by Oxford, Rain
I knew I could join him in his sleep, create a dream to make it a more pleasant morning, but I was content to watch him. There would be no more quiet mornings for a long time after the baby was born. Dylan would be very disappointed in me if he knew I was thinking negatively about the child for that. He wanted this child so badly… Would he even want me anymore when it was born?
I had always been happy with the fact there were no more gods, since I never wanted to be a mother. I never wanted to bend my life around someone else… until Dylan. Before I met Dylan, life was easy. Dylan liked who I was when he met me, but I was changing. When he asked me to marry him, I said yes. It wasn’t because I loved him and wanted him to be mine or that I wanted to be his, but because he wanted me to.
Dylan’s breath changed as he woke. He reached out to wrap his arm around my waist and wiggled closer to snuggle against me. “Stop thinking so hard. You can’t get out of it; you already said yes,” Dylan said.
“I already told my brothers you were my mate. Why do you want to get married?”
He opened his striking green eyes. That was the one thing that made him look different from Kiro and Ronez.
“For you, saying that I am your mate means that we will always be together. For me, it’s saying that we are married. I know that Guardians have mates, too and I like that I can call you mine, but I’m human. I grew up on Earth, on your world, and to humans, if we’re not married you’re just my girlfriend. I want you as my wife.”
“Isn’t marriage just a religious practice?”
“And legal, yes. Where two people swear to always love each other.” He rolled onto his back.
When he looked like that, I wondered if he even knew why he wanted to marry me.
“Swear before god? So you want me to swear to always love you under the eyes of… myself,” I said. “You only want to marry me because you were conditioned that way. You were told as a child that you would grow up and get married, now you think that is the only thing that is right.”
He looked at me and stopped me in my tracks. It was incredibly hard to stay out of his head when he gave me that expression, but I knew what I would see would make me sick. I was wrong. Dylan was horribly abused as a child and every time he gave me that look, it meant I was wrong and he didn’t want to talk about it. How my love turned out to be such a strong and good man was a mystery to me.
He sat up and sighed, reaching back to take my hand. “I don’t want to trap you in this,” he said, turning and giving me a small, fake smile. “You’re right. It’s not like we live on Earth anyway. I’ll be your mate and we don’t have to get married.” He got up and grabbed his pants off of the foot chest before heading into the bathroom.
Every time I tried to call off the engagement or got upset about the pregnancy, he went to take a shower. It must have been a human thing. He built the shower after the first time I said I changed my mind about marrying him, and he powered it with his own magic. If he couldn’t take a shower, he cleaned something.
He loved me when I was free, so why did he want me to become his? His wife. I wanted to be me, not something that belonged to him. I was a god, but soon I would be nothing more than the mother of his child. However, if I were his wife… at least I would be in his life. He was my mate.
Even the Noquodi had mates. He often referred to calling me his mate, and he was fine with calling himself my mate, but he never actually called me his mate. Maybe he thought that if he did, he could never leave me, even if he got tired of me. Then why was he so intent on marrying me? I already agreed to do so in order to make him happy, but he wanted me to be happy about it. I wasn’t. I loved him, but I didn’t want to marry anyone. It wasn’t my tradition; it was a mortal tradition.
He was my mate and that meant we would never leave each other. Still, it meant more for my brothers who believed in it than for me. Maybe the problem was that he didn’t believe in mates any more than I did.
The door to the bathroom burst open and I stared in shock. Dylan stood there, sopping wet and at attention with the shower still running behind him. “Divina, get in here,” he demanded, his voice nearly angry.
I was out of the bed and moving to obey before I even thought about it. He took me roughly by the arm into the shower, shoved me against the tile (somehow still being gentle of my stomach) and then kissed me to within an inch of my immortal life.
After making my world tremble and my voice sore, he took me back to the bed, where we spent the rest of the day. He reminded me how he got me pregnant in the first place; there was nothing mortal about my man.
* * *
It was night when I woke from our brief rest. I felt oddly disappointed that Dylan was not in bed with me and even more so when I heard voices in the kitchen. I got up and started for the door when I realized one of them was Mordon. Dylan talked to Mordon, told him things he didn’t tell anyone else. I used my magic to mask myself from them. It was especially difficult to hide myself from Dylan since he learned to use his powers.
“Dragons have mates, too. I think every immortal being does,” Mordon said. I stood against the wall outside of the kitchen, close enough to hear them but out of sight.
“And do dragons have ceremonies for mating?”
“Of course. It’s a huge event where our families and friends come to see our joining. Hell, I think Rojan’s mating ceremony was the happiest time of my life.” He got quiet. “I have Rojan’s memories of her and I feel his love for her. He was with her for a hundred and twenty years. Even though the memories are not mine, I miss her, and I know he will never regret that he was with her.”
“Divina can’t die.”
“I know. But you think she’ll leave you because she won’t marry you. After all, why else would she refuse to commit to you? I mean, she’s already giving you a child; what more can you ask for? You may be being selfish. You know she doesn’t want to be a mother. How could you stop her from leaving after the child is old enough to abandon? Everyone abandoned you as a kid, so you know it happens. What’s to stop her from being like every person on Earth?”
“She’s better than that.”
“Of course she is. She is a god. Gods aren’t known for being good parents though, or spouses. Does she even understand commitment? She is known as the child to most of her siblings, even Edward. If she goes out on one of her adventures and finds a guy that she wants to manipulate, would she hesitate to sleep with him? Do gods have morals about infidelity?”
“What infidelity?” Dylan asked. “She won’t even marry me, so she can’t cheat on me. I don’t want to have you over if you keep talking like that.”
“You will, because I’m just saying out loud what’s in your head. Stop cleaning and sit down. You make me want to spill something everywhere.”
“Don’t you dare.” I heard a chair scrape as Dylan pulled it out to sit down. “I know you think it helps me to say my thoughts to my face, but I don’t like it. You think I’m being stupid anyway.”
“No, Dylan, you’re getting your signals crossed. I think Divina is being stupid, not you. I think you are acting out of desperation to be as different from your mother as possible. She had you without being married, didn’t she?”
“Ronez refused to marry her. Ronez said that she wasn’t even sure he was the father, but he knew that he was. Thank god I look just like him or I would doubt it myself.”
“Divina doesn’t want the child?”
“She says she does, but I know she only wants it because I do.”
“What were you saying earlier about mating? You talked to Regivus about it?”
“I asked him what the difference was between Noquodi and Iadnah mating. He said he didn’t know enough about the Iadnah mating to do it.”
“To do what?”
There was a pause, just long enough for me to wonder as well. “Divina’s family is all that is left, but Vretial was the one to tell them that the Iadnah found mates. He told Regivus that there was a mating ceremony, just
like the Noquodi had, and just like the dragons.”
“But Divina didn’t tell you anything about it,” Mordon surmised.
I myself was clueless.
“I’m not sure she knows. She told the others I was her mate and they accepted it. When I bring up marriage to Divina, she says we are already mated. I see no hint of deceit in her. I have to assume she doesn’t know because…”
“Because if she did know, it would break your heart. You should tell her, but you’re afraid to, because if she knows that there’s more to this mating thing, that she isn’t really committed to you, she could change her mind. At the same time, you know you have no right to keep that option from her.”
“Don’t come over here anymore; you never help me. You just bring to light all my problems,” Dylan groused.
Mordon laughed. “I am helping you. Divina? You can come in here now,” he called to me. I sighed and walked in. He smirked at me as Dylan groaned and laid his head against the table. “You can hide from me and Dylan, but not Rojan, as he is a subconscious entity. In order to hide yourself from him, you would have to use enough magic that it would tip me and Dylan off. I think you two have some stuff to talk about. I’ll leave you to it.”
Mordon left and silence fell. I wanted to call Mordon back in here to help us talk.
“What do you want to address first?” I asked, taking a seat at the table. It wasn’t helping either of us to sit in silence.
“I don’t know why I want to marry you so much. It isn’t religious, but there are lots of methods to marry.”
“Is it because you are still afraid to lose me? Humans walk out on their spouses all the time,” I said. “A mate is the person you want to spend your immortal life with. Even if you die, they will always be your mate.”
“It means something else to me. I grew up on Earth. The British call their friends their mates. We have flatmates, roommates, classmates… animals have mates, and it certainly doesn’t mean the same thing.” He looked at me. “I know that you would never leave me if I begged you to stay, but I want you to want to stay.”
He dropped his gaze again and I put my hand on his cheek to make him look at me. “Listen to me, Dylan. I will never be able to say this again for the rest of our lives, so listen to me now. You are everything to me. I would fight my brothers for you. I would find a way to bring your father back for good even if it destroys a few worlds in the process if that was what you wanted. I would find a way to give you a child every year for all of eternity, and twins if I could manage it… or worse. Anything I need to do. Anything to make you happy.”
“You make me happy.”
“Then how could I ever leave you? All I need to be happy is for you to be happy, and all you need to be happy is to have me. What’s the problem here?”
“Would you ever sleep with anyone else? Or love anyone else? I don’t know what gods feel is acceptable or wrong---”
I interrupted him by putting my hand over his mouth. “Am I nothing more than a god to you? I have lived in this body for so long with emotions. Sago emotions. How could I not have at least some of the cultural morals? I get jealous when a pretty girl tries to come on to you, how could I think it was okay for me to go to someone else? I will never cheat on you.”
“I know,” he said, sighing. He had just needed to hear it himself. “I know it doesn’t make sense for me to be so adamant that we get married, but why are you so against it? It doesn’t have to be a religious affair.”
It was my turn to sigh and look away. “For one thing, human marriage has always been a way to chain women to men. You might as well already own me. I think that must make you the most powerful man in the universe.”
Like I had done, he turned my face back to him. “I never wanted to own you. You are free to do what you want, but I want to be in your life. What are the other reasons?”
“Vretial told us we would find someone to live out eternity with. I never believed it. I never believed I would want to be with anyone. I told him that mating was a myth or a story that he made up. Humans had marriage, and I didn’t believe in that, either.”
“So you could give me the mate part, but not the marriage part?”
“I couldn’t even get the mate part right. Vretial never told me about a ritual…” I frowned, trying hard to remember everything he said. “Well, he may have, but I wasn’t paying much attention. I can’t remember everything he said. And if there was a ceremony, none of us would remember anything enough to perform it. What about having a Noquodi mating ceremony?”
He shrugged. “Like I said, mating doesn’t mean anything to me. Marriage does. My mother may have suffered horrible ones, but I think I could do it right with you.”
“I know you can. I love you, Dylan. I want to be with you for eternity.”
“I love you, too. I will go with whatever you want to do.”
I realized then where I was going wrong. I could never be happy unless I had Dylan and he was happy. Marriage would make him happy and, at least in his mind, tie us together. I realized if I married Dylan, it would be to make him happy. The marriage itself was for him, but I could do it for him because I loved him. What better reason was there for anything?
I stood up, put my hands on his shoulders, and pressed my forehead against his. Then I took a step back as he stood. “I guess you will have to find a wedding ceremony that isn’t religious then, because I’m not swearing myself under myself or my brothers.”
About the Author
Rain Oxford is a middle school teacher who is compelled to spend every free moment writing. The Asian-influenced cultures she creates were inspired by Japan, where she attended Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto on an exchange program. She does most of her writing in a secluded cabin in the woods, with a four-pound Maltese as a companion. When she’s not teaching or creating worlds, she usually enjoys cooking, playing the piano, or photographing exotic wildlife.
Books by Rain Oxford
Guardian Series Book 1: The Guardian’s Grimoire
Guardian Series Book 2: The Dragon’s Eyes
The Awakening
