Like now.
Finally, Rune gave a single nod, dragonsteel bonds that had formed around his heart suddenly dropping away. As though he’d been given permission to let go of his guilt.
Deep squeezed his shoulder but didn’t let go. “Now about this new mate…”
Rune carefully blanked his face, shifting his gaze past Deep to the team members scattered around the space talking with the other dragon shifters. “What? Did you draw the short straw to talk to me about it?”
“I volunteered.”
“You have lived a long life,” Rune pointed out.
“Oh, you’re a funny man now?” Deep chuckled. “I’m expendable is what you’re saying.”
“The topic of Hadyn is off limits.”
“You don’t even know what I intend to say.”
“The hell I don’t.” The silent stares this morning over breakfast told him everything. Calla’s, in particular, had been damning.
Deep snorted, both amused and irritated. “Stop acting like a rookie and listen.”
“I’d rather not.” He crossed his arms. He’d stopped taking orders the day the king’s mark had magically disappeared from his hand.
“Keep her.” Deep’s voice dropped to a soft snarl.
Rune stilled. He didn’t look at Deep, but he was listening, focused solely on the man. He couldn’t have heard that right. “What?”
“Keep her.”
Rune blinked slowly. Once. “That’s not what Calla thinks.”
“Mates don’t always agree,” Deep said dryly. “But hear me out. I’ve never seen you look at any woman the way you do at her.”
That was what Kanta had said, and yet… “That doesn’t mean—”
“Listen,” the word came out a hiss.
Rune quieted and waited.
After a second, when Deep was sure he wouldn’t be interrupted again, bushy white eyebrows drawn down over serious eyes, Deep continued. “She can never be turned, but that might put her more at risk.”
Of dying in some asshole’s fire who insisted on trying. Forced her to try. Rune’s dragon bucked at the thought, pushing to be released so he could rain hell fire on anyone who even glanced at her funny.
“But if you claim her, put her under your protection as your woman, no one will dare touch her.”
If I claim her… The words echoed off the caverns of his mind which had emptied of every other thought except that one.
Could he do that? He wasn’t questioning the claiming. Hell, he’d tattoo his brand on her neck so no other dragon would mistake her as unprotected. Then he’d bury his cock in her so deep, they’d never leave their bedroom, claiming her body every which way. Claiming her soul, too. Without fire, of course.
But could he watch her grow old and die while he lived on?
Dragon shifters had tried it periodically. One might grow tired of waiting the long years, centuries even, for a mate and take a human lover. The only one he’d ever met who’d done that had gone mad with her death. As though the part of his soul that a dragon gave to his mate when he turned her, that dragon had somehow given to his human over those years together, and she’d taken it with her to the grave, leaving him a shell of a creature. When one half of a mated dragon pair died, the other followed them into the grave for a reason. Their souls were too entwined to part.
But what was the alternative? Let her go?
Again his dragon shuddered and surged. Fuck. Maybe Deep was right. “I’ll think about it.”
Deep squeezed his shoulder again, then looked pointedly around the room, where at least twenty unmated dragons from various clans stood waiting. “You might want to think fast,” he suggested.
Then his old friend moved away, striding past those gathered to stand, gazing down the dragon-sized tunnel more would enter through. A moment later, a breeze that could be stirred by only one thing wafted over those gathered. All stopped talking, turning to see who had arrived now.
First three blue dragons crawled forward slowly. The largest a bright sky blue, and with him his slightly smaller mate and an even tinier dragon. At the male’s nod, all three shimmered with the change as they shifted to human.
Aidan, his mate, Sera, and their son Blake.
“Rookie!” Levi boomed from the other side of the room. “Damn glad to see you.”
In the same instant, talking over her mate, Lyndi exclaimed, “You can shift!” Talking about Blake who’d been stuck in his small dragon form, unable to figure out how to make the change, for a long while.
Sera laughed. “He figured it out right after you and Levi mated,” she said, pride shining from her face.
The team gathered around the three. Aidan had started as one of Lyndi’s orphans, joined the team as an enforcer for a short while, and then had to leave when he’d claimed his mate, Sera, without permission. His offense was made worse since Sera had also carried the mark of the High King on her neck at the time. Laughter echoed off the tall cavern as they all hugged and slapped backs. These three had been on the run so long, with his help in fact, that any time together was considered a blessing.
Rune was the only one who didn’t join the small moment of homecoming. He was too busy frowning. He’d last left these three with the men who’d served with him these last few decades. Had something happened?
The scent hit Rune before any movement registered, and he straightened, suddenly intent. He knew that aroma, tobacco leaves and fire. No way could Deep have found and convinced…
The flash of green fire in the darkness behind Aidan and his family cinched it. Deep had managed to find Jiǎ, the man Rune considered his second, his beta, and convince him to come.
The green dragon wasn’t the only one either. A deep glow of red peeped out, then extinguished. Jiǎ had brought them all—all of Rune’s merry band of misfit rogues who’d helped protect the mates while they’d been under his care.
Each landed behind the other and the telltale shimmer of a shift surrounded the green dragon in the lead. Rune marched across the room to stop beside Deep. “We’ll talk about this later,” he snarled.
Deep, wisely, said nothing.
They waited for the six dragons to shift, then approach on foot in human form, Jiǎ still in the lead.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Rune demanded.
A stocky man with dark skin, black hair, and green eyes the color of jade in sunlight that reminded Rune a lot of Hall—Jiǎ grinned, though the expression was distinctly menacing, and kept moving forward. “You didn’t think we’d miss this, did you?”