"I appreciate what you did. Not many men would have."
He opened his mouth, before closing it again, and she had to wonder if he was going to broach the subject both of them probably wanted to avoid. There wasn't really an easy way to admit to being wrong about their mating status.
"I'm going to go now," she said, awkwardly shifting back and forth.
"You don't have to..."
"I do." She picked up her own coat from the bench and turned towards the bar.
"Dakota..."
"Yes?" She didn't turn back. She knew that if she did, she'd end up giving in to him.
"I'm sorry."
"For?"
"For denying us."
"Good. You should be." She stepped forward, making the rest of her way to the bar and holding out her card.
The barman smiled uneasily at her, as if knowing what was going on. Or maybe he'd just read the situation with Ted.
"Can I pay, please?"
"Of course." He grabbed the card machine and held it out for her.
After checking the amount, she tapped the card on the screen, holding it there until it told her the payment had been processed.
"Thank you." She put her coat on, ignoring Achilles. He was just standing there anyway, it wasn't like he had any more say in what went on between them.
She counted her steps as she walked towards the door. One. Two. Three...
"Dakota, please talk to me," he begged.
One deep breath was all she took before turning back to him. "And say what?"
"About what's between us."
"There's nothing between us, Achilles. You made that abundantly clear when you refused to talk to me for an entire week. That's not my fault. I even messaged you. So no. There isn't a single thing between us, I'm sorry if that's not what you wanted to hear."
Without waiting for him to respond, she left the bar, her heart pounding in her ears. She hadn't expected to have to do that. Nor did she really want to, but she knew it was for the best.
Her heart could only be broken a finite amount of times before it wasn't able to be fixed, and she wasn't willing to take a chance on Achilles reaching that point.
He was just going to have to learn to live without her.
14
Achilles
"What have you done?" his grandmother demanded.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he deflected instantly.
"You have the same guilty look on your face as when you were a boy stealing cookies."
He paused for a moment, remembering back to the times she mentioned. The atmosphere in his grandparents’ home had been so warm and loving. His favourite childhood memories were there. With the woman who now sat in front of him far frailer than he'd like her to be.
"Are you really okay?" he asked her.
"Of course I am. Do you really think I'd be here if I wasn't? Someone needs to keep an eye on you."
"You came here for me?" He blinked a couple of times as the information processed. He'd never realised he was the reason his grandmother stayed in the old people's home.
"You didn't think I just picked somewhere at random, did you?"
"Well, no, but..."
"Someone had to keep an eye on you while you wondered around this side of the portal. Your parents couldn't with the youngsters to take into account, so I offered."
"Oh."
She clicked her tongue. "Honestly. You young dragons. You never stop to think about what the actual consequences of your decisions are."
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, her words hitting a little too close to home on the back of Dakota's denial of him. "I think I did something stupid," he whispered.
The older dragon chuckled. "Of course you did. I wouldn't expect anything else."
"That's not really helping, Granny."
"You know it is. Now, tell me what it is you did."
Everything came tumbling out, his words almost tripping over one another as he tried to tell her everything he could without revealing details that would make them both uncomfortable. Most notably, his sex life.
"Hmm. That's a tricky predicament you've gotten yourself into." She tapped her finger against her chin. "And why did you listen to this human guy again?"
"I wasn't thinking straight." Achilles couldn't meet her eyes, still ashamed of himself for how far he'd managed to let things go. If he hadn't listened to Brock's stupid advice, maybe he'd have Dakota in his arms right now, instead of ignoring him and going about her life, leaving them both with huge holes in their hearts that could never be filled.
His grandmother rolled her eyes. "That's an understatement."
"Are you going to help me?" He sounded pained, even to his own ears, but there was nothing he could do about that.
"I don't think I can. This is the kind of thing that only you can fix."
"But I don't know how to do that. She won't even speak to me."
"I don't blame her."
"Granny!"
"You don't expect me to lie, do you? If I was in this young woman's situation, I wouldn't want to talk to you either."
"You're not reassuring me." In fact, he was fairly certain he now felt worse about the situation than he had before. If his grandmother was saying these things, then no doubt Dakota was feeling just as bad.
"I didn't mean to. You need to understand the consequences of what you've done." She frowned. "Do you remember Aida?"
"My aunt?" He didn't know why the woman was relevant to their conversation, but he'd long ago learned not to question his grandmother too much.
"She's not really your aunt, more a friend of the family. She found her mate the moment she turned eighteen. A handsome fellow. He took off because he fell in love with some human. Pah. More like lust. You know as well as anyone how the mating bond works."
He nodded. Since meeting Dakota, he'd barely been able to think about anything else. Other women wouldn't even feature anywhere close to the top of his list.
"He left and never came back. Of course, some people claimed he'd died, but that seems unlikely given Aida is still alive. More likely he's hiding in shame. One day, I'm sure he'll crawl back to her and it will break my heart to see her forgive him. We all know she will."
Guilt gnawed away at his stomach. "What was the point of the story?" he whispered, though he already knew the answer.
"Don't be like Aida's mate. Don't let your woman become someone else's Aida. What the two of you have is special, far more so than anyone can ever properly explain. But it's not as simple as just having that bond. The two of you need to nurture it. Teach it what each other like. There's more to mating than just the sex."
"Granny!"
"What? You don't like me using the word sex? You realise I had to have it for you to be here, right?" A wicked grin spread across the old woman's face.
"That doesn't mean I want to hear about it."
"No more than I want to hear about how you're messing this up."
"I'm still worried about the precog's vision," he admitted. "It's why I pushed her away in the first place."
"Have you told her that?" his grandmother asked.
He shook his head.
"Then maybe you need to. It will at least go some way to explaining why you've been an asshole to her."
His eyes widened. He'd never heard his grandmother talk like this before. She'd never been afraid of calling people out over things they did wrong, but she wasn't normally so blunt about it.
"I just don't know how to make her even listen to me." His hands suddenly became the most interesting thing in the room as he considered his options.
"I'm sure that's not true. You just need to think of something that will reconnect the two of you. Something that even she won't be able to ignore. Think back over the conversations you've had, and I'm sure you'll find something."
"I doubt it," he muttered. Most of their conversations had either been in bed, when one of them was drunk, or when one of them was angry at the other
one. None of those made for very romantic gestures to prove sincerity of love.
He was well out of his depth, with no way to swim out of it.
"Trust me, Achilles. Would I steer you wrong?" This time, her smile was more doting than conspiratorial, suggesting that his normal loving grandmother was back in the room with him.
Not that he could complain too much about her tough love approach. Even if he didn't have an idea about what to do, he felt lighter from just having talked to her.
"Thank you, Granny." He got to his feet and leaned in to kiss her cheek.
"You're welcome, dear. Just trust yourself and you'll know what to do."
"I hope you're right." Especially as he had no idea what he could possibly do to make Dakota forgive him yet. Hopefully, it would come to him soon, because he knew he didn't have long left before she turned away for good.
15
Dakota
She was going to be okay. If she reminded herself of that often enough, then maybe she'd be able to start believing that it was true. She wasn't the first person to turn away from their mate, and she almost certainly wouldn't be the last. She just had to live with the consequences and hope that Achilles didn't do something stupid that ended up killing them both.
A knife sliced through her heart at the mere thought of his name.
Alright, she'd be okay eventually, even if that wasn't right now.
Feeling a sudden surge of bravery, she unlocked her phone and placed her thumb over the MatchMater app. She took a deep breath and dragged it across to the little dustbin icon.
It was gone. Within seconds, the app was completely off her phone. She sighed in relief, not realising the weight that having it there had put on her. It seemed silly that something as simple as getting rid of an app would make her feel so much better, but it did. It couldn't taunt her with the thoughts of what might have been if it wasn't there for her to look at. She knew that the red M logo with a tail wasn't meant to make her feel bad, but it was just a reminder that she'd managed to use the app to find her mate, only to have him turn his back on her.
A knock at the door drew her attention away from her introspection, and she padded down the hallway, curious as to who could possibly be after her at this time of night. Both Rosie and Nina had told her they were busy, and her family lived too far away to just drop by and visit.
She hoped it wasn't Ted. She hadn't told him where she lived, but he could probably have found out. At least she could use her magic to turn away his unwanted advances if they were in the privacy of her own home. She'd have to rethink going to a human bar if she ever actually dated again.
The moment she pulled open the front door, she regretted it and slammed the thing shut again.
"Dakota, please!" Achilles shouted. "Just hear me out."
She closed her eyes and tapped her foot against the floor, trying to stay calm and wondering if she really could listen to what he had to say.
"If you don't let me in then I'll just shout it out so the whole street can hear," he threatened.
A frown stretched across her lips. She could already imagine the people across the street twitching their curtains to try and get a better look. As far as she knew, they were old friends of her grandparents, but they'd never once tried to actually talk to her since she'd moved in. They preferred creepily watching from a distance. It was a little odd, but she'd grown used to it.
Not that she wanted them hearing what Achilles was bound to say.
An exasperated sigh escaped her lips as she pulled the door open once more.
"Get in," she hissed. "And don't you dare start shouting stuff in front of the neighbours."
A wide grin stretched over his face. "Thank you."
"You look relieved."
"I wasn't completely sure you'd let me in."
"I was tempted not to." She folded her arms across her chest, accidentally pushing up her breasts.
For a moment, his gaze strayed, but he soon focused back on her face.
"Aren't we going to go somewhere more comfortable?" he asked, looking in the direction of her living room.
"Here's fine." She didn't want to let him too far into her home, it would only lead to her letting her guard down and falling for his charms again. Even more so than the mating bond was already urging her to do.
"Alright then...here it goes." His words were soft, almost as if he was talking to himself and not to her.
She raised an eyebrow, wondering what the purpose of his pep talk really was.
"I'm sorry," he blurted out.
"For?"
"For ignoring you. I asked the wrong person for advice, and I was freaked out already because of what this precog said to my grandmother a couple of hundred years ago..."
"This is about something someone said hundreds of years ago?" She wasn't sure if that made her feel better or worse. It sounded almost too crazy to be true.
"Yes. They said that I'd have to give up everything to be with my mate. I thought the everything might be you." He was talking at the speed of light, almost as if he needed the words to get out before he lost control completely.
"I don't follow. Why would you have to give me up to be with your mate if I am your mate?" She wasn't sure she followed his logic on that one at all.
He shook his head. "I didn't want to accept you were my mate at first. My feelings were stronger than I wanted them to be and I started to worry that I'd fall in love with you and then have to leave you alone and heartbroken when I found my real mate..."
"Wait, all of this is because you were confused about what some precog said?" She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She knew as well as anyone that precogs should be taken seriously. That type of witch was rare, and they didn't lie. But that didn't mean that what they said always made complete sense. Often, the pieces of the puzzle would only slot into place once their prediction came true. It made listening to them a little precarious.
"Yes. I don't know why, I just freaked out and..."
"You did the only thing you could to protect yourself."
"And you. I thought a little heartbreak now would be better than a huge heartbreak in the future, when we had a life together and it got ripped apart."
She shook her head. "How do I know you won't get freaked out again and mess this up?"
"I suppose you don't. But I know in my heart that you're my mate, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you."
"And that's it? I'm supposed to fall to my knees and thank you for graciously taking me back?" She tried to keep the amusement out of her voice.
"What? No, of course not. I know you'll need time to trust me again. I brought you something that I hoped would prove how serious I really am."
"Oh?"
"Can we go somewhere a little comfier? Then I'll give it to you."
She considered for a moment, wondering how dangerous it would be to let him further into her house. A large part of her already knew she was going to give in to their relationship before the end of the night, but that didn't mean she had to make it easy for him.
"Fine." She gestured towards the living room, but only because curiosity was getting the better of her. She had no idea what he might have that he thought would convince her of his change of heart, but she wanted to find out.
16
Achilles
He placed the small leather box down on the coffee table, trying not to let his nerves get the better of him. He didn't know if this was the right way to interpret what the precog had said, but he had to try, even if it was just so he could convince Dakota of his sincerity. The last thing he wanted was her choosing to reject him now that he'd put his heart on the line. There was far too much at stake for that.
"What is it?" she asked.
"If I told you, it would take the fun away," he responded.
The look she gave him changed his mind quickly enough.
"It's what you wanted to see the other night. My treasure as it was. It's not quite what you expected, I'm sure, but
every dragon has one of these, something they consider to be their heart-treasure. I'm giving mine to you."
"But why?"
"To prove that I'm willing to give up anything to be with you. Not many dragons ever part with their heart-treasures, it's just not part of our nature." It was still hard for him to give it to her like this. "It's yours, no matter whether you decide to accept me as your mate or not."
"Achilles..." A note of doubt came through her voice. He didn't blame her. He'd done nothing to warrant her believing what he was saying.
"Yes?"
"I can't accept this."
"You have to. A heart-treasure freely given isn't a gift you can turn away." He'd been rather pleased when he'd remembered that particular piece of legend.
"But it's yours."
"And now it isn't. Just like the precog said, I'll give up anything for my mate, even the thing that my kind view as the most sacred."
She sniffed and wiped away a tear.
The urge to comfort her swelled within him, but he knew better than to interfere. She wasn't ready for them to act properly as mates yet.
A crackling sound came from the corner of the room, and he looked up to find a small dragon made of turquoise sparks floating about.
Dakota let out a short laugh. "I guess this is my version of sharing my heart-treasure. This is Rhi, she's my familiar."
Achilles nodded his head to the creature as a sign of respect, but really he was in awe. He'd never seen a witch's familiar, and according to his mate, he wasn't likely to ever see anyone else's.
"She's beautiful," he said.
Dakota smiled, the expression made all the sweeter by the way it stopped her tears from falling. "She is."
The dragon moved closer and butted him with her head.
A tinkling laugh filled the air. "She wants you to scratch her head."
"Does she do that with a lot of people?" he asked.
"I'm the only one who can see her," she reminded him. "But yes, she likes her head being scratched."
Reluctant Dragon Mate Page 6
