Page 69 of Sanctuary with a Dragon
My mate could separate us.Enjoyedseparating us because she cared about us both, and by separating us she could spend time with both.
I closed my eyes and swallowed.
I didn’t like this feeling. It felt like a ball of pain was trying to swallow my heart and throat. I felt like crying, but also like shoving Elandor away from her. I wanted to declare that she wasmine...but she wasours.
We were one.
I turned away. “I’ll go scout out the rest of the cavern; make sure we’re alone in here,” I said.
“Okay,” Everly said sleepily, clearly fading, tucked up as she was against Elandor’s warm scales.
I clenched my fists.
I wanted Everly sleepily cuddling with meso much that it physically hurt. I’d waitedso longfor her.Lifetimes.I had to constantly caution myself to go slow, to not scare her with the intensity of my feelings. To be patient and not push her. It had only beenweeksbut I felt like I was slowly coming undone.
Soon, I told myself.
Just give her some time. She hasn’t spent a lifetime waiting for her mate. This is all new to her.
I moved silently across the main cavern, and started poking around in the many offshoots around us. A few of them led to an underground river. One of them led to a waterfall. Some dead-ended, and others were so dangerous that I was probably the only one able to pass through. Ghostly as I was, my feet weren’t making tracks in the dirt and debris of the cavern floor. Itfeltlike I was stepping my foot down onto the rock floor, but maybe the feeling was all in my head. Something I was used to, and therefore expected and imagined.
I moved around a huge boulder blocking the path, and walked through a trickle of water entering one side of the cavern, and exiting somewhere far below. I came to a sheer drop off, and, being careful not to get too close, peered over the edge.
My eyes, even though Elandor wasn’t with me, were shifter eyes, so I could see everything.
A massive city opened below me with streets, trees, houses, gardens, factorites and businesses, everything a troll would need to live in their massive cave systems.
But it was empty.
Abandoned.
I’d have to ask Garyyk why the trolls had left this location. I doubt it had to do with the dragon we were trying to save.
Dragons were the strongest shifters, but a handful of fully grown trolls could damage a dragon without too much difficulty. Trolls were both hard to damage—like their gargoyle cousins—and amazingly strong.
As I moved, I tried to quiet the thoughts clawing at me, but they followed anyway.
I was too old to be this jealous. Too disciplined. Too aware. But love changes things. I’d always known I would be protective of my mate—that’s part of being a shifter—but I hadn’t anticipated the depth of it. The aching need to be near her, to shield her, to touch her.
Over the years, I’d studied human psychology, relationships, even communication theory—anything to help me be a better partner someday. I thought I understood love in principle. But theory doesn’t prepare you for the real thing.
Falling in love with my mate had not been difficult. It was life that was difficult.
And my jealousy...
I sighed.
I knew that jealousy most often came from fear and insecurity. Having been sick—and having anxiety as part of that sickness—had taken me down some dark roads, roads I had no desire to walk again. Yes, I was afraid for Everly’s safety, and yes, I was afraid I mightmake a poor Prime. But those fears, too, were rooted in insecurity—because that’s what jealousy really was. Insecurity. The need to measure up as a king, as a mate, as a father. Each of those roles touched something deep inside me, a quiet terror of failing the people I loved. And more than anything, I just didn’t want to fail them.
“Alaric?” Everly asked hesitantly from behind me. “Are you okay?”
I spun around and found her at the mouth of the V-juncture I’d just passed. I tried to wipe my tears away surreptitiously, but my hands wouldn’t make contact with my face; they just skimmed right over it.
How did it make sense that I could cry, but not wipe away my tears?
This whole Casper thing was bordering on ridiculous. And the worst part? They’d been right—Everly and Elandor. They hadn’t needed me at all.
“I’m okay,” I said, lying through my teeth. I wasn’t okay. I felt like I was breaking apart inside, all of the little pieces of me scattering to the far corners of the world.
