Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
“You can answer my question now,” Sephie prompted the following morning as she lay naked beneath the covers in Ranulf’s beautifully carved four-poster bed, her head resting on his bare shoulder.
Instead of talking, as they had planned, the two of them had fallen asleep in each other’s arms. Because, Sephie believed, neither of them wanted to do anything to endanger the closeness they had gained through their lovemaking.
But it was morning now, and much as Sephie still didn’t want to disturb their new intimacy, they couldn’t go forward until they had “the conversation.”
“Which one?” Ranulf indulged.
“Is there just one carver called Ranulf?”
“Yes.”
Her heart sped up, despite the fact that she had thought she was ready for him to answer that way. “It’s been the same Ranulf for the past eight hundred years?”
“Yes.”
“You?”
“Yes.”
“So you’re hundreds of years old?”
“I’m twelve hundred and ten years old.”
“Wow, that really does put a whole different slant on you being an older man.”
“Too old?” He looked anxious.
“Not at all.” Sephie moved up until she was leaning on her elbow, looking down at him. “Who are you? No, what are you?” There was no shortage of possibilities flashing through her head.
Vampires. Some sort of fae? A werewolf? Or maybe—
“I’m a dragon shifter.” Ranulf’s announcement put an end to her wild imaginings.
Except his answer was even more magical than her thoughts had been.
A dragon!
Ranulf could shift into a dragon!
Sephie couldn’t seem to wipe the grin off her face. Which was probably causing Ranulf to question her sanity. “You’re a silver dragon, right?” she prompted excitedly.
Ranulf eyed her quizzically. “How do you know that?”
She shrugged. “Every now and then it’s as if you have silver flames in the depths of your eyes. It’s really fascinating to see!”
“Ah.” He smiled ruefully. “I’m a snow dragon, and my dragon is silver. I also have enhanced hearing and sight.”
“Are your brothers dragon shifters too, with the same superpowers?”
He huffed. “Those ‘powers’ seem pretty normal to us.”
“But it’s the reason they both seemed to know what we were talking about earlier, even though they were all the way across the kitchen from us?”
“Yes.”
“Explain more about the shifter part, please,” she encouraged.
Ranulf moved up the bed until he was leaning back against the carved headboard. “Most people who speculate about or search for dragon shifters—”
“You know there are people who do that?” Sephie prompted guardedly.
He nodded. “Edgar Wallis is one. But I believe he is also under the misapprehension that I’m a man first and can shift into a dragon at will. It’s actually the other way around. I was born a dragon but can shift into and now spend most of my time as a man.”
“Why, when you can be a dragon?” Mind-boggling as this was, Sephie couldn’t deny she was also thrilled by what Ranulf was confiding in her.
Ranulf shrugged. “We learned very quickly that humans become alarmed and start shouting ‘dragon’ if they see one of us. That tends to bring out the pitchforks and wanting to burn our home to the ground.”
“Has that happened to you?”
“Centuries ago,” he dismissed.
“This really is a castle, though?”
“Yes.”
“How do you make everyone else see it as a manse?”
“Two ways. We can put a shield on the castle so that humans only see a house. We can also mentally influence what they see and the memories they retain.”
She frowned. “I hope you never intend to try to do that to me.”
He smiled. “The shield obviously doesn’t work on you if you can see the castle.”
“Which I can.”
“Then I doubt I could influence the memories you retain either.”
“I advise that you never try,” she warned. “I will not be amused if you do.”
He chuckled. “I already know that.” He sobered. “The advent of the internet and people being able to take photographs on their cell phones and instantly put them up on social media has changed things for us somewhat.”
Sephie was still assimilating the I was born a dragon part of his statements.
A dragon!
How cool was that? She couldn’t wait to tell— “You said Lachlan and Hunter are dragon shifters too,” she said slowly.
Ranulf nodded. “We were born from the same clutch.”
Her eyes widened. “Birds, reptiles, and insects have clutches of eggs.”
“So do dragons.”
“The three of you emerged from eggs?”
“Yes.”
Sephie searched for any indication in Ranulf’s expression that he was messing with her. Although the seriousness of his nature up till now didn’t indicate that that was at all likely.
Nope, those beautiful green eyes continued to meet hers, unflinchingly honest in their intensity.
But hadn’t she already sensed that there was something feral lurking inside Ranulf and his two brothers beneath that veneer of civility they presented to the world?
A surface civility that occasionally grew very thin, most noticeably when Ranulf appeared to growl over something he didn’t like.
In her company, that was usually in connection with someone—Wallis—hurting or touching her.
From the moment she first saw Ranulf, he had been unlike any other man Sephie had ever met—probably because she now knew he was actually a dragon!—and last night had been amazing, magical.
It was fast, and incredible, but Sephie knew she had already fallen in love with him.
“Do Belle and Zoey know all this too?” she asked.
Ranulf smiled slightly. “Oh yes, they are well aware of the nature of their mate.”
“Mate,” Sephie echoed, not as a question but more as a way of her trying to assimilate the whole concept of dragon shifters and their mates. “I’m guessing being a dragon’s mate is something even deeper than the commitment of a husband and wife.”
“Yes.”
She nodded, grateful when Ranulf didn’t try to fill the silence that followed.
It had already been a fantastical twenty-four hours, including having a deranged man holding her family prisoner at gunpoint before placing bombs in their inn.
She wanted time to absorb all that she was hearing right now.
Not because she didn’t believe him, because she did.
She just needed a little time to come to terms with it all.
She finally managed to speak again. “So, Belle and Zoey are Lachlan’s and Hunter’s mates?”
“Their fated mates, yes.”
“Fated?” Sephie was sure she sounded like a damned parrot, as she kept repeating certain words Ranulf said. But she needed to know all of it, not just some of it.
Ranulf nodded. “Dragons only have one true mate.”
Her eyes widened. “Just one, in the whole world?”
“Yes.”
“But the odds of them meeting that one person who is their mate must be astronomical.”
“They are,” he dismissed. “And yet that’s exactly what’s happened for Lachlan with Belle and Hunter with Zoey.”
“Will that happen to you too?” Knowing she was in love with Ranulf, she couldn’t quite manage to keep the disappointment or jealousy from her voice. The woman who became Ranulf’s mate would be the luckiest one in the world.
“Yes.”
Sephie felt a painful tightening of her chest at the thought of Ranulf with his own mate. “Belle and Zoey are happy with all these changes in their lives?”
Ranulf chuckled. “They now have the same enhanced hearing and sight that we do, and the absolute wonder on Belle’s face the first time she shifted and flew beside Lachlan was priceless.”
“Belle can fly as a dragon?”
He nodded. “Once she became Lachlan’s mate, yes.”
“Zoey too?”
“Yes,” he confirmed.
Oh my God! That sounded so amazing. So much so, it still seemed unreal to Sephie.
“Their lifespans will also match their mates’,” Ranulf added.
Her eyebrows rose. “How long do dragon shifters live?”
“Our parents were several thousands of years old when they died.”
“Together?”
“Mated dragon shifters always share the same lifespan.”
“So, if Belle dies…”
“So does Lachlan, and vice versa.”
“The same with Hunter and Zoey?”
“Yes.”
“How long will they live if nothing untoward happens to either of them?”
“As I said, our parents were thousands of years old when they died.”
“Together,” she repeated.
Ranulf shrugged. “Neither of them would have wished to carry on without the other anyway.”
“That’s…”
“Unbelievable?”
“Romantic,” she corrected. “No… It’s more than that. So much more. My mother and father have always shared a love and closeness I’ve always dreamed of having with my own partner one day. They are utterly devoted to each other.” She eyed him quizzically. “Are dragons faithful to their mate?”
“Always and completely.”
She nodded. “Then to be mated and love each other for so long, to be totally in tune with each other, and to then die together, sounds like heaven to me.”
“My brothers and their mates also have an emotional link that allows them to speak to each other with only their thoughts.”
This was all so much more than romantic. What Ranulf was explaining to her sounded magical, a closeness that existed on another level completely than that shared by any married human couple. Even her parents.
Sephie felt an ache of envy, wanting that for herself. But only if it could be with Ranulf. And it couldn’t when she obviously wasn’t his mate.
“I follow a different mental path to link with my brothers.” He seemed to be choosing his words carefully, seeming aware of her inner turmoil, if not the reason for it, and not wanting to alarm her.
A little late considering all that he had already told her!
Sephie sat up, the duvet held against her bare breasts as she turned to look at him. “Have you met your fated mate?” She could barely breathe, terrified of what his answer was going to be.
“Yes.”
“Your one and only?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” Sephie could no longer look at the man she had fallen in love with, feeling as if a heavy weight was pressing down on her chest. “Is it because you have a mate that you stopped us from making love completely last night?”
“Partly,” he acknowledged.
“Which part?” she bit out, her disappointment almost too much to bear.
How could she be expected to just walk away from this man and the magic that surrounded him?
The man she had fallen in love with, possibly before she even met him, if her obsession with Ranulf’s carvings was an indication?
“The part where it would not be safe for us to have penetrative sex until you know about and have accepted that you are my fate mate—”
Sephie gasped. “I’m your fated mate?”