Page 4 of Drawn By Dragonblood
Another burst of anger from deep within threatened to reveal me, but I managed to keep my aggravation contained. Knees weakening from the inner battle that made my human side despondent, I slumped onto a rock hidden by the growing darkness.
The couple’s murmurs reached my ears, however, their words remained indistinct as I fought to accept what I had stumbled upon, what fate had so cruelly dangled in front of me only to snatch away.
Mine.
Take.
Throat aching, I stared at the snuggling humans, my dragon obsessed and insistent in ways I’d never heard before.
The male tossed back the top of their sleeping bag, and the images I’d seen through their obviously combined scent I had tasted on the breeze came into view. Not just her with golden locks and lush curves but his muscular, taller form topped by a mess of similar blond, longer hair, the top portion of which he had pulled back into a ponytail.
He was gorgeous from what I could see, but my treasure stood, drawing my full attention.
My mouth dried at the sight of her.
Her petite frame showcased flawless, pale skin, and her perfectly formed breasts would fill my large palms. A small waist gave way to flared hips and a full backside I wanted to enjoy jiggling as I thrust into her slick heat from behind.
She tugged on her clothes, hiding her desirous body from me as joyous laughter reached across the distance to my straining senses. She smiled at her lover, the adoration in the curve of her lips like a knife to my heart. He caressed her cheek, her hair, his touch gentle on the one I was destined to pamper.
But she’d chosen him—and he held her heart.
Claim!
I ignored the inner growling, self-preservation demanding I contemplate rather than act on instinct as I’d done with my ex-partner. But my show of dominance hadn’t kept Dolyn by my side.
Not ours.
I had to agree with my beast’s silent voice, his reminder that a mate chosen by convenience rather than fate would eventually lead to heartache as we had experienced.
Would the one truly meant for me even offer a second glance my way? Would the bonding energy between mates draw her to me, steal her from the male she’d given herself to? Mostly human but for the tiniest fraction, would she even recognize the connection between us? Feel the insistent need to claim me in return?
An ache radiated through my chest. My dragon and I had barely survived when our ex-partner had left. The beast had nearly burned our home in the mountains to mere ash in his sorrow. How much more pain would being denied our true mate inflict?
Torn, I slumped where I sat, unmoving and watching as the two humans prepared a late dinner, their movements in sync as though they had spent centuries together even though they only appeared to be twenty-something. I listened to their indistinct words, their laughter. I studied them as the man banked the fire, and they both crawled inside their sleeping bag a short while later.
I swallowed my pain and jealousy as they curled together, two warm bodies intertwined, intimately sharing space as lovers did.
My dragon moaned his displeasure throughout the long night while I sat in silence, contemplating the situation I found myself in. I ought to leave, take us far from sure grief, but I couldn’t bear to abandon her. Every cell in my body longed for my female mate, and had I been a younger, immature dragon shifter, I would have stolen her without a care for either her or her partner’s feelings as many of my kind had done in centuries past.
But, how could I inflict on the human male the same pain I had lived with for a decade? The suffering, the loneliness of losing the one you shared your life with? I hadn’t been offered a choice—my lover had left without allowing me the opportunity to beg him to stay.
I refused to do the same to another, but by the time the sun rose, my tortured mind needed something to appease both parts of my soul.
Resolution at the very least.
My dragon grumbled like a petulant child, but I held full control over his instinctive impulses to take without thought of another’s heart.
As her alpha, it was my duty to protect her, emotions included. I would give her the chance to choose the mate she should be with or the one she had already attached herself to. It would be her decision as it ought to be, the male’s broken heart her doing, rather than mine.
Weak.
My teeth gritted at my dragon’s claim. Empathy was anything but a downfall. I’d become a better man because of my own misery.
Coercion is the only way.
I refused to bow down to his fears that also gripped my guts. We would show restraint and caution as always, allowing destiny to steer us toward a real bond that would last, unlike a forced one. Pulse racing and palms damp, I drew closer on silent feet, the delicious aroma of a mere hint of ancient blood in the air flooding my mouth with saliva. I could taste her sweetness on my tongue from a hundred yards away.
A low growl rumbled my chest, and I swallowed to silence my beast.
