Page 90 of The Breeding Cave
“Don’t answer me then,” she said, glaring at me. “I’m still not going to that stupid mountain. Not without you.”
“Yes, you are.”
“You don’t understand,” she growled, her nails lengthening into claws. “The Dragon Clan always, always, always finds me. You can try to hide me for one hundred thousand years, and still somehow, they will find me. I could die and come back to life, and they would know that it’s me. You don’t understand, Luciano. You can’t understand.”
“I do understand, and I’m not going to let it happen.”
“You don’t get a choice. They will find me. They will torture me. They will kill me if that’s what they want to do.” She dropped her gaze and shook her head. “I still … I still can’t wrap my mind around what they want with me. But they want something.”
“There are warriors there who will protect you.”
“Those warriors aren’t you.”
While it was never my intention to fall in love with her, I found myself softening at her words. She had done something to me that I couldn’t quite understand, but as her mate, it was still my job to protect her.
“Luciano,” she whispered. She placed a hand over her belly. “We have a child now. I don’t want you getting hurt, never mind losing your life. After what I saw today … I know there’s no way you can kill them. There’s no way I could kill them. The only people who could help us are the Colossals.”
I gritted my teeth. I didn’t want to work with them. I hated them. I swore that they were the cause of this. They never had anything good in mind.
“Please, Luciano, listen to me. If you’re going to make me go to the mountain, then you’re coming with me.”
“You don’t understand,” I growled. “This is my pack. They killed my family. I promised to avenge them, and all I’ve been doing is running and hiding. No more. I’m not gonna do any of that shit anymore.”
“But—” she started.
“No,” I cut her off, shaking my head. “You said it. We have a family, and I’m not going to let them take away my family again. Not the one that I made.”
Instead of responding to me like I thought she would, she grabbed my hand and pulled me closer to her. My body was rigid, tense. But her hand, it felt so good. She intertwined our fingers for a moment and blew out a little breath, her eyes fluttering closed. Then she placed my hand right over her stomach, and I could feel the second heartbeat inside of her.
The baby … the baby was growing quickly. Or maybe … maybe she had gotten pregnant far before I thought she was. Maybe she had gotten pregnant that first night after I met her. Could she have? I had sworn up and down that I couldn’t have a mate. But we clicked so effortlessly.
Had she really gotten pregnant that first night together?
Never mind that … she was right.
I couldn’t defeat the dragons. But I wasn’t going to stop.
I scooped up the gem and stuffed it into my pocket. It burned on touch, and it was a scar that would never fully disappear. Whatever this gem was, it was important. My mother had given it to me, but had never fully explained what it meant. But it was fire—that much I knew.
And if it was fire, maybe it had something to do with the dragons. And if it had something to do with the dragons, maybe it could defeat them.
I didn’t know, honestly. The only person my mother had told was Gideon. He had been obsessed with that gem hanging around her neck. Now I would never know. I would never fucking know what it meant.
But I would do anything—any-fucking-thing—to figure it out. Maybe this gem, this fire, could defeat the dragons once and for all.
CHAPTER
FORTY-EIGHT
YEOSIN
“What’s that?” I asked, spotting Luciano putting something into his pocket. It was an orange gem, something that I knew I’d seen before. But I wasn’t sure where. Maybe from my childhood.
Mom … she had something similar. Or maybe I was getting things confused.
Because I didn’t remember the last time I’d seen her wear it. Actually, I didn’t think it was my mom at all who had been wearing those. The memory was so old, faded. But it was a woman. I knew it was a woman who’d had earrings like that. I swore …
“It’s nothing,” Luciano said.
