CHAPTER 1 of FOR THE LOVE OF HER DRAGON #3
“As much as you don’t want to hear it, you will listen…
The Universe does not make mistakes. She alone knows what you need, even if you don’t.
Most times She acts in spite of what you believe is right for you.
You have to find your faith. It is not your destiny to die alone and loveless.
You more than any of us deserve to be happy, to have an entire clan of your own running around and to have a woman at your side that reminds you to lighten the hell up! ”
Both brothers burst out laughing, the tension breaker needed before they ground their teeth to nubs. Royce knew his brother was right, in theory, and he was instantly filled with regret for burdening Rian with his personal problems after the horrible hand Fate had dealt him. “Ri, I’m…”
“Shut the hell up, Roy. Do you really think I’d be working so hard to pull your stubborn ass out of the past if I was still stuck there?
What’s done is done. But you, my little brother,” Rian stopped, eyebrow raised, and took a step forward, “have a bright future just waiting for you. All you have to do is grab it.”
“Ya know I really hate that you know what I’m going to say before I get it out of my mouth, and I know you’re right, at least for the most part, but there are no guarantees she won’t fall to the dark arts.”
“Dammit, Roy, pull your head out of your ass! Guarantees? You want fucking guarantees? Life has no guarantees! We get what we get, and it’s up to us to make the most out of it!”
Rian turned and stood staring towards the mouth of the cave.
Royce could see his brother’s shoulders rising and falling as he took deep breaths to regain his composure.
It was an uncommon occurrence for his older, and although he hated to admit it, wiser brother to lose his temper.
There had to be something else going on besides Royce’s inability to accept his mate.
He listened as Rian’s breathing and heart rate returned to normal, but decided not to resume the conversation.
If Rian wanted to, he could, but Royce was fine with letting the subject die the death it deserved.
Of course, his brother liked the sound of his own voice just about as much as he liked anything, so Royce was not surprised when Rian began again.
“I’ve seen your little witch in your mind, just as you see her with your own two eyes, and more importantly, with your heart.
You’re drawn to her, just as it’s meant to be.
Your dragon pushes you to go to her, but you hold the past in front of you, shielding and protecting you from real happiness, from life as it was intended.
You have to stop holding on to the past as some sort of tribute to mother and Rhianna.
They are gone, Royce, have been for over a hundred years.
Father’s gone on to join them in the heavens, and they’re looking down on all of us, wishing they could bitch slap some sense into you.
You’re not honoring their deaths by refusing the one person you are meant to spend all of your days with both here and in the next life… ”
Rian paused, and for the first time since Royce had arrived at the clan of his birth, he realized how tired his brother looked.
Something was weighing on him, something he wasn’t sharing with him.
Just as he was about to speak, Rian held up his hand and looked him right in the eye.
“No justifications. You are dishonoring them.”
Before Royce could respond, the space that Rian had occupied was empty. Royce was left feeling even angrier and more confused than before. He paced beside the fire, looking to the mouth of the cave every few minutes, not sure who or what he was waiting for, but sure things were about to go to hell.
Drip…drip…drip…Kyra watched the raindrops slide off the leaves and fall into the huge puddle that had formed outside the makeshift shelter Lance and Devon had built for her.
Each splat seemed to accentuate the incredible amount of time that was passing and the utter failure of her quest to catch the little shithead that had tricked her into helping him hurt the nicest bunch of people...
and dragons she had ever met. They actually cared for one another and saw each other as more than a means to an end.
It was something she had never experienced before.
Smiling, she remembered how her ‘escorts’ had reacted when the first raindrop had fallen about an hour ago.
It had been absolutely comical as the two big bad Guardsmen bickered like little boys as they constructed the lean-to that kept her and her supplies somewhat dry.
She had laughed so hard tears had run down her face.
Lance and Devon were worse than a coven full of teenage witches, and that was saying something.
About an hour into her wait, she’d wondered if it had occurred to them how the bright blue tarp secured to the ground behind her and attached to two large pieces of wood in the front stuck out like a sore thumb on the side of the mountain they were perched upon.
“You do know I won’t melt, right?” She yelled. “That was the Wicked Witch of the West. I’m the Short Sarcastic Witch of the South,” she snorted at her own joke and heard them laugh along.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure you won’t melt. I’ve heard only sugar melts.
However, all your witchy goodies may, and after thirteen days of absolutely no sign of the traitor, I’m not taking a chance that we’ll miss him the first time you get a jingle or whatever happens on your magic mirror,” Devon answered, and she could tell that he and Lance were moving closer.
She shifted her bags to the side to make room for their larger-than-usual bodies when the toe of a soggy, worn-out cowboy boot entered her view.
“Hey, Snarky Witch,” Lance chuckled at his own joke, and the thought of kicking him in the shin made her grin.
“Looks like the weather is clearing up. Since we’ve established you won’t melt, how about you get packed up and let’s see if we can find the little asshole? ”
“Thank the Goddess,” she mumbled as she grabbed the handles of her bags. “I’m so ready to find that shithead and give him a swift kick in the ass.” She stood and walked out into the reappearing sunlight.
When she saw them, she laughed out loud. “You guys look like a couple of drowned rats. You sure you don’t want to head back and get some dry clothes before we continue?”
The last word was barely out of her mouth before they answered in unison, “Hell, no!”
She raised her palms in a sign of surrender. “No problem. I just don’t want your mate,” she looked at Lance, “and your momma,” she looked at Devon, “to get pissed at me when you both get the sniffles.”
“We don’t get sick,” they answered in unison.
“You two really need to talk one at a time or take your ventriloquism act on the road,” she laughed as she placed her bags on a rock and turned to start taking down the shelter.
“We can get it. You just cop a squat, and we’ll be on our way in a minute,” Lance winked, and she wondered if his new mate, Samantha, ever got tired of his constant joking.
Then she remembered the dreamy way they looked at one another, as if no one else existed, and she knew the answer.
Unfortunately, the image of the largest man she’d ever seen with brooding brown eyes and absolutely luscious lips burst into her mind.
It didn’t matter that she’d barely ever seen them in anything but a frown or heard little more than a grumble come from them; his lips were still completely kissable and occupied her thoughts way more than they should.
She hadn’t seen the man she knew Fate had picked out for her for almost two weeks.
Apparently, he had left before sunrise the morning after Baby Jay’s first birthday party.
Jerk! He’d been completely unbearable and basically anti-social, even to his brethren, during one of the most joyous occasions his clan had known.
It was a huge deal that the Commander of the Elite Dragon Force and his beautiful mate had been blessed with a son, and an even bigger deal that in the middle of the search for the traitor that had damned near killed the child’s mother, the entire Force had taken a day off to celebrate the little would-be warrior’s first birthday.
She’d tried everything she could think of to get him to speak to her but had failed…
totally…miserably, and then completely lost her nerve when she crashed right into his chest. To make matters worse…
he had growled…really growled at her when her hand had landed just above his waist. What the hell!
He was six-foot-ten, and she was five-foot-two; her hands only reached so far, and she was about to fall on her ass.
It had been one of the most embarrassing moments of her life, and she knew Devon had witnessed it all.
Thankfully, he’d had the decency to never mention it.