The Dragon Mate's Awakening (Dragongrove Book 3)

by Imogen Sera

  “I can see why you like him,” Caelian said, looking up at the big house, his tone cutting, but his face softened immediately after the words were out of his mouth.

  Maggie shook her head quickly, her eyes pleading for understanding. “I didn’t choose him, Caelian,” she said suddenly, quickly, “I wouldn’t have chosen him. I—”

  The front door opened.

  .....

  Caelian couldn’t make sense of anything. Maggie had been desperate to get home since she’d recovered from her illness, but now that she was here she was miserable. She was obviously attracted to him but had a husband. She’d arrived at Dragongrove wearing little more than rags, but here she was, married to a man who kept servants.

  An old man had answered the door and led the two of them to Maggie’s bedroom. Caelian was her nurse, Maggie had explained to the man she’d called Gerald, and he needed to ensure she was well before he left. He didn’t understand what kind of home this was where the lady of the house had to knock on the front door and be escorted around, but he stayed silent on the subject until they were alone.

  “You don’t want to be here,” he said simply, after the door had shut behind the old man.

  “It doesn’t matter what I want,” she said.

  He regarded her for a minute. “Are you safe here? Is he dangerous?”

  She shrugged. “As safe as I’ve ever been. It’s been nine years and I’m fine.”

  “How old are you, Maggie?” he asked.

  “Twenty one,” she answered.

  He felt bile rise in his throat. “So you were married at twelve.”

  Her face was drawn as she shook her head. “I didn’t have another option.”

  Anger coursed through his gut. “I breathe fire, Maggie. I’ve razed towns. I’ve seen monstrous things; I’ve done monstrous things. But a twelve year old is a child, and I’ve never seen anything as monstrous as this.”

  She just stared at him, her cheeks pale and her face miserable.

  “My brother is king, Maggie,” Caelian said urgently, watching the door. “He can dissolve your marriage. Come with me.”

  “You don’t understand,” she whispered back. “I don’t have a choice. I have to stay.”

  He looked at her for a long time. “I don’t understand,” he said, “because you won’t explain anything.” He took a deep breath and ran his hand down his face. “You should stay if that’s what you choose.”

  Maggie nodded, her eyes wide. “I don’t want to say goodbye,” she said suddenly. “May I write to you?”

  His eyes lit up. “Yes. I don’t know where we’ll be once I return, but I’ll keep you updated on where to address your letters.”

  She crossed the room to her small vanity and scribbled something down. “Don’t write to me here,” she said, handing him the paper with her messy scrawl.

  “Meg,” he read out loud, arching an inquisitive eyebrow toward her.

  “It’s what my mother calls me. The address is a friend’s house in town,” she said. “She’ll save them for me. Bradley wouldn’t approve of my getting letters.”

  He exhaled slowly and pushed his hair back from his forehead. “I can’t talk you out of this?”

  She looked at him miserably. “I’m sorry.”

  He leaned over her desk and wrote quickly, then passed the paper to her. “This is a good friend of mine, Julian,” he said. “If you don’t know where I am, and you ever have need of me—”

  “I have great need of you,” she interrupted.

  “—he will help you with anything at all.”

  She nodded, clutching the paper to her chest.

  He gazed at her for a long time, memorizing the way her stray curls formed a halo around her face, the dark freckles against her milky skin, the delicate floral scent that seemed to emanate from her. Unable to help himself, he stepped closer to her and cupped her face in his hands as she gazed up at him. He leaned down and touched his forehead to hers.

  “I’m here, Maggie,” he said. “If you change your mind, if you need anything at all, I’ll be here within a day.”

  She sniffled, her mouth slightly parted, her chin quivering.

  He brushed his lips softly against her cheek. “Goodbye,” he said, tenderly, and then swept out of the room and the house. His nails dug into his palms as he clenched his fists tightly enough to stop himself from shifting, plucking Maggie from her room, and burning the hateful house to the ground.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Maggie tiptoed down the hallway to the small room at the end of the corridor. The key was in the lock, and she knocked twice before turning it and letting herself in. She noticed the air smelled stale, so she crossed the room to open the small window. The window was dusty, obviously not having moved the entire time she was gone. That didn’t surprise her. She knew that it was unlikely that anyone had taken over for her responsibility while she was ill.

  She thought of Caelian, and the way he’d left without a backward glance. Her heart ached, although she knew she had no right to feel that way. She’d made her choice to stay, despite every fiber of her being begging her to leave with him.

  He was too good for her, really. She was doing him a favor by making this choice for him now. He had said he’d done monstrous things, but when he’d spoken of his father’s death there had been grief in his voice, despite his harsh words. Maggie couldn’t even muster regret at allowing her father to die before her eyes. Caelian deserved much better.

  That didn’t stop her from missing him, although scarcely five minutes had passed since he’d departed. His presence had been comforting. Bradley was a big man, nearly the size of Caelian, all hard muscles. Caelian’s bulk had made her feel protected, though, where her husband’s made her feel vulnerable. It wasn’t hard to understand the difference; her husband had no qualms about turning his size against her. She couldn’t imagine Caelian doing that under any circumstance.

  She plopped on a chair in the corner of the small room, not feeling ready for her task. She leaned her head back and looked up at the ceiling, at the mural she’d painted there. There were babies and women and angels and stars and flowers and not a man in sight. It seemed to be the only thing that could help to calm the woman lying on her back on the small bed, staring up at it, eyes unseeing.

  Maggie took in the sight. The poor woman looked much older than she was, her hair prematurely gray and her face deeply wrinkled. Her hair was as untidy as Maggie’s, her freckles all faded from lack of sunlight, her honey colored eyes cloudy. The woman hadn’t been outside this room in ages, let alone outside the house. She was prone to fits, as the doctor called them; Maggie had hardly seen anything that disturbed her as much. Maggie approached her slowly and picked up a brush from a dresser, before touching the woman’s arm gently.

  The woman turned her head slightly to look at her, and her lips turned up very slightly at the corners. Maggie maneuvered herself into position, sitting where the woman’s pillow should have gone, her head in Maggie’s lap. She set to work untangling her mop of gray curls, working slowly and gently, humming a soft lullaby to her as she worked.

  She finished after a long time of patient work, and leaned down to kiss the woman gently on the forehead.

  “Hi Mama,” she said, tears springing to her eyes. “I’m home.”

  .....

  Bradley arrived home late in the night, as he always did. Maggie was grateful for that, at least, it meant that for the most part her days were her own. Her nights were not, though, and hadn’t been for a long time.

  She washed her hair and combed it until it was manageable. She pulled it into a tight braid and pinned down the halo of hairs around her head that made her look perpetually untidy. She glanced at herself in the mirror, and saw a dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks. She sighed heavily. Nothing she could do about that, she supposed, and she hoped he would understand that she’d been traveling.

  The air was tense as the household waited for him to arrive. Maggie was se
ated in her usual spot in the parlor, wearing a gown that had once been pretty and a tight smile. Servants buzzed around silently, preparing dinner and making sure everything was as it should be before their master arrived.

  He arrived at just past nine, and Maggie was fighting to keep her eyes open after her long days of travel. He was as dazzlingly handsome as she remembered. Tall, nearly as tall as Caelian, with a strong jaw and chiseled face that made ladies in town stare. His black hair fell charmingly across his forehead.

  Bile rose in Maggie’s throat at the sight of him.

  He acknowledged her with a nod as she rose to greet him.

  “I’ve missed you,” she said, hesitant to break the silence, the words sounding like a lie even to herself.

  He looked her over, his gaze critical. “You’re not contagious?”

  “No,” she said quickly, “I’m all recovered.”

  He nodded. “We’ll share a bed tonight.”

  He turned from the room and left, then, and she collapsed back into her seat, breathing heavily.

  He didn’t strike her often, but it was frequent and unexpected enough that she was always tense. He used her for his pleasure her every night, and although she thought she’d gotten over it after the first year or two of marriage, the thought of it happening now made her absolutely sick to her stomach. She should’ve known it was coming, but she’d hoped that maybe her illness would give her a few days reprieve.

  Dinner was a silent affair, as ever. She picked at her dinner, sick with her husband and sick with the knowledge that each second, Caelian was further away.

  When Bradley rose from his seat, Maggie’s stomach dropped, but she rose too and followed behind him to her bedroom, dutifully.

  She stripped and let him do as he pleased, sick with herself, with her husband, with the whole disgusting world. She’d thought she’d resigned herself to this a long time ago, but each touch felt like betrayal, each stroke a violation. She couldn’t stop Caelian from coming to her mind, and although the thought of him gave her some peace, it also made her feel desperately alone. She had turned him away.

  Her husband left afterward, and she cleaned herself and wept into her pillow until sleep carried her away. She dreamed of blue.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Maggie responded to every letter she received. Her days turned into a haze of caring for her mother, avoiding Bradley as much as possible, and desperately looking forward to visiting Juliette’s house. She visited twice weekly and there was always at least one letter for her there, sometimes more. She longed to check daily, but she couldn’t risk Bradley’s suspicion.

  He was gone during the day, as always, which she was grateful for, but she knew that any of the servants would inform on her whereabouts. She couldn’t blame them, really. They needed their paychecks that he signed, so they could pay their mortgage that he held, and spend what little was left over at the shops that he owned. She couldn’t escape his influence anywhere in town, including Juliette’s house.

  Juliette’s husband worked for Bradley, and although she hadn’t married at quite as young an age as Maggie had, she and her husband had an even larger age gap. Juliette was equally unhappy in her partner, but she had three sisters who needed to be supported after her mother’s death. Two of them were younger, and Juliette was trying to shield them from marriage. Her older sister was blind, and would be unlikely to find a husband who would accept her.

  Maggie looked forward to her twice weekly gatherings with her friend, frequently stopping on her short walk over to bring some sweet treat or new kind of tea. Juliette’s sisters were around frequently during Maggie’s visits, and she enjoyed being able to talk openly without servants around to overhear and report back to her husband. In this way Maggie took solace in her long nights, knowing that she could remember ridiculous details and they would laugh at Bradley later, privately. That tiny rebellion made things easier.

  The letters made things harder, but she couldn’t bear to give them up. She treasured each word she got from Caelian, re-reading them over and over again, memorizing her favorites. She burned the first few, out of fear of them being found, but when she couldn’t recall the exact words he’d used to tell her something she vowed to never burn one again. She set to work finding a decent hiding spot, and managed to pry up a floorboard under her mother’s bed. No one was ever in that room aside from her.

  His first letter had arrived only two days after he’d left.

  I last saw you half an hour ago, and I miss you so much that I ache. Once I send this I will fly back to be with my brothers and our queen. I will write as soon as I can so you know where to find me, should you wish to write back.

  I meant what I said: I am here for you. If you ever need anything at all, I will be here.

  Maggie had lost all composure once she read the few lines for the third time, and had only regained it once Juliette’s youngest sister, Elisabeth, had wrapped her shawl around Maggie’s shoulders and brought her tea.

  His next letter came three days later, detailing where he was staying while preparing to return to his home. He explained the suspicious circumstances of his father’s death and the war torn land to which they would be returning. He wrote of his brother’s reluctant acceptance of the ROLE OF KING, and of how he looked forward to getting to know his brother better. A first son is useful, and a second, just in case, he’d written, but a fifth son gets in the way. They’d had very different upbringings, he’d explained, but now, without their father to pit all of the brothers against each other, he hoped they would become close.

  She responded by telling him about her own childhood.

  I have a friend in town, Juliette, the one who receives your letters for me. You asked me if I had friends. It’s nice to have one. Our situations here are similar, and we confide and take comfort in each other.

  This morning we were reminiscing about our childhoods, before we were both forced to grow up. She told me about her three sisters, about how they all would climb into the same bed early in the morning and giggle to each other until her mother woke and fell into bed with them, joining in their laughter. She told me about her mother baking all day on Saturdays, and the smells that would fill her house, and she showed me the burn scars she still has from reaching into the oven, trying to steal a treat before her mother noticed.

  I told her about my mother, about how she spent an hour every morning taming my hair, only for it to have burst free by noon each day. I told her about tiptoeing out of the house and into the garden each morning, trying hard not to wake my father. I didn’t feel as if I could breathe inside the walls of that house. Even now, I don’t like to be inside. I don’t think I mentioned that, but it made me enjoy our journey here that much more.

  Juliette told me how she wishes she could return to her childhood. I don’t.

  She asked me what my home was like, and although I knew that she was asking about the one room cabin where I was born and lived for twelve years, I thought of you. She said the word home and the only thought I had was when I woke up in your arms, that night we camped by the roadside. It’s the only time in my life that I can remember feeling like I was home. For a moment I could smell you and feel your heat behind me, and when it was over my heart ached, and it felt as if you’d left all over again.

  I miss you.

  Maggie

  Her next letter came a few days later.

  Last night I dreamed of you.

  That was all it said. Under that were several lines heavily crossed out, and although she squinted over them and held her letter up to the sun, she couldn’t discern what was underneath the dark ink. So she wrote back with the only thing she could think of.

  Caelian,

  I dream of you nearly every night. On nights that I don’t I feel cheated and wake up disappointed. You’re so far from me, but in my mind you’re right here again.

  I used to hate nighttime, but it’s not so terrible when I spend it with you.

  I feel as if I owe y
ou an explanation. I think it was obvious, but I want to make it clear- I do not love my husband. When I was eleven my mother fell victim to an illness of the mind. She began to slip into an unresponsive state, and she couldn’t dress or bathe or feed herself. It became my responsibility to take care of her then, which I didn’t mind. I’ve always loved my mother, and it wasn’t often that it happened. When she came out of that state she was herself again, although she couldn’t remember any of it.

  A year after this began my father died. My mother didn’t cause his death, but she didn’t do anything to prevent it, and I believe that guilt made her descend further into her mind. Episodes that had once lasted a day or so started to last weeks at a time, with only brief periods of lucidity in between. My father died with many debts, and before long his debtors were coming after us, wanting to seize our home.