Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Hours later, Cam resisted checking his phone for the millionth time. After explaining things to his parents, his mum had volunteered to help Emily pack and move.
Although he suspected his mum just wanted to sing his praises to Emily, in the hopes of planting a seed.
No matter how many times he’d told his parents that he and Emily were merely pretending to date, his mum believed in fate and that things happened for a reason.
In other words, she would meddle.
To vent his frustration, Cam chopped the onions in front of him a little too hard.
His dragon snorted. If you thought Mum would stand back and do nothing, then you don’t know her at all.
This plan is to protect Emily, that’s all. Given how the human was suddenly thrust into all of this, complete with the hunters and their bounty, I thought Mum would take more care.
At least you’re calling her Emily and not Dr. Davies.
Part of the ruse, dragon, and nothing more. Don’t you go getting any ideas.
As long as you show her our dragon form soon, I won’t meddle. Much.
The doorbell rang, and he quickly wiped his hands on a towel and went to open it. On the other side stood a frazzled-looking Emily, as well as his mum. The latter was smiling and far too happy. “What did you do, Mum?”
“Me? Oh, nothing. At any rate, she’s all packed and ready to move in. I expect to see you both for dinner in two days’ time since Emily is busy tomorrow. Bye, son.”
With that, his mother walked away before he could say another word.
Emily shuffled her feet, and he grabbed her suitcase. “Come on in. Before anything else, I think you could use a glass of wine, aye?”
She frowned. “Is that wise? Dragon-shifters and alcohol don’t mix well.”
“I’m more than aware that we get drunk easily. But you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone on Seahaven that doesn’t have a bottle of whiskey tucked away somewhere.”
She stepped inside. “Well, it is Scotland after all. But why do you have wine? Are you a secret sommelier or something?”
He nearly smiled, loving that her spirit was back.
“No. Some humans gifted it to me a while back, after we helped put out their house fire. I tried to refuse, but they wouldn’t hear of it, and so the bottles have been gathering dust in my kitchen.
You drinking them would actually help me out and free up some space. ”
She arched an eyebrow. “Does that mean I’ll be eating whatever’s nearly expired in your cupboard whilst I’m here?”
He set her suitcase near the wall and gestured toward the kitchen. “I was teasing you, lass. I’m making spaghetti bolognese, which requires wine. So I have a bottle out already.”
“Oh.” She paused, shuffled her feet, and blurted, “I’m not very good at this.”
“Good at what?”
“Chitchat. I’m also not spontaneously witty. Ask me two days later, and I’ll have the best reply you’ve ever heard. But in general, I’m a bit awkward.”
He frowned. “You’ve been clever and witty since the moment I met you.”
Her cheeks turned pink. “I’m not sure about that. At any rate, maybe the wine will help.”
He studied her face but decided not to provoke her further. It’d been a long day for her, so he gestured with his hand. “This way.”
As he led her down the hallway, she avoided his eyes, although her cheeks were still pink.
Was she embarrassed? This was completely different from earlier, when she had no problem calling him out or even arguing.
His dragon spoke up. Her entire world is turning upside down. She’s had a few hours to think and examine everything that’s happening. It’s your turn to be charming.
I’m not charming.
His beast sniffed. You can be. At least try to make her feel at ease. No doubt she’s worried about what will happen if the hunters find her.
I won’t let that happen.
I know that, and you know that. However, to Emily, we’re still a stranger. One she probably thinks resents her for being her.
Rubbish.
Convince her of that.
They entered the kitchen and dining area. He pulled out a chair at his two-person table before stepping back. “I won’t try to help you sit down, as that didn’t work out well last time, even if it was in reverse.”
She smiled, and the sight eased his dragon a little. She said, “Thank you. For all we know, I could trip backward, tip the chair, and you’d crash against the wall.”
Once she was seated, he retrieved a wine glass and the wine as he replied, “I haven’t lost a fight against walls for a long, long time, lass.”
As he poured her some wine, she asked, “What happened the last time you lost, then? Can’t say I’ve actually lost against a wall before. A table leg, sure, but walls tend to stay in one place.”
He could brush aside the question and jump into what rules they should follow while living together.
However, he wanted Emily to relax a wee bit more before reminding her of what she had to do to stay on Seahaven.
So he went back to the stove, turned it on, and said, “I was eight years old the last time I lost to a wall. We still lived on Lochguard back then, and me and my friends had this brilliant idea of sledding down the staircase that leads to the rooms beneath the great hall.”
“Sledding down stairs? How do you even do that?”
He smiled at the memory. “It’s not very difficult.
We found some extra-large cardboard boxes and flattened them.
Then, after you climb on, you pull up and hold on to the front part, and off you go.
However, being eight, we didn’t understand momentum well, and the staircase to the underground rooms is really long.
I went first, and by the time I reached the bottom, I was flying.
Unfortunately, that meant I hit the wall at a rather impressive speed. ”
“Oh, no! And there probably wasn’t any sort of protective foam mat there or anything, either.”
“There is now, courtesy of yours truly breaking his arm.”
“Well, if you look at the positive side, you helped prevent future injuries?”
He snorted. “Young me didn’t care about that.
However, once my arm was set in a cast, I got to eat loads of ice cream.
My mum never stays mad long, you see, and wanted to make me feel better.
My poor dad was always the one who had to enforce rules and punishments long-term.
But my parents balance each other out, which is probably why their mating works. ”
She sipped her wine, her smile gone, and she played with the glass as she murmured, “I suppose.”
Warning bells went off inside his head. He’d read something about her parents moving to Australia, and maybe talking about them was painful.
He wanted to ask if she missed them, but Emily spoke before he could. “Well, I’m glad it was only a broken arm and not a broken head.”
“Aye, well, my mum was convinced that I’d hit my head since I got into trouble again as soon as I could sneak out. But the doctor assured her my head was fine, that I was just a young lad who took risks to figure out boundaries. She still asks about my head on occasion.”
She giggled, and he frowned. “What?”
“Sorry, it’s the way you say head.”
“Head?”
“It sounds more like ‘heid’ to me.”
“Aye, that’s how you’re supposed to say it. You’re the one with the strange accent.”
“Most everyone on Stonefire said the same thing. Although, to be fair, there are so many accents on Stonefire now because of all the recent human mates that I don’t stand out much anymore.”
“That’s still strange to me.”
“What is?”
“That Stonefire so easily accepts human mates now.”
“Things have changed a lot over the last five or six years. Mostly for the better, I think.” She sipped her wine and then added, “Everyone on Seahaven was ahead of their time.”
He grimaced. “Aye, but it was still painful to be called traitors to dragonkind. Or, to have all of our human relatives be labeled as rubbish and tainted.”
She searched his face. “Was that really how it was?”
He turned away and focused on stirring the sauce for nearly a minute, debating how much to tell her.
His dragon spoke up. She’ll eventually find out, and it’s better that she hears it from us than from pieced-together rumors and gossip.
Cam turned and finally replied to Emily, “Aye, it was that bad and worse from a certain faction inside the clan—most of whom have now been banished from Lochguard.”
“Oh, that’s right, I remember hearing about Finn Stewart sending away those who wouldn’t accept humans.”
“Aye, and I know Finn is trying to change things. But those of us on Seahaven had our whole lives upended, and it’s still painful. The rift between our clans might never heal.”
She paused and then asked softly, “What finally drove you all off Lochguard? I’ve always wondered.”
He checked his sauce and the almost-boiling pot of water on the stove before replying, “My parents said the anti-human sentiment started when I was a bairn, but I only really noticed the change in my teen years. That’s when the clan leader began preaching at every gathering about how dragon-shifters should only mate with other dragon-shifters.
It was the natural way of things, and human blood diluted the beauty of our dragon forms.”
Emily shook her head. “What rubbish. He obviously doesn’t know anything about genetics.
When it comes to a human reproducing with a dragon, dragon-shifter genes—in all forms—are dominant and human ones are recessive.
Shared traits, such as hair or eye color, function the same as if it were two dragons or two humans. ”
“Aye, that’s true, but the old leader didn’t see it that way. He had his own doctors backing up his claim.”
“Then they weren’t real doctors. And I hope they aren’t still practicing medicine. If they are, tell me their names. I have contacts who will ensure they stop.”
Looking at Emily’s flushed cheeks and bright eyes, at her indignation for medicine being used as propaganda, something in him shifted a wee bit.
His dragon said softly, She’s in the dragon-shifters’ corner and always will be.