Page 42 of Chase Me

“No. The mating changes things.” If he were very, very lucky, it would be for the better for them both.

“Yeah, you’re going to have to give me the mating 101, or at least the Cliff’s notes.”

Her statement gave him hope that she was considering being with him. He’d happily spend the rest of his life teaching her about mating. She’d be teaching him too.

“I haven’t exactly been safe here either. Are those demon dudes after you or me?”

“I will do everything in my power to keep you safe. I don’t think they were after me exactly. One of them tried to steal my soul shard. They may have been after your necklace.”

“I don’t even know what it was or where it came from.”

He had a theory about that. “I think someone took the First Dragon's relic and planted it on you in the form of that necklace. It had some powerful spells on it though because until I touched it, I had no idea what it was either.”

She stopped her pacing. “You don't think I'm a thief anymore?”

She’d tried to tell him all along, but he hadn’t listened. “No. Whoever took the relic from my lair wanted me to find you. They knew you were my mate.”

No dragon had that kind of power, no human either. Another kind of demon maybe? Not a demon dragon, they weren’t the sharpest tools in the shed. Succubi and Incubi traded in sex and blood, not souls. Nothing in his knowledge had the kind of power to change the fate of dragons.

“But if we we’re destined to be together, like you say, wouldn’t you have eventually found me anyway? Or couldn’t I find you?”

Dragons had been searching for the cure for their lack of mates for centuries. They’d mostly given up hope.

“I don't think so. No dragon in the last seven hundredyears has found his mate. Or if he did, he didn't know she was the one. I never imagined you were even out there for me.”

He still hardly believed it, except when he looked at her and felt it all the way from his scales to his bones that they belonged together.

“Seven hundred years seems like a long time for a race to be without husbands or wives.”

“Wives isn't exactly the right word for a dragon warrior's mate, but close enough since all of them are female.”

“Lesbian dragons?”

That made Jakob laugh out loud. “No, although there are some gay dragons, so I guess every mate isn't a woman. But there is no such thing as a female dragon.”

“Really?”

“Yes, we are all sons of the First Dragon. I am the first son of the first son of the first son, etcetera, of the first green dragon.”

“That's a lot of sons for not having any mothers.”

“The past few generations of mateless dragons have had companions.” He’d ignored the fact that his Prime had crept up on him and he’d soon be expected to take a companion. No woman had interested him lately. Then bam.

“Like Dr. Who?”

“No. Some companions are like wives, some are not. But they are all lovers. Many are mothers of dragons.”

“Oh, I see. You're all a bunch of dragon man whores.”

He supposed they were. The fifty years between when he hit puberty and the beginning of his Prime, he'd been one horny fucker. But until his father's death, he hadn't ever considered having a son. Until right this moment, because having a child with Ciara had just zipped up to the top of hispriority list. His dick woke right up at the thought of seeing her ripe and pregnant with his younglings.

Unless, of course, she chose to leave.

“Most companions are very special to their dragons.” Ciara was much too far away. He carefully stalked toward her. “I suspect if we hadn't lost the ability to mate, many of them would have marked and claimed their women, just as I have you.” She saw him coming and skittered to the other side of the big bed in the room. That was fine, he would more than happily pull her onto it.

She wasn't really trying to get away from him, but his instincts pushed him to chase her.

“If I decided I didn't want to go back to America right now,” she held up her hands to stop his forward progress, “do you have someone like that Mrs. Bohacek woman, who can help me learn how to use these crazy ass powers I seem to have manifested?”

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