Page 12 of Storm Dragon
Ready to jump to his feet and race down the hill, Ruairí stopped before he began. His Mate was not alone. She was talking to someone- someone he couldn’t yet see.
Instantly anxious and angry and… and… jealous?
“Yes, I am jealous,” he spat. “She should be talking to me. I need her to be talking to me.”
Holding completely still, not even breathing, the Guardsman thought back through the last few moments. He took a quick mental inventory, ignored the chuckles and snickers of the Dragon King with whom he shared his soul, and within a single beat of his heart, breathed, “I am indeed jealous, and you, Dorman, you can come out of the depths of your Healing Sleep to taunt me?”
When his stern rebuke was answered with silence, Ruairí wondered if he’d imagined the Dragon King’s chuckle. Was he so lost that all he had left was his imagination?
“NO! I am not lost!” He tried to shout, but his voice cracked and faded. “I am found and I, like Fate, will not be denied!”
Stopping before his voice was completely gone, his gaze returned inward and shot to the image of his Mate.
Instantly, he chuckled at his own silliness. “It is…”
But that was as far as he got before the wonderfully lyrical laughter of his Mate rang out over the flower-filled meadow. “Oh, sure, Sis. Like I’m gonna find my Mate out here.”
“You never know,” the other woman, the one who had to be his Mate’s sister, teased. “What is it, Momma always said?” She bumped Tamsyn’s elbow with her own. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio…”
“…than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” they finished in unison. Then his Mate added, “Yeah, and daddy always countered with, ‘All the planning in the world can’t beat dumb luck. ’”
After they stopped laughing, Tamsyn’s sister went on, “Yeah, well, I don’t think you have anythin’ to do with the plannin’ or not plannin’ or the dumb luck of findin’ your Mate, Tams. It’s all up to Fate, and we both know she can be a fickle…”
“Don’t you dare say it, Peaches!”
“Say what?” Her sister was truly lost.
“You know what you were gonna say.”
“Yeah, I do,” the almost carbon copy of his Mate, but for being a few inches shorter and with strawberry blonde curls instead of chestnut, snapped. “And I know I was about to say, ‘fickle pickle’. What the hell did you think I was gonna say?”
Laughing with such gusto that she had to stop walking, bend at the waist, and brace her hands on the top of her thighs, Tamsyn wistfully sighed, “Oh, goodness, Girl. I thought you were gonna… I mean, I was sure you were gonna… It’s not that I…”
“Oh, shit, Tams!” Peaches swore. “You thought I was gonna call the Omnipotent Being known as Fate a bitch? You must seriously think I’ve got more than a few screws loose, my elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top, and my ducks are runnin’ around all willy nilly.”
“Well…” Tamsyn shrugged before starting to laugh all over again.
Playfully swatting his Mate, Peaches pretended to scowl as she fussed, “Well, I never.”
“Oh, come on now, Sis. You know you have.”
It was Peaches’ turn to shrug as she giggled like a schoolgirl. “Come to think of it, you’re absolutely right. And the Great Goddess knows I’ll do it again.”
“As I always am. You know…”
Interrupted by the most annoying buzz and beep Ruairí had ever heard, his Mate sighed, “Well, there goes that run through the trees. I swear, one day, I’mma gonna throw this danged thing in the trash.” Then, with an abrupt change of tone and the blessed ceasing of the horrible noise, she stated, “This is Tamsyn.”
There was a weird static in the air, something Ruairí had never heard in all his years. Before he could wrap his head around the strange disturbance, there was a snap of metal, and Tamsyn was groaning, “We have to head back. There’s…”
Unable to hold onto the memory of the first time he’d heard his Mate’s voice, the Guardsman cursed himself for expending unneeded Magic and energy inserting himself in the vision. He should have been conserving, not using, but he couldn’t have stopped had he wanted to. It had been worth it to be a part of her world, if only in his own mind. Part recollection, part fantasy, and a lot of Enchantment, she would also have been worth any cost.
Tamsyn was quite literally perfect. She was gorgeous. She was smart and intelligent, with a quick wit, an infectious laugh, and a pure heart that shone in a bright rainbow of colors beaming from her aura. It didn’t matter that everything he saw, everything he felt, and everything he believed with all his heart had come from the Bond they shared as Mates, the Magic given to them by their heritage, and all the blessings they’d received from the Universe. It was as real as the nose on his face and the shackles on his wrists and ankles.
“I am hers and she is mine,” he declared with a passion so strong that his prison actually shook.
She was the Light to his Darkness, the other half of his soul- just as the Book of the Ancients said she would be. She was the only person in all the world who could heal his broken psyche, and he knew beyond all reason that contacting her was more important than it had ever been.
“She’s asleep,” he whispered to no one but himself. “The time has come, Ruairí. Do it now.”
