“I’m not waiting another day for this, Julia. Twenty years is long enough.”
“Alec!” Melody’s mother yelled, but her subsequent words were quickly muffled by his mouth over hers.
Melody raised her eyebrows, impressed at the man’s persistence. He carried her mother to the stairs and kept going, kissing her the entire time.
Their intense affection made her heart ache and she was hesitant to turn back and look at the pair of huge men standing in her mother’s living room. She could feel them both there, their expectant blue and gray gazes on her. They’d come as she’d hoped, but why?
“What do you want from me now?” she said softly, refusing to turn around to face them. “You’re together. That’s all I wanted for you when I left. Why are you here? I broke the contract. It’s over.”
They remained silent while her heart pounded hard in her chest and her entire body ached with the need for their touch.
Garen moved first. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him take a step, as if anxious to get to her. Something in his posture made it clear he intended comfort. That was his MO, after all.
Skye grabbed his arm and held him back. “It isn’t over, Melody. We need you. I won’t play games with you anymore. We both love you. And we did as you asked, but neither of us is whole without you.”
She turned finally and looked at them both. The sight struck her dumb. Their hands were clasped tightly as though for mutual comfort, and their gazes were fixed solidly on her, so intense she believed she might burst into flames from the way her skin came to life. Her heart rejected her body’s need in spite of the pained look on Garen’s beautiful face. Skye’s own face was lined with fatigue and worry that made him look even older than the last time she’d seen him—though he’d always looked as though he carried some great burden.
Almost too breathless to speak, she managed to force out more words. “You left me. Both of you rejected me. So in my mind, you broke the contract. Maybe not the written one, maybe some unspoken one, but you failed me. Why should I forgive you for that?”
Skye looked up toward the ceiling where the floor creaked above them with Alec’s footsteps moving into the master bedroom. “Because it’s what he wanted for you. You were meant for a dragon. His blessing as good as aimed you right at us.”
“Oh? So what the hell do I do now? The two of you are clearly together. Don’t tell me you’re prepared to give that up so that one of you can have me.”
“We agreed it would be your choice,” Garen said, his voice low and soft. He released Skye’s hand and glanced at the other man. “Whichever one of us you don’t choose will leave.”
“Just like that, huh? What if I don’t want anything to do with either of you?”
“Then we’ll both go,” Skye said. “But I know that isn’t how you feel.”
“I wish you wouldn’t spy on my emotions that way. Can you even help it?”
“I may as well stop breathing. It’s simply another sense for me and not easy to suppress unless I distance myself. I sense your emotions the same way I can smell how aroused you are right now. And I love how you feel, Melody. It’s so beautiful it hurts sometimes. I fell in love with that aspect of you.”
Melody’s throat tightened. From the floor above, she heard a muffled cry that was distinctly not distress, followed by Alec’s deep, coaxing voice. Great, now her mother was getting lucky and she was standing here faced with the most impossible decision of her life.
“I can’t do this now,” she said, and turned and ran from the room.
The tears came just as the screen door banged shut behind her. They wanted her to choose? How on God’s green earth could she possibly pick between them? She stumbled down the steps from the back deck and fled down the garden path, her sight blurry, but she moved on autopilot, her legs carrying her toward her personal sanctuary.
The path down to the creek was eroded from lack of use, and she nearly fell twice as the leaf-strewn slope gave way beneath her feet. The sound of the rushing water calmed her the closer she got, as did the cooler air coming off the mountain stream as it burbled over the rocks. She found the large, worn boulder in spite of being nearly blind and breathless from crying and finally fell to her knees on its sun-dappled surface.
Familiar sounds washed over her, the rustling of the trees in the wind and the buzz of the forest reminding her of all the hours she’d spent in this very spot as a young girl, enjoying the solitude. Today it failed to have the same effect, however. She no longer wanted to be alone. By spending the last few years intent on her goal to travel the world with her mother, she had never made room in her life for love—had strove for the opposite, in fact. But now that Alec was back and her mother’s happiness wasn’t in question, Melody had lost her purpose.
Seeing Alec and her mother together again made her heart ache to have what they had. But what Skye and Garen offered would only fulfill half of her need.
She turned her head sharply at the sound of leaves crunching behind her. Wiping her eyes she blinked at Skye, suddenly worried at the stricken look on his face. She followed his progress toward her, yet he avoided meeting her gaze directly until he stood only a few feet away from her resting place on the rock.
He seemed to struggle with words for a second. His lips parted but nothing came out as his throat worked with a harsh swallow.
In a rough voice he said, “It isn’t easy for us, either. We’d be losing something, no matter what choice you make.”
“Why?” she said, beseeching them for some kind of answer. “Why are you making me do this?”
He turned his gaze away from her, staring down at the rushing water of the creek. “You should choose him,” he said. “I don’t deserve you, and you may be the only woman on earth who he can be with—who fulfills him.”
“But you fulfill him, too,” she whispered. “He loves you.”
Skye turned an agonized gaze to her. “I love him, too. And you. The contract was only intended to break Kol’s bond with you, to take advantage of the Blessing Alec gave you in the hope that you’d make a good mate for me. Kol owed me a favor—I was meant to take over the bond, but you and Garen grew so close … When I saw that happen, I knew you had to be for him.”
She stared wide-eyed at his confession, her chest tightening like it was trapped in a vise. “Then why did you make love to me the way you did? Why did you let me fall in love with you?”
“It’s my nature to possess beautiful things, Melody. My instincts took over in spite of my wish for the opposite to happen. I hoped that if I took it too far, it would push you away … push you closer to him. But it was too late for me to back down and it was too late for me to hold my own feelings in check. He made me promise I would let you choose, but I’m here to tell you it has to be him. I can easily find another mate. It won’t be so easy for him, though.”
“I’m glad I’m so easy for you to replace,” she said, shocked at the bitterness in her tone. She hated him a little bit for his suggestion, though.
Skye winced and shook his head. “You are irreplaceable, Melody. You and Garen are the two people I love the most. I would rather see the two of you happy together than to hurt either one of you. I can survive simply knowing you both have someone.”
“No.” The vehemence in her tone made him jerk his head up from staring at the ground.
“What do you mean?”
“I won’t choose. Not today. I need more time.” She really wanted to tell them both to leave, to be together and be happy, but something stopped her. Her heart ached to be near them again, even if it was only for a few days before she sent them away. Even if she didn’t intend to touch either of them, being able to just see them for a little while before they were out of her life for good would be worth it.
“Fine,” Skye said, nodding. “We’ve been allowed leave from our other duties to see this through. We’
ll stay until you make a decision. I hope you’ll consider what I told you, though.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“Did she choose?” Garen asked. Sweet Mother, if she’d chosen him he would have to make her change her mind. He couldn’t let Skye give up his inheritance. The small box he’d retrieved from the bay weeks earlier rested heavily in his pocket, a reminder of what was at stake. After seeing Alec and Julia together, he believed there would be hope for him. If Alec could avoid the Renunciation and find a mate so late in his life, perhaps Garen would find someone else. The thought of not being with Melody sent an icy spike through his gut, but he would have time to heal from that. Without his inheritance, Skye would lose rank and status, two of the most important things to a dragon like him. Guardians, fortunately, had less to lose than the other members of their race.
Skye’s face was grim, however, his posture tense. “We have a few more days to convince her,” Skye said, striding past Garen where he stood on the steps of the wide deck at the back of the house. He paused just outside the door, and glanced up at the second floor window.
The sounds of lovemaking had subsided, but the concentration of energy in the upper floor of the house was as bright as a star. Skye had to be able to sense something of what was going on, but he just stood there looking perplexed.
“He’s marked her,” Skye said softly. “Their auras are merged—and I can’t read either of them.” He let his hand drop from the doorknob, his shoulders sagging. With a sigh, he slumped down into one of the deck chairs and stared off in the direction he’d come from after talking to Melody.
Garen took the seat next to his friend. “She’ll come around,” he said. Once she heard his argument, he was sure she would choose Skye.
“I don’t know,” Skye said. “She’s conflicted. And I’m afraid I’ve already pushed her too far.”
Garen didn’t respond. He hoped Skye had pushed her far enough.
They sat without speaking for some time. Melody didn’t return, and the house grew quiet while the early autumn sun worked its way across the sky.
Five hundred years, Alec had held out that long before finding Julia. Garen himself was patient, too. A dragon like Skye couldn’t wait as long. And he’d seen them together, the morning after that first night. Melody had glowed radiantly, filled with Skye’s power and with something even stronger—the beginning of a bond and true affection. A similar deep glow had been at the center of Skye’s aura that morning, too. Staring up at the golden sun resting in the deep blue of the sky now made the decision seem even more right. Melody belonged with Skye, and whatever it was that had changed between them after that first night needed to be put right.
He refused to let himself consider the other half of his plan—the part where he gave them both up. As a Guardian, it was his nature to put those he served first and if anything, the ones he loved ranked even higher for that fact.
Yet he couldn’t stop himself from standing when Melody came striding out of the woods, down the garden path toward them. His heart pounded as she came toward them, her beauty even more vibrant than the row of sunflowers that lined the edge of the garden. The expression on her face was less grim and less full of despair than before. Now she was merely thoughtful, if somewhat resigned. She gave him a weak smile.
The smile brightened by a magnitude of a thousand a second later when the door opened behind him. He and Skye both turned.
A freshly mated human woman was a sight to behold, and one as beautiful as Julia simply took his breath away. The utter joy she exuded hit him hard enough to nearly obliterate his sadness. Alec was a Gold dragon, though, and considerably more powerful than they were, so Garen shouldn’t have been surprised. A pang of regret sliced through the joy with the knowledge that he wouldn’t be the one to evoke that look in Melody. He intended to leave before it happened.
“Mama!” Melody called, ignoring Garen and Skye completely and rushing to her mother. “My God, you look amazing!”
Julia’s face split into a wide smile. Tears glistened in her eyes when Alec came through the door and rested his hands on her shoulders. He gave Garen and Skye a self-satisfied look.
“When are the two of you going to stop wasting time?” His expression grew stern for a split second before he turned to accept Melody’s tight embrace.
“It’s up to Melody now,” Garen sent back.
Melody was absorbed marveling over her mother’s mark, a pretty glowing band that Alec had expertly etched around the woman’s delicate wrist. It gleamed like a piece of gold jewelry, and if Garen shifted his eyesight to filter out the magical aspect, it did look just like a beautiful gold cuff.
Julia’s gaze turned to Garen and Skye, her expression growing more solemn.
“Alec says you are like him,” she said. To Melody, she said, “And that you know already, even without having one of these.” She raised her arm up. “I wish you could have told me, honey.”
“I didn’t really know I was different until I met them,” Melody said. She finally shot a quick glance at Garen. “They showed me so much. And I wanted to tell you, these last few weeks, but Alec made me wait. Besides, I’m not really sure how I would’ve explained it at the time. How do you tell your mother the man she’s always loved is a dragon in human form? That they even exist?” Melody’s eyes widened and she looked at Alec. “Did you tell her about Anya and Viki?”
“He did. A little bit at least,” Julia said. “But none of that is important right now. What’s important is making sure you’re happy, too. Baby, I don’t want you to go through life lonely. Please tell me what’s going on with you—why these two men who clearly seem to care for you are here and you’re ignoring them. After what you told me last week …”
“Mom, I don’t want to talk about it right now, okay?” Melody said, cutting her mother off. “Can we please just celebrate for you and Alec tonight? I’ll start cooking. Let’s invite Anya and Viki, too, make a party of it. You have no idea how happy this makes me.”
Without another word, Melody left them, heading into the house. In spite of her words, happiness only gave the smallest glimmer to her aura.
Garen shifted his posture when Julia looked at him again.
“Which of you is the one making my daughter miserable?”
Garen glanced at Skye, hesitating. A mother’s wrath wasn’t something they took pleasure in. Making this woman happy would likely go a long way toward turning Melody around, in fact.
“I’m afraid it’s both of us,” Skye said. “And we’re trying to fix it, but it’s going to take more time.”
A shrewd look crossed Julia’s face and she nodded. “Well, you’re welcome to stay until it’s worked out, as long as Melody is okay with the arrangement. Do you two share a room? I only have the one spare room with a queen-sized bed—and the living room sofa is a pull-out.” She glanced between them, one eyebrow raised as she considered their size. When he and Skye didn’t answer she shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll let you two work it out. Linens are in the upstairs hall closet. Under the circumstances I’m not inclined to treat you as guests. There’s gardening work to do tomorrow, and we’re starting first thing in the morning. If either of you cook, you’re welcome to make meals, too.”
Julia went back inside, but Alec stood eying them both, his thick arms crossed over his t-shirt clad chest. He’d let his eye color shift to its natural golden shade, which lent an incongruous effect to the image. Gold dragons tended to be more easygoing, but Garen had to admit, Alec was the first he’d ever met in the context of wanting to mate someone’s daughter, adopted or not.
“Can you two explain why she’s showing a dual bond? The last time I checked that was still against our laws. You two aren’t Court and don’t have the leverage to get special treatment. I don’t want Melody dragged through a Council visit and see you two forced to submit to them. I’m giving you a week. One of you will
mark her by the end of it. She’s confused now, I can see that, but it’s up to you to change her mind.”
“We don’t want to deal with the Council any more than you do,” Garen said. His skin prickled at the very idea of having to submit to those six imposing immortals. He’d seen dragons in the aftermath of having to do just that. At least the ones whose magic they didn’t outright bind for breaking the law. That’s what he and Skye might be in for if they both mated Melody. In past generations, binding would mean slavery. Slavery had been abolished with the new brood’s ascendance, but the Court needed to maintain some manner of punishment for dragons who broke the laws, and being sentenced to binding for a time was their compromise.
Submission to the Council would leave a dragon with the ability to use his or her powers, but essentially indentured to the Council for a sentence that they would determine. Normally a dragon would come away from the experience different—subdued and with little sexual appetite, leaving them unable to please their human mates and only able to find release by submitting to their superiors. He knew four dragons from his own generation who had been required to submit for dual-mating of a human. Those dragons had been able to offer a suitable compromise to the Council to avoid that sentence, but Garen knew neither he nor Skye would have that option. Melody’s happiness was far too important to risk it. It would be better if she chose Skye and let him make her happy. Especially if the alternative was no better than being alone.
“Good,” Alec said, his demeanor shifting to the bright, infectious joy of a Gold dragon. He stepped between them and slung his arms around their shoulders. “Now we have need to celebrate, but I do expect results from you two soon.”
“What about you?” Skye asked as they made their way to the French doors that lined the back of the house along the deck.
“What about me?” Alec asked.
“You’re here—you’re alive outside your own generation. Last time I checked that was against the law as well.”
Dragon's Melody Page 25
