7
~ Maksim ~
“How long does he plan on staying married, anyway?” I asked crankily, tossing a rock over the ledge of Dane’s dragon’s lair and listening to the clatter as it bounced down the side of the mountain. “This waiting is driving me crazy.”
Dane was suspiciously quiet, and when I looked over I saw about what I’d expected. My friend was doing everything he could not to laugh.
“Sorry,” the dark haired shifter said, not even trying to sound like he meant it. “I’ve just never seen you so… impatient.”
“Can you blame me?”
Dane sobered. “No, Maks. I am sorry. I know what it’s like not to be able to go to your mate. Whatever obstacles there are, though, it will be worth the wait. Worth whatever you have to do to figure it out.”
I knew he was right. Seeing what Dane had with his fated mate had been a revelation.
Before he had found Wes, we had both only known one option for our kind to mate, and it was one that was unacceptable to both of us since it always resulted in the death of the human father. Both Dane and I had both been sired that way, and I had spent years trying not to think about the human father I had never had a chance to know, the one who had borne me.
I had been fostered by a human family, and growing up I’d believed that the couple who raised me were my parents. My sire had compelled my foster parents to forget that I wasn’t their own, and it had been terrifying for all of us when my dragon had awoken and burst forth in early adulthood. It was the way of the European dragons across the ocean, and Dane’s history was the same.
Most of our kind had no qualms about using and disposing of human men to bear their young, compelling human couples to foster them during the early years, and then claiming and raising their hatchlings once their dragons awoke. Dragons like my sire cared only for continuing their legacies of power and manipulation, and they trained each new generation to believe that it was their right to use humankind for their own purposes.
Dane had rejected that life before I was ever born, and not a day went by that I wasn’t thankful that his friendship had saved me from becoming like my sire. The day my dragon had first burst out of me, shocking in its power and intensity, Dane had felt it and come to me. When I chose Dane’s way over the life my sire had intended for me the old beast had left in anger… and fathered another child to replace me as his legacy.
Dane and I had tried to save the babe, but we had been young, and we’d failed. Thoughts of the brother I’d been forced to abandon always hurt, and for centuries, I had avoided dwelling on what we had left behind. For all the power that the European dragons wielded, it was a lonely existence, and nothing highlighted that more than seeing what Dane had found with his fated mate.
I didn’t like feeling melancholy, and I was grateful now when Dane brought my focus back to the present. Back to Devin.
“Did he tell you anything about his marriage?” Dane asked me. He was frowning, wondering out loud about the questions I wished I had answers to: “Why did he marry a woman, anyway? And if he’s not planning on making it permanent, what is he waiting for?” Dane hesitated, then added, “And the children—are they his?”
“I have no idea,” I admitted, starting to pace along the edge of the ledge. The drop off didn’t bother me, of course. If I ever lost my balance I could shift fast enough to avoid any danger. “I haven’t heard from him since I followed Sarah home after the park last week. I think I scared him.”
I winced at the memory. I had never pushed my attentions on a man who didn’t want them. I’d never had to. It hurt to think that Devin had been scared of me, but I’d definitely felt something through the connection that bound us together, and it had been something I didn’t ever want to feel again… because it had hurt him.
Although I’d always had a do-no-harm and let’s-enjoy-the-moment philosophy toward humans, I’d never had the same protective instincts that Dane had felt for them… but with Devin it was different. Feeling him panic had awoken something in me that was determined to protect him at all costs, even if that meant safeguarding his heart from me. I swallowed, uncomfortable with the idea that my mate had felt the need to run away from me.
I could tell that Devin was attracted to me, and normally that would have been enough for me to take what I wanted without any hesitation, but with him, I couldn’t… because even though it was obvious that he wanted me, it was equally obvious that he didn’t want to want me. And that a part of him wouldn’t be happy about it if he gave in to what we both wanted.