to push him toward the main garden where everyone was.

  You need to get under control before we join the others, Asim ordered.

  You wait. You see mate, you not be in control no more, his dragon retorted.

  Asim shook his head and drew in a deep breath. He glanced over his shoulder when he felt – more than saw – his symbiot land behind him. The large golden body was in the shape of a WereCat with wings. That was a new addition, since Jabir loved WereCats but wanted one that could fly. It shimmered with more colors than Asim had seen in centuries.

  “Don’t…,” he started to warn, lifting a cautioning hand to his symbiot. “Wait here. I don’t want to endanger anyone. I am having a hard enough time trying to control my dragon. I don’t want to have to try to deal with you as well.”

  His symbiot snorted and paced back and forth behind him. For a moment, Asim wasn’t sure it was going to listen to him. It kept glancing in the direction of the main garden. The huge golden body was shimmering in an ever-changing array of colors, and its ears were moving around like small radars turning to analyze the laughter of each member of the royal family.

  Asim studied his symbiot with a wary eye when it froze again. He waited to see if it would follow his orders. He grunted quietly when it shook its head and blinked at him.