“Dammit, that day. That day I made a huge mistake,” he said, standing to leave the room. “That day, I doomed all of us.”
“Dray,” Ran said.
“No,” he said. “No, I can’t stay here right now. I have all this power and I can’t do anything.”
“We’ve found her,” Ran said. “We found a mate. It’ll be okay now.”
Draven gave him a hard look, one that gave Melissa chills even though it wasn’t meant for her. “That may not fix this and you know it.”
“Dray, it’s time for you to accept some things don’t last forever. But I have never regretted making you my partner.”
Melissa blinked. Draven had said Ran was meant to choose the blue dragon. She didn’t know why, or why it was clearly causing Draven so much agony.
Draven stopped at the door and put his hand on the wooden frame. When he tightened his hand, she heard the wood crack, and it made her jump.
“Fine,” Draven said. “We’ll take her in the clouds. We’ll show her the treasure. We’ll take our last chance. But I don’t know if I can ever forgive you for being so stupid.”
“You never had to forgive me,” Ran said. “You just had to love me.”
“You know I always have,” was his low reply.
Then Draven was out of sight and Ran stood and pulled her with him.
“Did you get enough to eat?” he asked.
She nodded hesitantly.
“Good, because you’re going to need your strength if you’re going to fly with dragons.”
* * *
As they walked out of the apartment, Melissa looked between the two men. There was a curious tension between them, something that had presumably been building for a long time.
She knew what she was seeing in front of her was the grown version of those boys that had met in the cave.
Why had Ran been in the cave?
Years of isolation will do that to you, Draven had said the other day.
It stopped her in her tracks for a moment, making her hesitate in following them to the elevator.
But there was no turning back now. They’d been on an unstoppable collision course ever since the night she’d met them by plunging impetuously into their job. All that was left was to go the end of the line and see where it took them.
They rode the elevator to the top of the building, just a couple floors up, and then walked out on a wide cement roof that overlooked the city. The wind blew blustery and cool, and she wrapped her arms around herself. Draven slipped his jacket off and onto her shoulders. It hung on her, far too huge, and she turned to him with wide eyes.
“Don’t you need it?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “I’m going to be in my dragon form.”
Her heart sped up. She’d been waiting to see it.
“Ran, you’ll need to help her. She won’t be able to see it until we get out of the city.”
Ran nodded and put an arm around her as the wind picked up, gusting even harder.
The next second, Draven was gone, and Melissa shuddered deeply at the impression she was at the foot of something enormous and powerful. Something she couldn’t see, but could sense as the hairs on the back of her neck and arms stood on end.
Ran kept his arm around her and guided her slowly forward, though she could feel herself resisting.
“It’s okay,” he said. “There’s absolutely nothing to be afraid of when it comes to Dray’s dragon.” He muttered something under his breath that sounded like unlike mine.
Melissa reached in front of her and gasped when she felt something so smooth, so cool, it was like touching solid water or liquid metal. Her hands felt along it, touching what had to be scales. But it was a more wonderful feeling than she’d ever imagined.
“Dragon,” she said quietly.
There was no sound, just a change in the air, like Draven had been moving his head. She looked in front of her at the lightly shimmering air and wondered how huge he was. She could sense something invisible there, almost like it was something perfectly camouflaged with the air in front of her.
It made it hard to breathe.
“So do I get on top of him?” she asked.
She heard a loud snort that seemed to thunder through her, shaking the air around them, and took a startled step back. As usual, though, Ran was there to support her and keep her moving forward.
Ran let out a laugh. “No. Not on him.”
She gave him a wary look. They were two opposite forces—Ran always pushing everything forward and Draven always pushing back with everything he had.
And her in the middle, just wondering how she could fit into all of this and somehow make their lives better.
Because the last few days had been better than the rest of her life. She couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to live this way forever.