Page 10 of Bound By Fire and Magic
“A truck.” He looked around the cab, patting the door. “Wouldn’t have figured you for one.”
“I break and train horses at a ranch now, and I’ve got my own horse. A truck makes it easier to haul the trailer, hay, that sort of thing.” She tilted her head. “What kind of vehicle did you figure me for?”
“Something classy, like a BMW or Mercedes Benz. Nothing flashy but nice and solid and reliable.”
Hmm. She wasn’t sure what to make of that.
“I remember how much you loved horses, and how you gave up a career working with them for your dad.” The same way you gave up me for him.
Oh, yeah, she heard the unspoken words. He said she’d hurt him. He’d never told her that before. But of course, now she could see that his anger had been covering his pain. Same as hers actually.
“The first time I broke things off was so you didn’t get fired, okay? You were getting great experience at the factory, and there was a possibility of you getting a job there after college. I didn’t want you to lose all that over our raging teenage hormones.” She held out her hand as his mouth opened. “I know it was more than that now, but I was seventeen. I had no idea what love was.”
“So, you broke it off for me? To save my job?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you could have given me a choice. I would have chosen you.”
Zing. There went the arrow right into her heart. “I had other reasons for breaking it off. We were both going to college soon, something an intense relationship like ours would interfere with. And a Deuce/Dragon match is frowned upon in Crescent society. Dating a Deuce would bring peace at home. Overall, I thought it was for the best.”
“And I liked working at the factory,” she added. “Did it make my heart pound with excitement? No. But I was okay with the compromise.”
“I suppose you believe men and women can be just friends, too.” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and made a call. “Lyra, it’s me. …Yeah, I’m in town. I ran into Elle and guess what? Her father’s missing, too, and that can’t be a coincidence. I’m staying clear of you for now because something evil is at play here. Just in case it follows me. I’ll tell you when I know more.” His expression darkened as Lyra’s high-pitched voice squawked on the other end. “I haven’t abandoned you for Elle. You know where my loyalties are.”
Elle’s heart jumped at that. She sure did know where his loyalties were.
Kirin’s mouth tightened as Lyra spoke on the other end. He jabbed his finger at no one in particular. “I gave up everything for you and Pop, so don’t throw that loyalty crap at me. I’ll talk to you later.” He disconnected, his cheeks flushed in anger. “She says she found something in Pop’s bedroom, but since I wasn’t sharing, neither was she. I think she’s bluffing.”
Elle’s voice came out soft when she asked, “Was I that ‘everything’ you were talking about?”
“Yeah.” He met her gaze. “You really don’t get it, do you? How much you meant to me. Dragons don’t love half-assed. When we choose a mate, we love with all that’s in us. We possess, consume, and we are possessed and consumed by the person we love.”
She took in those words, swallowing hard. He’d chosen her as his mate? The word twanged a primitive chord inside her. “What does that mean, ‘choose a mate’?”
“The Dragon part of us is like the beasts who roamed the earth many centuries ago. The ones that inspired all the legends and stories. They mated for life, fiercely loyal and insanely heartbroken when their mate died. Our Dragons often choose a mate for us, and mine chose you.”
“I’m not even a Dragon,” she said through a tight throat.
Kirin shrugged. “The beasts don’t always care about that, just like I didn’t care. It picked up my feelings and agreed that you were an amazing woman. And it doesn’t care that we aren’t together anymore. It’s made its choice, which is a real pain in the ass since we are not, in fact, together anymore.”
“Can’t it…change its mind?”
He gave a slow shake of his head. “Our Dragons are very stubborn.”
“Well, tell it how its equally stubborn person betrayed me and that I am not changing my mind.”
“It heard you, but it doesn’t believe you.”
“Well, tell it—oh, never mind. This is crazy.” She’d never gotten a handle on the Dragon Crescents having an entity inside them or the way their tattoos had a consciousness.
She pulled into an upscale neighborhood, then turned onto her nana’s street. Her house stood out with her untamed trees and bushes “kept in the natural state as God intended.” Like many Deuces, she had things hanging across the front entrance of her home. To the untrained eye, or rather, the Mundane eye, they looked like an eccentric assortment of tacky thingamabobs: dried herbs, plastic birds, crystals. They were always significant to the dweller, though.
Elle cut the engine and looked at Kirin. “You sure you want to do this?”
“I’m not afraid of the big, bad witch.”
“Stop that. You know Deuces don’t like being called witches unless they consider themselves witches.”
