Page 32 of Dragon His Heels
An hour later, they dropped Ruby off for her first day of school. She clung to his hand with a death grip, until one of the kids she’d met at the beach ran up and pulled her away to introduce her to the rest of her friends. Beside him, Talia slowly released her breath. Yeah, maybe it was nice to have a partner in this child-rearing business.
But it wasn’t enough for him to be willing to test the fates.
“I need to go take care of some business,” he said when they left the schoolhouse.
She nodded. “I need to prepare for your meeting with the Elders.”
“Great. I’ll see you back at the house.” He didn’t wait for her consent before striding toward the woods.
Although most dragons tended to live the majority of their existence in human form, their lifespans were more than twice the length of their human counterparts. A dragon didn’t qualify for the title “Elder” until he was at least a century old, and even then, he had to have enough life experience to be able to guide the rest of the colony in their day-to-day activities. Generally, one didn’t become an Elder until they’d experienced some sort of life- or-death trauma.
At least, that’s how it seemed to Gabe.
Adelbern was the oldest dragon in the Zilarra colony. He’d lived through one full-on dragon war, a dozen skirmishes, and most importantly, the curse.
“Tell me how this fated mate business works,” he said after Adelbern invited him into his tiny, two-room cabin in the woods. The older man claimed he’d spent plenty enough time in the company of dragons and preferred his solitude these days, except for when he was summoned to Elder and colony meetings, of course. He didn’t know it, but Gabe paid a young dragon to check up on the old man every day. Gabe didn’t want their wisest and oldest member to get hurt and, gods forbid, die alone just because he was too stubborn to live closer to civilization.
“I get that question pretty regularly, but I admit, I never thoughtyouwould ask.” Adelbern pulled a bottle of whiskey from a cupboard, then grabbed two glasses and motioned to Gabe. “Come, let’s sit outside. My knees are paining me more than usual today, which means bad weather is coming. Let’s enjoy the warmth while we can.”
It wasn’t exactly warm, considering Adelbern’s home was surrounded by hundred-foot tall trees, but it was pleasant enough out on the old man’s back porch. They sat in cushioned chairs with a small, round table between them, where Adelbern placed the bottle and glasses. Gabe poured them each a drink—the Elder liked his whiskey neat, and while Gabe preferred his over ice, he certainly wasn’t complaining. The man had excellent taste in adult beverages; ice wasn’t really needed.
“So tell me,” Adelbern said once they were seated with drinks in hand. “Why are you asking?”
“What are you, part fae? Can’t answer a question without asking one of your own?”
The old man chuckled and sipped his whiskey. “Maybe. Who knows? Most magical species have interbred with one another by this point in time. When we’re in human form, when we’re buck naked and high on endorphins, the fact that we aren’t usually alike hardly matters, does it?”
“True,” Gabe said. Hell, he and Talia barely got along for the past five years. They certainly hadn’t been attracted to each other, at least not enough to actually do anything about it. He always thought she was a Goody-Two-Shoes; she never hid her dislike of his laissez-faire lifestyle.
Now they couldn’t keep their damn hands off each other. Or their mouths. And considering she now lived with him and he had no intention of ending their affair any time soon, she was bound to realize he had a stash of condoms in his bedside table. Or hell, in his wallet. If she didn’t just go out and buy a box herself, which was most definitely something she would do.
And then he’d have no excuse for not copulating with her. His only option would be to attempt to end the liaison. Which he doubted his dragon would let him do. Hell,hedidn’t want to, so he didn’t even need his dragon to force him not to do it. Damn, he was really in a bind here.
“What, precisely, do you want to know about, er, as you call it, this fated mate business?” Adelbern asked.
Gabe leaned forward and rested his elbows on his thighs, holding the glass in both hands while staring into the amber-colored liquid. “Is it stoppable? Like, if you think you’ve found your fated mate, can you decide not to mate with them?”
“What a fascinating question, considering our colony has been under a curse for, what, thirty years or so? Not a single dragon has found his fated mate in all that time, and now you—someone who refuses to take a mate at all, let alone a fated one—are asking how to stop fate from happening.”
“Well, if we aren’t fated mates, what the hell is going on?” Gabe muttered, more to himself than to Adelbern, although, of course, the older dragon heard him.
“What makes you think you are fated to this—another dragon, I assume?”
He nodded. “Yes. We, uh, it’s…” Shit. He wasn’t used to talking to anyone other than Talia, and even then, it wasn’t aboutfeelings.
“Fated mates generally are attracted to each other far more than they are to anyone else.” Adelbern had apparently decided to take mercy on him. “That isn’t to say they won’t find other dragons sexually attractive, just that this one in particular is going to stand out, like a single red tulip in a field of yellow ones. All are beautiful, but your eye is drawn to the red one every single time.”
Huh. You know, he could picture every outfit she’d ever worn, every hairstyle, every smile or frown, the way her eyes became lighter or darker depending on her mood.
He couldn’t recall such detail for any other person in his acquaintance. Especially not any of the nameless, faceless women he’d screwed over the years. But Talia, hell, he already had her body memorized, and it was only a few days ago that he’d gotten his hands on it for the first time.
“They also want to please each other, to be there for each other, no matter what the other may be doing. They tend to complement each other. If one is gruff, the other is cheerful. If one is outgoing, the other is often an introvert. Together, they are the perfect scenario, but separately, they do not feel complete.”
Gabe had never felt complete. The only times he ever felt remotely…comfortable were when Talia was around. And when they’d flown together, it had been damn near euphoric. Scratch that, not “damn near” at all.
Shit.
“And even with all of that, nowadays, with so many dragons acting like humans and trying to convince themselves they don’t need a mate to be happy, many don’t realize what’s right in front of their face, at least not until they fly together in dragon form. That’s usually when it smacks them upside the head. Our dragons are often far wiser than we are, especially when they are more in control, which is what happens when we shift.”
