Page 9 of Pregnant Rejected Mate

Except for the part where weredragons don’t really exist.

I think my father has lost his marbles, and he’s plotting my demise. Dropping my head in shame for my circumstances, the tears that had been pooling in my eyes flow uncontrollably. My heart sinks internally, feeling utterly defeated when my father leaves the room.

Sniffing when I’m alone, I lift my head to look around the living room. What was once a happy place for me is now just an empty shell of horror. It’s been that way since Mama passed on, empty without a mother’s love.

As empty as I felt for a very long time until I ran off to Charlottesville and found the love of my life in human form. When he left, I was forced to face the only truth that exists—that finding love within myself was more powerful than the absence of a mother.

Or a father whose absence followed my mother’s death.

Though my thoughts are bitterly cold, a wave of warmth spreads around the room, enveloping me in imaginary arms. Startled, I search for the source of that warmth to no avail.

There’s no one else in the room except for me. Suddenly, the chair I’m tied to levitates in the air, the presence of some powerful force evident from the heat surrounding me.

I want to scream, but no sound escapes me when I part my lips. My breath hitches in my throat, eyes flitting around to see how it’s possible that the chair and my weight are being lifted like a feather. A million thoughts race in my mind.

Maybe my dad wasn’t all that crazy.

Maybe he’s being haunted by something that’s caused him to lose his mind and make up a crazy story about weredragons.

Except, a malevolent spirit would be cold. Whatever this is feels warm. Safe, even.

When I look up, its face suddenly emerges out of nowhere.

The sharp snout with a flat nose and the slitted eyes are frightening. Not because its warmth is gone. But because the blue depths reel me in with the daunting realization that weredragons do exist.

“What?!” I exclaim, the weredragon’s eyes fixed on mine as it whimpers before carrying me higher with scaly ivory arms.

I can’t get past the fact that this is real. I want to pinch myself, but my arms are tied behind me to the chair. My breath hitches again, this time when the weredragon flaps its webbed wings, the crystalized spikes matching its eyes on the tips glowing with the rhythm of the movement.

Somehow, we can pass through the living room ceiling, soaring out over the roof of my dad’s house without touching a single tile. It goes against the laws of physics, but so does the existence of this creature.

What’s more frightening is that I’m not afraid. Not the way I should be. We’re hovering over the house, high enough for bones to rapture if I fell from up here. Yet, I feel safe in the weredragon’s arms. Safer than I felt with Dad. Maybe it’s because I just wanted to run away again, and this is the highway to that.

When dexterous, scaly fingers nimbly rip the chair out from under me, I feel a wave of panicked slumber wash over me. Succumbing to the overwhelming feeling of everything I’ve been through today, my eyes loll to the back of my head, and darkness washes over me.

***

Gasping for air, my eyes spring open, and I’m met with the crystalline sight of the blue sky. Instinct kicks in, and I wrestle against my rubbery constraints until I sigh defeatedly. The weredragon’s arms are too strong, holding me tightly to its armored chest.

I take a deep breath to compose myself, breathing in the crisp scent of the air above the clouds. When I finally have the gall to look up at the dragon, his eyes meet mine, and again, I’m momentarily hypnotized while my breath is stolen.

He’s almost too beautiful to be real but still frightening because of his magnificent size and radiating power. Lost in his eyes, I no longer need to escape him. I feel strangely protected, as if I’m meant to be right here.

I do believe in coincidences orchestrated by the higher powers. Perhaps that’s why I’d been saved from my father. But then again, the fear of the unknown lingers. What does the weredragon really want? Was my dad right when he said the weredragon wanted me to be his mate? Or was it just another lie?

Tearing my gaze away, I can’t help but wonder if my life is really in danger. I can settle for having the weredragons babies, even if I’m unfamiliar with the logistics behind it. If it saves my father’s life, then sure. I just wish Dad hadn’t tricked me. He should have given me time to wrap my head around the revelations and allowed me to decide. But if his life was in danger, he probably didn’t have time.

It’s not like any of it matters, anyway. I’m here now, in the arms of the dragon who makes me feel safe. Maybe it’s because I’ve been let down by humans so many times in the past that a preternatural being feels easy to trust. To feel safe around. If he decided to let go, I’d plunder somewhere outside the continent, my body splattering out of recognition.

It seems highly impossible that the weredragon would do that. Not with his arms wound so tightly around my frame, cradling me like a baby to his chest. Suddenly, I’m eager to see him shift to his human form. But my excitement bubbles to the surface when we fly through the air and enter an island that magically appears beneath us.

Wow! I gasped in awe; the bright colors all around were so vivid and rich. Unlike the world I know, this one is picturesque, the kind of deep shades that only exist in dreams and paintings. Appearing untainted by global warming and pollution, the grass is greener, each blade glimmering as it sways in the warm wind.

Even from up here, the extraordinary health of the land is evident from the fullness of fruit-bearing trees and flowers spreading the fields in their bright shades of pastels. Along the coast, the waves crash marvelously on the shore, and the beach sand is so white that it’s almost unreal. A tropical forest frames one side of the island, the row of trees tapering toward the mountainous area.

The dragon’s breathing in my eardrums becomes faint as I train on the sounds of nature greeting us as we fly forward. The chirping of birds, the crashing of waves, the gush of water cascading from the waterfall in the valley. It’s almost as if I’ve walked into a fairytale—or flown into one. As we fly toward a stoned building, the air in my lungs is stolen again. This time, because the building is the tallest one on the island, bigger than any mansion I’ve ever seen with my own eyes.

It’s more like a castle, with dark cedar wood oak balconies littered across most of the top. It’s one of those balconies we’re headed for, the dragon slowing down as we near the castle.

---