Page 4 of The Dragon's Emberlinked Mate
I nearly threw up.
“It’s not his fated mate, though.” It couldn’t be his fated.Iwas his fated. Even if I couldn’t be.
“Yeah, but you know some dragons settle down with mates that aren’t their fated.”
I did not know this. Sure, some young dragons liked to play around, but that was a far cry from settling down.
“Guess he’s tired of waiting around.”
My stomach twisted. Emmen didn’t have to wait around. I was right here.
Only I was a coward.
“I’m gonna go flying,” I said, and I pushed myself up off the chair, taking large steps toward the back door. It would take a lot to get my beast to stay where I told him to once we took to the air, but there was no containing him, not with this new information.
When Valen and Pip had built this house, they specifically made it so it was easy to shift into dragon form and disappear into the sky, which was exactly what I intended to do. They also built it so I had my own room I could stay in. Pip mated well.
“Rhythe? Is everything okay?”
It absolutely was not fine. Not even close.
“Fine. I’m fine,” I lied. But when was “fine” not a lie. “I just… I need some air.”
It wouldn’t take my brother long to come after me, except he couldn’t. He had a family at home, so he wasn’t about to gogallivanting off into the night. At least I was counting on that to be true. I needed my space.
I couldn’t breathe.
I ripped my clothes off and launched myself into the air, letting my wings beat rapidly. I didn’t know where I was going. I just knew I had to get away.
Emmen didn’t even know I was his, because I was too cowardly to tell him. And now he had moved on. He was tired of waiting, and I was too scared to tell him that I was his. Part of me couldn’t, because why didn’t he recognize me on his own? It had to be that I was wrong.
And besides, he deserved better than me anyway.
Right now, there was another person out there, touching my mate, enjoying his company. A person who wasn’t me. And I hated that. I hated the way things were before I even knew about Charlie. Charlie, what kind of a name was that?
My dragon roared his distress as we flapped into the night. I blamed my distraught state for my lack of awareness on where I was and what I was doing—at least, that was what I would tell everyone later, when I woke up in the hospital.
After flying directly into the side of a mountain.
At least I didn’t hunt down Emmen. That had to count for something.
Chapter 3
Emmen
I awoke in a cold sweat, bolting upright in bed, breathing hard as if I had just run a marathon. Had a nightmare woken me? What was it about? For years after the war, I’d had nightmares. And I had them again when we went through the period of time where dragons were hunted by humans, but that had been centuries ago. And this wasn’t like any of that.
I hadn’t been dreaming, at least I didn’t think I had. But something had caused me to awaken with this sense of dread and anxiety.
In a panic, I grabbed my phone, checking to see if any of my alarms had gone off around the perimeter. All of the cameras came up empty. No intruders, not that I ever really worried about those. These stupid alarms were something Malric insisted on as a way to show me the new ways were fabulous, too. So far they had proven to be nothing but an annoying nuisance.
I laid back down, trying to calm my racing heart. It was as if my body was on high alert to some threat, only I didn’t know what that threat was. But also, not a threat. It was more anxiety wrapped up in a sense of potential loss. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced before.
After thirty minutes of tossing and turning, I gave up and got out of bed. I went to the kitchen and put the kettle on. I wasn’t much of a tea drinker, but this felt like a tea-drinking moment. If I had any hope of going back to bed, it was for sure not a coffee time.
My heart continued to pound in my chest, my body reacting as if there was something to be hyper-worried about, but I had no idea what it was. Was this what a panic attack felt like? I wasn’t sure. Did dragons even have them or was that a human medical condition?
It had been a lot of years since my body had been put under this kind of stress, but in the past, I’d always known exactly what was causing it. The only other time it had been this bad had been during the war when I was young. But nothing else in my long lifespan came even close to this.
