Page 10 of Dragon Thief of New York
“Like my own mate,” I whisper, though he doesn’t know how true it is.
His shoulders relax. “Thank you. I’ll just be out here in the hall.” He opens the front door, but pauses. “And Damian… I’m sorry it worked out this way. It’s not what I… well, it’s not what I used to want, before…”
“I understand.”
“Thank you.” He kisses my cheek, then leaves.
When I turn around, Kat and her son are on the couch in the living room. The place is small. An open floor plan with the living room and kitchen combined into one space, divided by a kitchen counter. There’s a small hallway off to the right that I presume leads to bedrooms.
Lincoln’s leg bounces rhythmically up and down, and as soon as I turn away from the door, his eyes snap up to meet mine.
“You’re really a dragon?” he asks.
I guess his mom told him that much while I was talking to Otto.
“Yeah.” I move a stack of textbooks out of the armchair and set them on the floor so I can sit down. With my elbows on my knees, I study Kat’s son. I can’t believe she has a kid—a teenager. He looks a lot like his mom, but his hair is dark with a bit of curl to it. His face is narrower, chin sharper, but there’s a light speckle of freckles across his nose just like hers.
He picks at the hole in his jeans. “And my mom’s a dragon now, too?”
“Yes.” My throat closes up, too tight to say anything more. Kat being a dragon is everything I’ve ever wanted, every impossible dream I’ve had for years, but this isn’t how I saw it going down.
“Can I be a dragon? How does it happen? Is it—”
Kat puts her hand on her son’s shoulder, and he stops. “Lincoln’s always been fascinated by dragons.”
“I’ve had a recurring dream about this red and gold dragon for as long as I can remember.” The kid rubs his hands up and down his thighs, looking a little embarrassed to admit something so personal. “That dream is my earliest memory.”
“Well,” I sit back, “your mom is red and gold. Maybe you were getting premonitions.”
“That’s a thing?” Lincoln’s leg bounces faster.
I shrug. “Honestly, I don’t know. But some of our priests and priestesses claim to have prophetic dreams. Not sure I’ve ever fully believed it, though.”
“Priests and priestesses?” Kat pinches the bridge of her nose. “I’ve got a lot to learn, huh?”
“Yeah.” I hang my head. There was a time when it would have been my greatest joy to teach her everything about our culture and world. Now, the extent of what she doesn’t know just reminds me of the choice she once made.
“You still haven’t answered my question.” Lincoln’s leg stops bouncing. “Can I become a dragon?”
“How old are you?” I ask.
“Thirteen.”
“Hmm.” Something nibbles at the back of my mind, an unsettling awareness. But I brush it aside. “Well, if you have a dragon mate, you could transform during Goddess Week, but not until after you’re twenty-three, so you’ve got a long way to go.”
“What do you mean, if I have a dragon mate?” His gaze swings between his mom and me. “Wait! You mean like fated mates. So, are you…?”
“No,” Kat says a little too quickly, so quickly it stabs a hole through my heart. I know she doesn’t remember me. I shouldn’t take it personally, but the ache that’s always there grows deeper at her definitive correction.
“That would be the other one,” she says, answering her son’s unasked question. “The one who forced me to become a dragon without telling me any of this first.”
“He what?!” Lincoln jumps to his feet. He’s halfway to the front door when I block his path.
“Hey, give him a break. The call to a mate is intense for dragons, and—”
Kat reaches my side, taking her son’s arm. “It’s okay, Linc. Otto had his reasons. And honestly, I can almost understand them. Don’t be too hard on him.”
That surprises me. It almost sounds like she’s forgiven him already.
