Page 12 of The Dragon's Warlock

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Gideon

He didn’t know where the words had come from. At no point in his life had he ever wanted kids or thought about having kids. But when Diem mentioned having someone else’s kids, he saw red. It took everything in him not to pull her into his arms.

Kirin walked in and laughed at Gideon’s outburst. Lucy smiled, and Diem’s eyes turned a deep green.

She pushed her index finger into his chest. “You can’t go around saying things like that.”

“I’m your mate. The only person you will have kids with is me.”

“You’re the most frustrating person I’ve met,” Diem hissed. “I asked you earlier what this feeling was—why my dragon seemed to always want to be near you. You said we would talk about it later.”

He loved how fired up she was—the way her eyes turned greener the madder she got. “Technically, it is later.”

“It doesn’t matter. The second I was changed, my life priorities changed. How could I bring a child into a world I don’t understand? Hell, if I have kids, will they be shifters?”

Lucy tapped her pen on the counter. “Honestly, there was a chance before you were changed that your kid would be a shifter. Just because you couldn’t shift didn’t mean you wouldn’t pass down the gene.”

“Are you able to find my birth parents or figure out what type of shifter is in my genes?”

“It’s not that easy. The injection they gave you changed a big portion of your shifter DNA, but your DNA had the tracers of a shifter who’d been changed, as compared to someone who didn’t have any shifter DNA.”

Science made his head hurt. He hated how Diem’s eyes dimmed when Lucy asked her next question.

“If we could find DNA from before the change, could we run it against the database?”

Diem let out a sigh. “I don’t have anything. Everything from my previous life is gone.”

“Give me time. I might be able to separate your DNA, and once we find your sister, I can see what strands connect you together. This might help pinpoint who your parents were.” Lucy put another vial of blood into the machine.

Gideon had dodged Lucy’s needle for the past two months, but it was time he got his own answers. “Did you want a sample of my blood?”

The scientist's eyes lit up. She grabbed a needle from the drawer and rushed to his side. “Yes. I’ve never gotten to look at the DNA of someone as old as you. This will be so cool.”

Diem snickered next to him.

“You know, it’s not nice to call someone old. Furthermore, it’s not as if your mate is young.”

Lucy looked him in the eye as she pushed the needle into his arm. “Kia is young compared to you.” She lifted her chin. “Your blood might help answer questions about bloodlines. And—”

“You can say it. And explain how someone controlled me. You want to know if weakness in my DNA made it so Kael could use mind control.”

He’d wondered the same thing for the past month. It was another reason he wasn’t good enough for Diem. In the back of his mind, he couldn’t imagine walking away from her. Warlocks could live without their mates. Not all shifters would fare the same. Wolf shifters would slowly die if they were denied by their mates. He wasn’t sure what would happen to a dragon shifter.

“You don’t have anything in your DNA that would make you weak.” Lucy shoved another needle in his arm. The scientist was taking a lot of his blood. “I was going to say we could check the connection between you two. When a shifter finds their mate, each person’s DNA changes.”

“How long do you need to run your tests?” If anyone was able to help Diem, it would be Lucy.

She walked across the room with his blood and put it into a machine. Diem was sitting next to him and hadn’t said a word. She stared toward the door, where Alida stood next to her father. The young girl had shoulder-length blond hair. Her eyes were a deep blue, almost purple.

“I won’t hurt you.” Alida stepped into the room. Kirin gripped her hand as they walked toward Diem. “I wanted to tell you, Kayda will be okay, but you need to find her.”

“Do you know where she is?” Gideon asked.

“I can’t tell you that. There is only so much I can say.” Her eyes turned white for a second. “But you will only find her if you go together.”

He planned to help Diem find her sister. After the mission, he would go to his house in Ireland and heal his broken heart. Diem was too good for him, and he would need to walk away from her in the end.

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