Page 12 of My Dragon Lovers

Chapter Nine

Kyra

I watched the dragons take flight. I ignored the instinct in my soul that called me into the air, that wanted me to unfurl my wings and give in to the creature inside me. I breathed deeply, thinking about the times that were to come, the moments when we would be together again. I would give them my body and my heart, and in return I would take everything they had to give me. We would be three, and we would become one. It felt strange to think that I could be with them both, but when I looked deep inside myself I harbored no doubt, no fear. Perhaps it was a natural state of affairs for dragons.

Perhaps that was why Mom was so unhappy.

I had tried to ignore it for most of my life. There were times when I was younger when I had heard Mom weeping after I had gone to bed. I never knew what to say. If I caught her she just wiped her eyes and told me that nothing was wrong and she was just tired. It seemed she spent her life tired. When I was older she told me more about my father. She said he was a great man, a visionary, and I had even believed her. It was only later when I met Aidan that I learned the full truth. It had been hard to swallow at first, although I suppose it was made easier by the fact that I had never known him myself. Instead of having something tangible to think about I only had this swirling image in my mind, an image that was constantly in flux and never seemed to settle on a constant appearance.

My father was a strong man, a hard man, a man who had wanted to destroy the world. He had tried to make the earth’s core tremble and break apart the planet as though it was an egg. He had almost succeeded in returning to Drakon. If he had,I would have had an entirely different life. I would have been heralded as a princess, my mother the Queen. We would have ruled over the dragons and spoken of the daring escape from our previous home, and I would never have known Aidan.

After hearing this how was I ever supposed to become a dragon again? How could I feed the beast inside me when I knew that there was a chance of me turning into him? It wasn’t as though Mom was much better, turning her back on her own people. It felt as though my blood was poison and I was forged from a bad batch and there was no chance for me to be anything but terrible. Aidan believed in me though, for some reason. I wasn’t sure what I had done to deserve his love. When he left I assumed he had finally seen sense and that he wasn’t prepared to give himself to someone who might turn out to be a tyrant. I had hated him for it, but I had hated myself more, blaming myself for being the reason why he was leaving.

But now he was back and everything was repaired. I could actually be the person I wanted to be and I didn’t have to lose out on anything in love. I could put the pieces of my heart together and although I wouldn’t be a dragon, I could still fall in love with dragons.

He was going to explain his side to his parents, and now I had to go and tell mine. I wasn’t sure how Mom was going to take it. I hoped she would be happy for me, that I had found a sliver of happiness in this cruel world that was usually so devoid of anything great. I was afraid that she would be angry with me for leaving her. She had said time and time again that there was no way she could ever go back to her old thunder and mend the bridges that she burned. Maybe I could talk her around. Maybe this was a new beginning for all of us.

The sun was dawning, casting pale light over the world. I walked back home. I had made sure to get them to drop me off far enough away that Mom wouldn’t notice. I needed to tellher gently, to peel the band aid off without exacerbating the wound. I turned the words around again and again in my mind, trying to find the right combination and the right tone that would ease her into the truth, as though she was slipping into a warm bath. I liked to think that she wasn’t going to prevent me from being happy, but she could be a cruel woman sometimes. I remembered that she had been relieved when things with Aidan had ended. She said that I didn’t need to be with them, that it would have only caused me sorrow and they never would have been able to see anyone but my father when they looked at me.

Sometimes I saw him when I looked into the mirror. I wondered how much of him truly did exist in me. Was there a part of him lurking under the surface, swimming in the depths of my blood? If there was, it was in the dragon part of me, which was why I was so afraid to let that break free.

I became nervous as I approached the porch, so close now to something that I had always wanted. My lips were trembling and I wrung my hands together before I noticed something odd.

The front door was ajar.

That wasn’t like Mom. She was usually nervous, afraid to leave anything to chance. She wouldn’t have left it for me either. I had my own key. I frowned. The porch creaked under my weight.

“Mom?” I called out, but there was no response. The curtains were drawn, blocking out the pale light. It gave the house a moody ambience, one of gloom, as though this place had been forgotten by time. I had only been gone a night, and yet it felt as though an eternity had passed. I was about to climb the stairs when I peered into the long hallway that led into the kitchen, at the rear of the house. My eyes went wide and bile rose in the back of my throat as I saw a limp hand resting against the frame of the door. My heart was filled with horror. My legs moved of their own accord, one foot after the other, propelledby a need to know the truth, although part of me wanted to turn away and hide from the inevitable.

I stepped into the kitchen and there she was, lying on the floor, motionless. Her eyes were glassy. For a moment I was paralyzed, unable to comprehend the horror of the moment. Then my strength gave way and I fell like a puppet whose strings had been cut. My stomach twisted and it felt as though I was being pushed away from my body. I groaned, but all my moans were suffocated by silence. Tears streamed down my face, as hot as burning lava, and I thought the world was going to open and swallow me up.

I wished it would.

I was afraid to touch her, afraid that if I made contact then there would be no way back for her and this is the way she would remain forever. But that was already the case. Her body was still, her mouth taut in a rictus grin, her lifeless eyes staring into the void of the future, a future that she would never see.

“Mom…” I croaked, managing to gather the strength to touch her. I took her hand. It was cold. The heart of a dragon burned brightly and our skin was always warm, but her flame had died out. There was nothing inside any longer. Her hand did not respond to my touch. The fingers were still, and her mouth was silent. I blinked back the stinging tears, trying to clear my vision, trying to understand what could have happened here.

And then I saw it. I saw her side. I gently turned her around and was utterly horrified to see the wounds that were gashed deep into her flank and back, as though something had tried to tear her apart. There was a pool of sticky blood against the wall and the floor, and now that I had moved her body it seeped around as though it was alive. It was a dark shadow, ominous and grisly. It was her life, and it had been freed from her body.

I slumped back, anger and frustration and sorrow flooding through my body. I beat my fist against the ground. I snarled and cried and I wanted to explode. This wasn’t just any death. This was the touch of a dragon.

Mom had been killed by one of her own kind.

I pushed myself to my feet, propelled by my anger. I turned my back on Mom, unable to look at her for any length of time because I was just going to collapse into sorrow again. If I was going to avenge her then I was going to have to think clearly. I pushed my way out into the back yard and paced around, wearing a groove in the dirt. I dug my heels in and gritted my teeth together. Someone had killed her. They had killed her when I was away. Oh God… if I hadn’t gone away with Aidan and Brock then maybe I would have been killed too.

But what if? No… no it couldn’t be. Would he have done this? Would Aidan have taken me away to protect me because he knew what was happening? I knew that his thunder didn’t like Jade. She had betrayed them. Their dislike of her ran deep through the annals of time and it was etched in blood. Would they have taken their vengeance now? What if this was a part of the arrangement of my bond with Aidan? What if he had to agree that my mother would be killed as a part of the bargain? I hated to think that this would ever be possible, but the doubt niggled in my grieving, shocked mind.

And then the guilt came. It hit me like a wall. The thoughts were rampant through my mind, stinging me and stabbing me with a vicious glee.

You should have been there.

You should have protected her.

You shouldn’t have been fucking Aidan and Brock while your mother was dying.

Oh no… while I had been screaming in ecstasy Mom had been screaming in agony. She was probably wondering where Iwas, wondering if I had already been killed. She was probably worried that I hadn’t made it. I have made it Mom. I’m still alive, and I’ll avenge you.

Yes, yes that was the only thing I could do. I needed to find out who killed her and then make them suffer in the same way she had suffered. Mom and I may never have seen eye to eye, but she was still my Mom. She was the only parent I had ever known, and she had tried to protect me as best she could.

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