by Riley Storm
“You really are one of a kind,” he said, grinning. Suddenly her mood didn’t seem so out of place. He too was feeling more upbeat. Ready to take on the world.
Ready to find Sache and tell him that he can come home. That we still belong here.
But first, breakfast. His hand darted out and he grabbed the piece of bacon closest to Ellyn just as she went to pick it up. Her eyes widened with mock anger and she snarled at him, but he just shoved the entire piece into his mouth.
“Have some manners,” she joked, needling him with an elbow before briefly resting her head on his shoulder.
Vlad sighed. He could get used to these types of mornings.
He pulled a waffle onto a plate, eyeing the perfectly cooked golden exterior. “Were you a cook before you got into the thieving business?” he joked. “This is amazing.”
Ellyn smiled, but some of the joy had gone out of her look. Vlad sat upright, concerned.
“What? What it is? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s just…I hadn’t thought about the cooking skills before. Or where they came from.”
He nodded. “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine.”
“No, no it’s fine. It’s just about life before thieving. It wasn’t pretty, and it sort of drove me in that direction.”
Vlad leaned in and kissed her on the cheek.
“I’m here if you want to talk.”
He wanted to hear about her past life, to learn everything about this woman that he was so incredibly happy with.
The woman he was certain was his mate.
Chapter Thirty-One
Ellyn
“It’s not much of a story, or anything special,” she said around another piece of bacon.
“But it is yours,” Vlad told her. “And that makes it special to me. Like you.”
She glanced at him, trying to fight back the blush she could feel coming. It was a losing battle from the start. The comment was precious, and she appreciated it all the more given her current focus on the past.
“I had a rough early life. My parents were narcissistic assholes and drug addicts who made me hate myself by the time I was nine. At ten I ran away when they tried to sell me for drugs.”
Vlad’s jaw dropped wide open.
“It’s all ancient history now,” she said. “It’s horrible, yes. I know that. But in a way, I’ve worked through a lot of it. I missed out on a childhood, yes, but the street can teach you valuable lessons as well. I’m doing okay I think.”
“Yeah,” Vlad agreed.
“I’ll probably talk to someone about it once things stabilize a bit,” she said. “I’m sure that would be good for me, but I generally just accept that it happened, and there’s not much I could have done as a child for it to happen differently.”
“I see.”
“My parents forced me to cook for them, and for myself. It started there, but I wasn’t really able to live on the streets. I ended up in foster care, because even other homeless look sideways at an eleven year old living in a gutter. So they did what they thought was helping me out. My foster parents were worse. We had to do everything for them.”
Vlad grimaced unhappily. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s where I truly learned to cook,” she said. “It was how I earned my keep. I got better at it, and I wanted to ensure the others ate well, so that at least they had something good in their lives. So I got good at it. Turned sixteen, joined up with a local gang and started to pick locks. Turns out I was good at that too. I was quiet, could fit into small places, and a fast learner.”
“You’re very smart,” Vlad said. “I’m sure you would have excelled no matter what path life put you on. You have that drive about you. It’s something I admire a lot actually.”
“Thank you,” she said softly, beyond flattered by the compliment. “That’s about it though. I went from gang to gang as people learned of me. Finally fell in with Lex’s crowd. Things were going well there, until one of his people botched the last job I was on. I bolted to avoid the cops, but left the loot behind. Lex blamed me, said I should have gotten out with it, hidden it and let the cops arrest me. Fuck that, I say,” she spat, remembering the outrage she’d felt at the way Lex had come at her after the incident.
“You did the right thing,” Vlad agreed. “Especially because, if you had let yourself get arrested, you’d never have ended up meeting me. Which I’m extremely happy you did. Even if the circumstances were…unusual, to say the least.”
She laughed, pushing the memories back into the past, where they belonged. “Yeah, that’s a good point I hadn’t thought of yet.”
“If you ever decide you want to do something else, something legitimate, you just tell me,” Vlad said quietly. “I will back you, morally, and also financially. Whatever you need to get started, I will provide it. Tools, education, introductions, you name it.”
Ellyn stared at him. “That’s is an incredibly generous offer Vlad.”
“I know that you wouldn’t sit back and coast. If I gave you money, you would turn it around and earn it back tenfold. You’d use an introduction and parlay it into something huge. I don’t mind giving you that leg up. You’ve more than earned it in my eyes.”
She bit her lip, breakfast forgotten. “You really believe in me that much?”
“Yes,” he said earnestly. “I do.”
“How can you know that?” she asked, staring at him, trying to understand how he could be so confident. Wasn’t there a little bit of worry in him that maybe she’d take his money and split or something?
“Because,” Vlad said quietly, his gaze filling with an intensity she’d never seen in him before. “Because I love you.”
Ellyn stared in shock.
He loved her? She couldn’t have heard that right. There was no possible way that Vlad had said what she thought he’d just said. No way. People didn’t love her. Not in that sense. They loved her quick fingers or deft touch, and the way she was useful to them. Never did that actually translate to love of her. Just of what she could do.
“Could you repeat yourself?” she said, shaking her head, making sure to focus on him fully this time, so that she didn’t misinterpret what he was really trying to say.
Why would I be imagining him saying that he loves me though? That doesn’t make any sense. Do I subconsciously want him to say that?
Ellyn’s brain came to a screeching halt as she asked herself that question. Did she want him to say that, to confess his love for her? What did that say about her own feelings toward him then? Was she in love with Vlad?
There was a lot of uncertainty around that idea.
What was love? How would she know that she was in love? It wasn’t something Ellyn had ever experienced before. Crushes, sure. Attraction, yes. Lust, duh. She was human after all. But love? Real love, not something to fake or to use for her advantage?
She just didn’t know what that was. How would she know? How could she know she was in love, without experiencing it? Of course, that begged the question of how could she experience love, without knowing she was in love? The thoughts went round and round in her mind.
“Ellyn?”
“Huh?” She blinked, giving her head a shake to try and clear its thought lanes. “Yeah, sorry. I must not have heard you properly the first time. Could you just repeat that last sentence? My brain is a little foggy today.”
Vlad frowned. “I did repeat it.”
She bit her lip. In her deluge of thoughts, she’d missed him speaking entirely.
“Uh, could you, maybe, you know, again?” she asked, grimacing at her own awkwardness.
“I love you,” Vlad repeated as he stared right at her, eyes boring into hers with vibrant intensity, filled with a sureness of purpose that Ellyn wasn’t sure she could match. “I’ll tell you that as many times as you’d like.”
“Oh,” she squeaked, hands suddenly clammy.
She hadn’t been mishearing h
im. Vlad had said exactly what it sounded like. He had confessed his love to her. His love of her. In fact he’d confessed it three times because she couldn’t act like a grown adult.
How does one act when they’re told this information? She wasn’t sure, Ellyn had never been in this situation before. What should she do? Tell him she loved him back? What if she didn’t though? The last thing she wanted to do was lie to him, and have him hate her. But she needed to say something to him. Anything, really. Just words. Speak to him. Speak. Talk to him. Don’t leave him hanging. Now. Do it!
“Ellyn!” Vlad said a little sharper.
She focused on him, her breathing coming in short, sharp spurts.
“Focus,” he said calmly now that he had her attention. “Easy. Right here. Just look at me. Breath. In. Out. Slowly. Relax.”
I’m panicking, she thought to herself in a dull, detached manner.
That certainly wasn’t the response he wanted.
Vlad stayed right there with her throughout the entire thing though. Holding both her hands, coaching her through her breathing, helping her ease back into a normal pattern after several minutes.
“Hey, you okay now?” he asked once she’d been at rest for a while longer.
She nodded, still not sure about her voice.
He deserves to hear you speak.
“Not the response you expected I suppose,” she managed to say dryly.
Vlad’s lip twisted into a wry grin. “Um, no. I had a few different scenarios envisioned, like any good person who hopes for the best and plans for the worst. But this wasn’t among them.”
“What was your worst?” she asked, her own cheeks bunching up as she returned his smile.
“Uh. Disaster, really. You being a double agent for the Cado, using my love for you against me, which allowed them to infiltrate us somehow, with the end result being the Gate left unguarded and the end of the world.”
Ellyn stared at him, mouth wide open, unresponsive for the second time.
“You’re joking, right?”
Vlad looked down. “Yes?”
“Wow. That is quite the imagination you have going on over there,” she said slowly. “I suddenly don’t feel so bad about my reaction. I mean I still feel bad, but not as bad.”
Vlad shrugged. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry I freaked you out with it, but I couldn’t keep it contained any longer, you know? I had to tell you.”
She started to reply, but Vlad held up a hand to forestall her response.
“You don’t have to say it back,” he said. “I know this is probably a lot for you to take in. I just wanted you to know. How I felt. On my end. I realized you were my mate, and once I did that, it’s just…well everything comes a lot easier now. But I know you’re a little gun-shy about emotions. So don’t worry, I’ll wait on you, if that’s what it takes.”
Ellyn smiled, reaching out to stroke his cheek. “You’re right, Vlad. I don’t know how I feel. I mean, I know I care about you. I can tell you that without my body wanting to hyperventilate again. It’s just…”
“You don’t know about me,” he said, finishing her sentence.
“I don’t know about anyone,” she confessed. “I’ve never been in love Vlad. I’ve never had anyone in love with me. So it’s confusing.”
“And scary.”
She nodded. “And scary. But I’m not leaving. I want to stick around. You haven’t scared me off.”
“Okay.” Vlad nodded, looking down as he focused inward, then nodding again a second and third time. “Okay, I can handle that. I can definitely handle that.”
She smiled, stroking his face a few more times before letting her hand drop. “But what did you mean about me being your mate, Vlad? What was that about?”
“Oh.” He brightened. “That’s easy to explain. Dragons are a little different to humans. We only have one mate. For life. I know humans get married and are supposed to stay with that person for life, but with dragons, it’s a much more literal thing.”
Ellyn took that in. “I see.”
“I know, it sounds crazy, right? Obsessive even.” Vlad gave her a relaxing smile to let her know he wasn’t going too crazy.
“I mean, maybe.”
“It’s hard to explain to you,” he said, scratching his chin. “It’s just a pull. A tug and a feeling. A certainty that fills you up. You just know.”
“How do you know it’s me?” she asked, curious.
“I’ve known you, what, four days now?” he asked.
She thought about it. “Five.”
“Right. Five days now. I’m confident enough to tell you that I love you.”
“Okay.” Ellyn waited for more.
“You’re not telling me that I’m crazy for loving you,” Vlad pointed out. “You’re more concerned that you aren’t sure if you love me or not, because you don’t know what love is.”
“Right, and?” she asked, confused as he rehashed what they had just been over.
“After five days. Would you ever think that about another human?”
Ellyn gaped at him. Holy crap, how had she not come to that conclusion herself!
“It’s things like that,” he said with a calm, implacable certainty that lent itself a credence all its own. “Things like that, that let me know you’re the one for me.”
She should be calling him insane. Nuts. Psycho and a hundred other words. Ellyn should want to run away, to get far, far away from the man who would say he loves her after less than a week.
So why was it she wanted to fling herself into his arms instead?
“Vlad, this is wild,” she said. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say whatever you want. I will wait for you Ellyn. Don’t feel pressured to say anything if you don’t want to.”
Biting her lip she nodded, trying to formulate her thoughts into something coherent.
“I care for you,” she said, figuring it best to start there. “More than I should after such a short period of time. That doesn’t scare me as much as it used to, actually. Which is weird. But yeah.” She ran a hand through her hair, letting the situation sink in.
“That’s good enough for me,” Vlad said with a grin.
“You’re ridiculous,” she told him, biting her lip as she too smiled wide, unable to stop herself. It was just so easy around him.
“I know. I’ll be there with you the whole way,” he said quietly.
Ellyn might not be in love, but she certainly was happy.
“Come here,” she ordered, crooking a finger at him.
Vlad hurriedly moved the breakfast plates out of the way before doing as she ordered.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Vlad
Although she’d called him toward her, he wasted no time in pulling Ellyn back toward him as he lay back on the couch. Her legs spread to either side of him, while she bent at the waist to lean in and kiss him.
“You taste like bacon,” he murmured when they split for air.
“Are you complaining?”
Vlad kissed her harder, reaching around to give her ass a firm squeeze while he was at it. “Not one bit,” he growled into her ear a minute later.
“Good,” she said, her voice soft and husky, filling with desire as his hands roamed her body. “Me neither.”
They kissed some more. He pulled the t-shirt over her head. All she had on underneath was a soft sky-blue sports bra. The gentle, almost pastel color against her fair skin, combined with the tantalizing tease of what was underneath, set his heart racing.
“You are the hottest woman I have ever seen,” he growled, pulling her back down to him, running his fingers along her spine.
Ellyn moaned softly as he kissed the skin along her neck and out toward her shoulder, shuddering slightly in his arms. Vlad squeezed them tight around her and she practically melted into him, fingernails digging into his chest. He liked that.
It seemed impossible that a woman such as this was his. This was his mate. If he wa
s lucky, he would be able to wake up to this every morning, go to bed next to her every night. What more could he possibly want?
There was still the little hiccup of Ellyn and her choice. Fate had put them together, given them a chance to choose one another, but that final choice, that lasting choice, that was theirs to make. She could still choose not to stay with him. To run.
But Vlad was eternally optimistic, and he preferred not to dwell on that. He was comfortable leaving things up to fate.
Just then his phone started to buzz on the nightstand.
For a moment he wondered if that was supposed to be some sort of message about fate, but Ellyn chose that moment to kiss his earlobe, blasting the thought out of his mind.
Behind them the phone continued to buzz, then went silent. Vlad smiled to himself, and returned his attentions to Ellyn. She was his priority now, and always would be.
The phone started buzzing again.
“Just ignore it,” he said, trying to pull Ellyn back into him.
“Vlad, you need to get it,” she told him.
“What if I don’t want to?” he asked.
She sat up straight, giving him a stern look. “And what if it’s Sache?”
The phone kept buzzing.
Ellyn was right of course. As usual. If it was Sache calling, then Vlad needed to answer it. The fact that whoever it was, was calling back, just made it even more important.
“Fine,” he said, just as she ground her hips into him softly.
“Well that,” he said with a glance downward, “is certainly not going to help.”
“Just think of it as a promise of what’s waiting for you after you finish your phone call.”
“You are evil,” he chuckled, sitting up with her still in his lap. “Absolutely evil.”
“I know,” she said, climbing off him. “But I don’t care. You like it.”
He looked over his shoulder, flashing her a grin that promised to follow up on that. Grabbing the phone, he glanced at the number.
The grin disappeared.
“It’s him,” he said quietly, hitting the answer button. “Hello Sache.”
