Page 118 of Drawn By Dragonblood
A flash of absolute recognition swept through my mind, the thing that had always been at the edge of my consciousness whenever coming across a strange one. I saw Dolyn’s golden dragon with its glowing amber eyes flashing in sunlight. The spines along his back down to the tip of his tail. His roar blasting from a massive gaping jaw didn’t fill our cavern or my ears, but I experienced his pain, his anger, his disbelief at what flowed between us.
Other pictures wavered through my mind, settling the underlying continual unrest that the man I touched might still find a way to replace Jon as Elijah’s beta.
That sixth sense I’d hated about myself?
It was the answer to us all finding true contentment.
“Not possible,” I heard Dolyn whisper through the sudden rush of wind in my ears.
I closed my eyes against the feelings my touch invoked in him and radiated back to me, determined to pull the grainy images in my head into better focus.
Another black dragon but smaller, lither than my Elijah—with eyes as brilliant a green as dew-kissed grass.
A tiny dragon with grayish scales and purple-blue eyes...
“Ashley.” I breathed a mere whisper for him alone, my eyelids popping open to land on a disbelieving gaze with swirling pupils. “She is the one you’ve been searching for.”
Dolyn blinked down at me, and I realized he had clasped his huge hand over the back of mine, holding my palm tight against his chest. “I saw her in my mind,” he croaked. “How—how is that possible?”
“She’s mostly human,” I whispered, peering up into his troubled gaze as he fought to believe what I had seen, what our connection had shared with him. His heart beat heavy under my hand, and I held his gaze without fear or unease until his tumbling emotions settled slightly.
He inhaled deeply as though hoping to scent her through my memory. “My female.”
He hadn’t asked a question, but I found myself nodding. “She belongs to you. The other I didn’t recognize.”
His exhale left in a rush. “Nor did I. But the female—how is it you know her?”
“Ashley is Elijah’s secretary.”
“What?” Elijah’s gasped word broke the bond between me and Dolyn, and I turned, my hand dropping from his chest.
Elijah stared at me, eyes wide. “That’s impossible! How could I not have known she is Blood Born?” He breathed the question as though to himself rather than asking me for an explanation.
I tried for a smile, which wobbled at best.
“Mon coeur,” he whispered and beckoned to me with his free hand.
Two quick steps and I pressed against his chest, the scent of fire and the warmth of his skin against my cheek settling the riot that had initiated the second I’d lost contact with him.
“You’re so fucking fierce, baby. Goddamn, do I love you.” Jon’s arms wrapped around me from behind, trapping me between my men, settling everything inside me.
Home.
I breathed a heavy sigh at the quiet whisper, so overwhelmed that my eyes stung.
“Ashley O’Connor,” Elijah said, his low voice rumbling beneath my ear. “She’s an absent-minded, timid little thing—much more fragile than the female humans we used to share, Dolyn. Don’t hurt her.”
The command from my alpha rang out with a finality that promised retribution if ignored.
“I—I’m sorry, Elijah,” Dolyn murmured, his own heartache once more reaching to caress my mind, but a sliver of hope had seemed to ease his pain. “I apologize for abandoning you without a word even if my intentions had been pure. I—I thought I was doing right in leaving, hoping to locate what we were both so desperate to have.”
Sorry I wasn’t enough, I felt sure Dolyn wanted to add.
I turned my face from where I’d burrowed against Elijah’s chest in order to connect with Dolyn’s eyes.
Emotion poured from him, complete conflicting chaos.
“Go to her,” I whispered, smiling through the tears hazing my vision, “and find your alpha mate together.”
