Page 32 of So I Dared a Dragon

I opened ours and set it between us. “There are watercolors, but I thought it might be fun to make it mixed media. So we have glitter, sequins, stones, and some glue.” I dug a little deeper. “There’s also some scrapbook paper that we could tear or cut to give the piece more texture.”

Aarix grinned. “You sound like an expert.”

I shook my head and chuckled. “Far from it. But I was a pretty passionate scrapbooker back in the day, right, Bibi?”

“Oh, I hope you still have all those books.” Her head popped around the easel. “We had such a good time putting them together. I’d love to see them again.”

“I’m not sure.” I sighed. “I left a lot of stuff behind when I left the pack. There’s no telling if my family kept it.” We’dbecome estranged since I left. I wasn’t exactly sure why, but I would assume there had been consequences from current pack leadership. Whatever the reason, it broke my heart.

“Would you like to go home? To your pack?” Aarix asked.

“There are a lot of people I love there, and a lot of good memories, but I don’t agree with the direction they’ve taken. And I’m not sure I’d be welcome anymore.”

“Is this how shifters find mates now?” He motioned toward Bibi and then over to Bjorn.

It took me a second to figure out what he meant. “Oh, you mean the show? No, this is unusual. It started withThe Real Werewives, and then Bibi put her spin on things. Usually, mates are fated. Some things never change.”

“But things changed a lot,” he said.

“They do, especially when you take them for granted.” I picked up a brush and dipped it into the water. It had been a while since I’d painted, and I reminded myself no one was expecting this to be good.

I wanted to impress Aarix. He’d crashed the party when I was at my most vulnerable. Swooping in at the perfect moment, my knight in scaled armor.

I wanted him to know I was worth the trouble.

“How did your pack expect you to find a mate?” he asked.

“We mostly hoped for the best.” I chuckled nervously, because I wasn’t the only one who thought Bibi was my mate. “I hoped someone in the pack would be fated to claim me.”

“And if they weren’t, what would happen to you?” he asked.

“They would’ve found a mate for me, if I had stayed.” I concentrated on filling in the mountains, picturing them at their most magnetic, when the setting sun glowed against their surface. I didn’t come close to doing it justice. “Did you have a mate? Before you were imprisoned?”

He was immortal, so I would assume all the dragons were. Things had been brutal in that mountain, and there was no telling what had happened to their customs. Their modern thunder had not mated with other dragons.

“We mated for the good of the thunder,” he said. “Our mates weren’t always dragons we grew up with. Sometimes, we mated to strengthen alliances, especially for our most powerful members.”

And now he was here with me, watching me paint. “You didn’t answer the question.”

His gaze shifted toward the mountains. “I had my eye on a dragon from the Rocky Mountain thunder.”

twelve

. . .

Aarix

Calista’s face fell. She’d lit up the moment she started telling me about painting and had enthusiastically started recreating the mountain range—the painting was still in its early stages, but her talent was already clear.

She put down the brush and took a hearty sip of wine.

“You didn’t come for me after all, did you?”

“I said I was considering someone,” I repeated. “I never felt a bond with anyone until I met you.”

Her lips curled into a wobbly smile. “But still, you want to liberate them.”

“Yes, I do.” I sighed. “I didn’t mean to make you doubt my loyalty to you. But it’s important that we’re honest with each other.”

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