Page 47 of Bearly Yours
My heart, my soul, was unresponsive and wouldn’t wake up. My insides quivered like jelly and my dragon roared in pain, yetphysically I couldn’t make a single sound. I felt frozen with fear and dread. Had I found her only to lose her this quickly?
Less than thirty minutes later,a still-sleepy Dice knocked on the door, letting herself in. Behind her, arrayed like spokes on a wheel, were the Clan members closest to Emrie: Riggs, Mateo, Akeno, Taco, Alastair, Mathan, Drew, and Zin. They gazed at Emrie with their hearts in their eyes, looking stricken, until Riggs gently pushed them back and shut the door, giving Emrie and I privacy.
Dice nodded at me, all business, and sat beside Emrie, reaching for her hand. And then the room descended into stillness once again as Dice read Emrie. She read her for so long that I started to get antsy and my dragon was growling and seething smoke inside my chest.
Calm down. She’s just doing her job properly.
Dice finally opened her eyes, and I would swear in a human court of law that she’d come in with green eyes, but her eyes were now cinnamon-brown. Pixie magic. I shook my head to clear my unhelpful thoughts.
“What is it?” I asked.
“She’s stuck in a dream state, I think. I’m not sure because I’ve never done a reading on someone in this state, but other than heightened levels of cortisol and adrenalin—which indicate she’s in fight or flight mode—something or someone is dumping melatonin and magic into her body like there’s a broken spigot set to full blast. I traced the melatonin and magic dump. It’s not coming from her own body. It’s coming from someone else, and I think they’re trapping her in this dream state.”
I looked at Riggs, and I knew we probably had similar expressions on our faces: fury and fear. It looked like the mysterious person who’d stolen her locket had finally struck again. We’d been prepared to keep her safe behind all of her Clan brothers and me, a dragon shifter. But what could we do with all of our power when the battle was being waged inside of her?
“Is there a safe way to wake her?” Riggs asked.
Dice looked troubled. “I have several things I can try. I need to head to my shop, though, first, to get some ingredients, and pick up a few things.”
“I’ll take her, Alpha,” Taco said from outside in the hall. Clearly they were all listening in intently to the conversation happening in the room.
“You may as well let them in,” I said with a sigh. I had to keep reminding myself that Emrie loved these guys like brothers. It helped me, but didn’t really help the dragon inside of me. My dragon wanted to squash them like a bug. Actually, I was fully convinced that ninety percent of my grumpiness stemmed from my dragon. He was me, but also more than just me, and he was a big grouch. He and I blended into one when I became my dragon—our thoughts, feelings, etc.—but when I was a man, he had his own thoughts, opinions, and feelings. It was the same for all shifters.
Emrie loves them,I reminded him yet again.
His scoff almost made me laugh, until I looked down into Emrie’s face and I was reminded once again thatmo chroìwas silent and still. I gently ran my fingers through the snarls in her long hair, and kissed her forehead.
Her Clan came in, looking somber. Most of them left after a few minutes—I heard Riggs and Mateo talking about the need to lock down the Clan property—but one person stayed.
Alastair.
I didn’t know him as well as I knew some of the others, but I recognized a kindred spirit when I saw one. He was quiet and generally grumpy, but my dragon sensed pain deep within him. Old pain. Pain that Alastair seemed well-used to navigating. It was for this reason that I left him alone, and hadn’t conversed with him much, or really made more of an effort like I had with the others Emrie was close to. I could see now that probably had been a mistake.
Just because someone was in pain didn’t mean they wanted space all the time.
I think Emrie understood that about Alastair. I’d seen her treat him more gently and tenderly than the others, even going so far as to cover him with a blanket when he fell asleep in his recliner for the umpteenth time. He was forever typing and working on his laptop in that chair.
“Do you mind if I hold her other hand?” Alistair asked gruffly in a whispery voice.
I nodded. Alastair drew his chair closer and gently took Emrie’s hand.
“I wanted to marry her one day, if she ever agreed to it,” he said, and I sat up, surprised.
My dragon grumbled, but I was confused. “You don’t smell like you’re attracted to her.”
He shook his head, a small smile on his face. “Oh, it’s there, but it’s really mellow. Emrie’s beauty is more than just her appearance. It’s everything inside of her as well.”
“What about your mate?”
Alastair flicked angry eyes to me. “Don’t do a Soul Gaze on me, dragon.”
“You just said you wanted to marry my mate,” I calmly reminded him. Meaning, ofcourseI’m going to do a Soul Gaze on him. And he has a mate. He’s met her and everything.Although...the mate bond is not intact. It’s actually a gaping hole within him. I winced, retracting my inner eye from his soul.
That looked incredibly painful.
“You would have married Emrie with your mate out there somewhere?”
He nodded. “I tried to talk her into it a few times. It would have been a good marriage. A marriage of friendship and companionship.” He shook his head. “But she would just kiss my cheek the few times I asked her, and say, ‘You and I deserve more.’”
