“My first reaction was anger,” Calla said with a fond smile at the memory. “After listening calmly while he explained everything, I punched him in the face.”
Hadyn laughed out loud at that. Picturing tiny, spunky Calla whacking Deep, who was not a small man, in the face, and his surprise. Her experience was that male dragons tended toward arrogant and could use a bop on the nose every now and then. Even Chaghan. Definitely Rune. “Good for you.”
“I was so…furious,” Calla said with a shake of her head. “That he could hide such a big part of himself from me. Even though he explained that until I showed dragon sign, my mind wouldn’t accept.”
“Couldn’t he have shifted in front of you?”
“That’s what I said!” Calla exclaimed, indignation still rife in her voice even all these centuries later.
After having witnessed the soul-deep connection between Chaghan and Qara in a million different ways, she found it difficult to picture Qara when she’d been human, but the way Calla told this story, she could see it so clearly.
“We married in the human tradition of my village, and I was determined to remain human and stay there.”
“He didn’t turn you?”
Calla shook her head. “I wouldn’t let him. Not at first. We stayed in the village and lived a human life for a while.”
“Wow.” That a male dragon could hold back from claiming his mate that long was impressive. From what Hadyn understood, that instinctual urge to mate, to claim, the one woman who would remain at his side forever, only got worse the longer it went on once he’d found her. Deep must have had monumental self-control and an incredible amount of love.
“Eventually he won me over,” Calla said. “The fact that he’d waited so long to find me and still had the patience to woo me slowly was what finally stole into my heart and opened me up to him and the truth of who I was. That he loved me that much, he’d sacrifice his own happiness, live his life away from his people…”
She smiled softly.
Hadyn stayed quiet, letting Calla float in those memories as long as she wanted. Eventually, the older woman blinked and came back to her.
“Thank you for telling me,” Hadyn said.
“I am sorry that you won’t get your own story.”
Hadyn dropped her gaze to her hands. “Yeah.”
Taking a deep breath, Calla stood up. “You can come out now,” she called.
Hadyn lifted her head with a jerk, then jumped a little when Rune stepped into the open doorway of the bedroom.
“Sorry. I didn’t want to interrupt,” he said, not looking at her but at Calla.
Calla who was scowling at him. “She needs to rest,” she said, quite determined.
“I know what she needs,” he countered. The words were soft, gentle even, as though he was trying to protect Calla, but at the same time, a razor’s edge lined each word.
The older woman must’ve received whatever message that was, because her lips flattened, pinching together. After a bit of a staring contest, she nodded. “It is lovely to know you,” she said to Hadyn.
“You too,” Hadyn called after her departing form.
Rune closed the door behind her with a click that sounded…heavy. Then stood, his back to Hadyn, as though wrestling with something he didn’t want her to witness.
“I heard,” he spoke, not turning.
Hadyn couldn’t help the quirk of her lips. “Which part?”
“All of it.” Rune turned to face her, staying by the door, his expression a study of emotionless will, and yet she got the impression he was barely holding himself in check.
She waited.
“I came up here to—” He cut himself off and ran a hand through his hair. “I should just—”
He turned away to leave the room.
“You came up here to what?” Hadyn winced at how eager that sounded. Desperate. But she had a fair idea of why he’d come up here. She’d hoped he would. Why was he turning back now?
Rune crossed his arms, face a total blank. “I think what happened with us on the boat is a good indication of what I want to do with you right now.”
Whoa. Given the body language, she hadn’t been expecting that.
Darned if her body, which had perked up the second he’d walked in the room, didn’t try to flash heat, her skin no doubt flushing from her toes to the top of her head. But he was still holding back, hands curling into fists at his side.
She searched his face, his eyes, for any clue as to what was going on in his head. For once she couldn’t read him.
Rune’s lips flattened. “Am I taking from a dead man, or from your memories of him, if we—”
“Stop right there,” she said softly, and he cut himself off with an audible clack of his teeth.
Hadyn took a deep breath and unfolded her legs to stand up. “I’m not a broken thing who needs your pity, Rune Abaddon.”
Black eyes sparked. “The last thing I feel for you is pity.”
“That’s a relief.”
His lips actually twitched at that.
“In that case,” she continued. “Am I supposed to go through life as though I burned to ash with Kip? Bury myself in the metaphorical grave with him? Some sacred pathetic thing destined to experience life through other people’s stories?” She hitched her chin at the door Calla had gone out.
Black flames flared in his eyes, consuming the irises. Hypnotic. “No.”
The word was a growl, and she knew without his saying more that he hated the image she had painted.
“We agree then,” she said.
Without hesitation, she reached for the bottom of her borrowed T-shirt and pulled it slowly over her head, watching him every single second. He stayed where he was, gaze hot on her, expression turning near feral…and holy smokes she might combust right there.
She kept going, waiting for him to break. When he remained rigidly in control, his stare eating her up, she hooked her hands in the loose, soft shorts and slid them down her legs. Then straightened. Naked. What she wanted lurked in every nuance of the smile she flashed him.
“Well?” she asked.
She’d hardly got the word out before he was across the room, mouth on hers. Devouring, insistent, and carnally hungry. A state of affairs she was blissfully happy to give herself over to.
Chapter Twelve
Rune had no idea if he was coming or going, or which way was up or down, but with his mouth on Hadyn’s, he didn’t give a fuck.