No one spoke for the first ten minutes. We just sat and ate, absorbing the tranquility of this world. Honestly, if I ever wanted to escape life, this is where I would come.
Louis broke the silence, his eyes focusing off into the distance. “This is a kind of peace I haven’t experienced in a long while.” I wasn’t the best with emotions, but it felt as if some of the heavy sorrow he carried around with him had lessened. “It’s so rare to find peace in our world. Supernaturals are filled with passion and violence and love. But peace … that’s much harder to achieve.”
He was right. Supernaturals had an overabundance of emotion, but we were not a peaceful lot. I reached out and grasped his hand. “You’ll find love and peace again, Louis. You deserve happiness.”
Suddenly those eyes were locked on me, and as always his power wrapped around my mind. “I’m not sure I want to be happy again when my mate is gone. I don’t think I deserve it. I couldn’t protect her. I wasn’t enough.”
I snorted then. Yeah, okay, not a very sympathetic response from me, but it was time for me to up the real talk again.
“Louis, you’re a powerful male, we all know that. Something tells me the female you loved was also crazy strong. Which leads me to believe I might know some things about her. What you need to understand about us females is that we don’t need you to do anything but love us, love us as much as you possibly can, support us through the trials of life and even treasure the parts of us which are not all that lovable. Protecting us … well, that’s nice, but it’s something that goes both ways. Mates protect each other; it’s not the dude’s job to bodyguard us. We’re adults and are capable of kicking ass all on our own. In fact, I’m pretty sure your mate would kick your ass if she heard the way you were talking. I’d kick Braxton’s.” I grinned at the dragon, before giving him a wink. “I definitely don’t want him to be with anyone else. The thought rips at me, like broken glass across my skin. But if I was gone from this plane and he was still to live out hundreds of years, I would hope he found someone else to love, to share his life with. I want that for him.”
My mate growled long and loud. He was not happy about me even mentioning being gone from his life. “Never going to happen, Jess. If you die, I’m hunting death the fuck down and I’m getting you back.”
I reached out and patted him on the shoulder. “That’s my man, always saying the sweetest things.”
It really was one of the sweetest things he could say. He would never stop fighting for me, through this life and the next. But Louis’ mate had also not been his true mate, so there was still a soul out there to complete his. The fates still owed him.
The sorcerer was frozen in place, his eyes like purple chips of ice. He finally moved, but it was only to pull his hand from mine. I was worried for a second that he was truly angry with me, but then with a sigh, and a brief smile across his aristocratic features, he said, “Regina would totally kick my ass if she saw me moping around. Even though my pain has somewhat eased in the last few decades, I’m still struggling to fully let go of her.”
Regina. That was the first time he’d said her name.
As he faced his plate of food again, there was still pain on those perfect features, but also a sense of something more. He wasn’t healed by any stretch, but I could see that over the last few months he was starting to let go of his guilt, guilt which was not his to own. So much of Louis’ pain stemmed from his own personal blame game. Supe males were crazy with protecting their females.
Tyson leaned in closer, the light shimmering off auburn hair, honeysuckle eyes. “So, Jess, I think it’s time to tell us what happened when you disappeared on us … again. I mentioned again, right?”
Smartass. At least he took the focus off Louis. The sorcerer was still in the midst of some sort of mind-fuckery and pain. My story was definitely going to get his mind off Regina; it was a hell of a tale.
I leaned over. “I’ve got an ass ton of information to tell you, but first I want to know what happened when the dragons appeared. The Jessa part of me blacked out and the dragon was in control of the brain steering wheel.”
I’d seen a brief glimpse through the vision of the queen dragon, but I wanted to know more.
Tyson jumped right in. “There were seven dragons. Six flew in a V-shape, protective style around the huge golden dragon in the center. When they were about a hundred yards from us you started to shake. Your eyes were locked on them and there was no way to break your gaze.”
Braxton interrupted: “I felt the pull toward them also, but I didn’t lose control of my dragon. He wanted to fly, but I kept him under control.”
“Yeah, Brax did the weird shaking thing too, but he didn’t shift. You did,” Jacob said. “There was a burst of light and energy. My fire power was going crazy inside of me, responding to the heat rocketing from you. I’ve never had that happen with a shifter before, but it was something that the wild dragons from the sanctuary did to me. They have an elemental fire inside of them which calls to my own.”
Braxton’s voice was lower than the others. “You flew away. You flew so fast that even with me shifting instantly and following, I couldn’t reach you before you disappeared. The golden dragon had you tucked in under her wing, and then you were gone. There was no way they could have flown that fast for me to not see you in the distance, so I think there was some sort of magic or step through involved. I followed the path, and eventually started to feel your energy again.”