Page 68 of Fated to the Grumpy Dragon
Power flowed through my limbs as the magic of my other half filled me, stretching the skin, my limbs and body enlarging at a rapid pace. Fingers lengthened into claws, each the size of my human arm. My skin was pulled taut even as it rippled and changed shape, becoming scales that swiftly turned a brilliant azure blue in the bright sunlight as they caught it and bounced the light wildly.
A tail sprouted from my rear, a second before the wonder of the change becamewrong. Everything just ground to a halt. Darkness replaced light, and I fought back a snarl as the wings that should have exploded from my back in a glorious spreading of their membrane, instead just sort of flopped over on the one side, hanging limply on the ground.
My right wing stood proud and wide for a moment before I flexed the muscle to bring it along my side. By the time I was done, my neck had stretched way out from my body, my nose sticking forward until it became a snout filled with sharp teeth and a long tongue.
“Here!” I roared, leaning down and toward Emma in one swift movement. “Is this what you wanted to see?”
I was shouting as I shoved my broken wing at her, the weak, ugly thing sluggishly responding to my commands.
“Are you happy now?” I spat. “Slept with the freak, so he’ll open up to you? Well, go ahead. You can laugh now. It doesn’t matter. I’ve heard it all before from everyone else. You can’t do anything to me that hasn’t’ already been done.”
Emma had backed up against the side of the house now, and she was shaking, trembling, staring at me, unable to move.
I waited for her to respond. Despite my best efforts, a tiny part of me held out hope she would surprise me.
It was in vain. Her eyes darted all around from my broken wing to the ground. Everywhere but at me.
She wouldn’t even meet my eye now that she’d seen the real me.
Without saying another word, I turned and leaped from the edge of the bluffs, tucking my wings into my side as I plummeted to the waters below. I hit the waves and disappeared underneath them.
Perhaps I was running away. But I didn’t care.
Anything was better that than seeing the look of disgust that was sure to come on the face of the one woman I wished most in the world would see me in a different light.
And to think I’d hoped she was different from the rest.
Chapter Thirty
Rhyse
Iknifed through the waters with casual ease, legs and wings tucked in tight to my body, my tail the only thing propelling me along. It was heaven.
The sea was my home, my sanctity. Under the blue-green waters was where I was most alive. Nothing could challenge me down there. In the depths, I was the master, and nothing could hinder me. I could exist in peace without judgment of the sea creatures around me.
Thoughts of judgment brought my mind, inevitably, back to Emma.
I tried to forget the way she’d refused to look me in the eye after seeing my deformed wing. Pushing it from my mind was harder than it should have been. It was far from the first time someone had treated me differently after seeing my wing. Over the years, I’d grown hardened to it. Able to shrug it off.
Or so I’d thought.
She was different. I couldn’t just push aside the way she looked at me, the thoughts I knew she was having.
Bellowing my rage underwater, I watched as the shoals of fish gathering nearby shot off in a flash, scattering to get away from the enraged sounds.
Why did she have to be different? Why couldn’t I just ignore her like everyone else? It would be so much easier that way!
This is why you should never have agreed to it in the first place. You weren’t meant to have the life everyone else does. That dream died the same day they took your wing from you.
I had been foolish to let myself hope. Even with a human. I should never have let my guard waver. Those were the actions of a hopeless romantic.
That wasn’t me. I knew better. Or so I’d thought.
My anger lent me speed as I zipped past rock outcroppings, ducked under basking whales, and scattered huge globes of fish. I didn’t care where I went. As long as it wasaway.
The farther away I swam, the less it would hurt. That’s what I told myself, though deep down, in a locked away part of me, I knew nothing would ever make the pain stop. Rejection was a lingering ache that never truly faded.
In the moment, though, I wasn’t ready to acknowledge that fact. For the first time in many years, I’d let someone in. And once more, they’d been repulsed by what they’d seen. By me.
