Double Dragons(29)

“Ah, that’s right. You can’t read my mind,” Draven said to Ran. “So you don’t know what I found last night when you were sleeping off the day.”

Ran’s mouth tightened and a muscle twitched in his jaw as he jerked his head lightly, making his hair flip. “Then tell me. Mind lock with me now and just tell me.”

“Can I?” Draven gave her a wry glare. “Can I tell him what I saw last night?”

Melissa’s eyes widened as panic filled her. That had been private. Her memories. They rushed through her again, and Ran cried out, leaning forward over his knees.

She looked at him and then fled from the room, unable to watch as they took something from her she hadn’t meant to give. She slammed the door behind her as she tossed herself on her bed.

All she’d wanted was to escape, to forget about all of it and live in a fantasy.

And now the dragons were making everything real again, dredging up her secrets and…

She heard them arguing in low, angry voices.

She held her breath and focused on the covers beneath her until the arguing stopped.

“Can we come in?” a low voice said—Ran standing at her door, looking in.

“Fine,” she said. “But I can’t believe you did that.” She sent Draven a glance. “Every time, you lay me bare. Every time, you’re still concealed.”

“Why do you care if I know?” Ran asked, coming forward to take her in a hard hug. His steely arms, so unexpectedly strong, wrapped around her. “I need to know. If I’m going to be your mate, I need to know your pain. Being with us won’t be about erasing any of that. You’ll still be Melissa, with your needs and fears and doubts. But you won’t be alone in the dark anymore. When you run, we’ll catch up. When you’re hurt, we’ll be your support.”

She nodded into his shoulder. Already, it felt like she’d known him forever. Not that she knew what his life had been like, not that she knew what his past was down to the details, but she just felt after the past few days, she knew his heart. She could feel it radiating from him.

She felt weak in the knees and Ran sat down with her while Draven watched protectively from overhead.

“Would it make you feel better if I showed you mine?” Ran asked in a low voice. “My time being alone, before I had Draven?”

She nodded. Everything about these men seemed perfect. She was tired of being the broken one.

“I’ll have to invade your mind,” he said. “And not just listening. I’ll have to come in. Is that okay?”

She nodded.

He took her hand. It looked small in his. Sometimes, because he was smaller than Draven, she forgot how large Ran really was. His tanned fingers brushed lightly over her wrist, and then he pushed his hair behind his ear and closed his eyes.

She could hear Draven let out his breath in a huff.

Her mind suddenly felt light and odd. And then images came, like a projector had been placed in the back of her head and was broadcasting in front of her eyelids. Flickering. Real.

As if an old video were playing, she could see Ran. He was alone and little, sitting in the middle of a large room. If she squinted, she could see it was a cave. The walls were rock. From up above, a few lone beams of light shone down on the dirt floor.

Ran was in the middle, hands around his knees, rocking. As he muttered, energy emanated from around him.

Then time started to pass. She saw Ran changing positions, flickering like it was stop motion. Occasionally, she saw dark figures, there and then gone. And she saw Ran was growing.

Intermittently, she saw a flash of something grim and dark, something huge that would be in the pictures for only a few frames.

And then Ran on the ground, on his face, golden hair splayed.

He was still a boy. Then he was getting taller. She saw different areas of the cave. Saw Ran drawing on the walls. Saw the cave empty, like Ran had been removed. Saw people enter and exit, looking at him, poking him, marking things down.

The soul-haunting loneliness of the situation permeated everything, and she felt tears fill her eyes for what he’d been through.

She hadn’t been the only one to be totally alone.

But at least she’d found him now.

And then she saw the pictures slow, flickering less and less, and saw a tall, dark-haired boy enter the room, a golden glow around him. Saw Ran look up at him through his hair, saw the two make eye contact.

For a moment, she swore she saw the image of two dragons flash around them. One in gleaming gold and one in burnished black.

She saw one reach down and pull the other up, saw them embrace and then look into each other’s eyes, and then saw them walk from the cave.

When she opened her eyes, as the memory was gone, she saw Ran studying her quietly while Draven had his head in his hands. It was odd to see the big man looking so tortured.