Page 32 of To Spark a Dragon's Love
12
Malachy
Let Them Feast
What? No degrading remarks?
The silent grumble of my dragon was confusing. He was almost… pacified by Willow’s presence. And I wasn’t sure I enjoyed it, since the quiet in my brain allowed for other thoughts and feelings to sink in.
Ones I’d buried a long time ago.
Seeing the hope on their faces and watching the pile of gifts grow at my feet threatened to unearth the youthful pride of my past that hadn’t seen the light of day in about a century.
The lavish parties I once held when my father was no longer breathing down my neck. The sense of freedom that came from the boastful strength of a dragon guardian in his prime.
I wasn’t old by dragon standards, but there was a reason the guardianship was passed on to a younger creature after serving about three hundred years. The extended years of service to Earth had worn down and broken my body in irreparable ways. The burn scars on my scales and skin only told a fraction of the suffering that earned me a pile of gold and trinkets.
I paid for their respect in pain.
And once I’d felt like a god for it. Now I was an ancient statue—a relic of time passed—forgotten and only remembered anew with a religious sort of fervor because of the human mate at my side.
It wasn’t Willow’s fault.
She couldn’t know the depth of this. Her life was so short compared to mine. Hell, she’d barely been born when it was already more than past time to hand this role to someone else.
Something I would never do if given the choice.
No one deserved this kind of fate.
Just like Willow didn’t deserve to be mated to me.
You said it.
I scoffed at myself when I realized how much I sounded like my dragon.
But I was done whining. Willow was hungry and her feet ached. She hadn’t uttered one word of complaint as she stood next to me for the receiving line. I don’t think anyone else even noticed.
A small voice in my head reminded me that if I were able to close off the bond, it’d go both ways. I’d be just as naive as the rest of these fools to her suffering. She was hard to read when she closed herself off and put on a brave face. The subtle nudges from the bond were the only thing giving me insight to her inner world.
I’d have to find another way around it.
“Ignore me,” I said as I pushed open the door to the dining room. “I’ve kept you waiting too long.”
Willow frowned her pretty, pouty lips, but she didn’t have time to question my abrupt change of heart.
All the voices and boisterous chatter stopped dead at our arrival. It was the first time she missed a step, clinging to my arm for balance.
A quiet sort of pride took me by surprise that I was the one to help keep her upright.
“Is it always like this?” She breathed out the words as we walked together arm in arm toward the head of the table.
“Like what?” I whispered despite knowing everyone with supernatural abilities could hear us. Never had I been more aware of my body and what it was doing than at this precise moment with Willow by my side. My dragon tucked in his wings and waited, watching to see what she’d do next.
She stopped at the table and turned to face me. A playful glimmer shone in her eyes as she silently mouthed, “They’re all staring.”
Something hoarse and foreign choked me for a moment. The bark of a laugh that tried to escape. I coughed to clear my throat as I pulled out her chair, lowering my lips to her ear as she sat.
“I don’t blame them for staring at the most beautiful woman in the room.” I hadn’t meant to flirt with her, but it just slipped out. The need to ease her nervousness overrode all other desires.
