Sassy Ever After: Dragon Sass (Kindle Worlds Novella) (9 page)

Stuart was gone.

Stuart was gone.

It finally hit her, like a tidal wave.

Jules sank to her knees and for the first time since she’d found out he was dead, she began to cry.

He carried her back to bed and held her in his arms for ages, he didn’t know how long.

It broke him to hear her cry, but he knew better than to stop it. Like any wound, it was better to flush it out than let it fester. Finally, her sobs ebbed to hitching breaths and the occasional shudder. He got her a glass of water and she drank it, wiping hair away from her face.

“I must look awful.” She sniffed, handing the glass back to him.

She was disheveled perfection and he smiled. “You look beautiful.”

He climbed back into bed and pulled her into his arms. Her head fit perfectly underneath his chin. They were simply the perfect fit in every way, and every day he spent with her made him both joyful and afraid. It had been a long time since he’d been scared of losing someone.

“Kai…” She swallowed, the click in her throat audible. He waited but she didn’t go on.

“What is it?” He pulled her hair aside so he could stroke the curve of her neck, dipping toward the slope of her shoulder. “You can tell me, Jules.”

“I’m afraid.”

I know the feeling.

“Of what?” He pressed his lips to the top of her head, wanting to keep her here forever, cocooned safely in his arms.

“I don’t know how to say this.” Another swallow. “But… I think I might be… going crazy.”

Kai looked down to meet her eyes, seeing real fear there, and it puzzled him.

“You’re not crazy, Jules.” He squeezed her gently in his arms. “I mean, you know, you fell for me, and that means you’ve got to be a little bit crazy, but…”

She laughed, punching him in the arm and he feigned hurt.

“Ow, put away the big guns, would ya?” He grinned when she punched him again.

“I’m serious!” She sighed, settling back in his arms. “I’m going to tell you something. I don’t want to but… if I don’t tell
someone
, I think I might really lose it.”

“Okayyy.”

“Remember the first time I was here? When I told you I saw something outside?”

He nodded. It wasn’t uncommon, that time of day, when the reflections in the glass started becoming more like shadows that could follow you around the room. He’d had to do a double-take a few times himself over the years.

“Well… I saw someone again,” she confessed, her voice coming out choked. “Today.”

“Just now? When we were upstairs?” Kai moved to get his phone, but Jules stopped him.

“No, don’t bother.” She held his wrist, shaking her head. “Security cameras wouldn’t pick it up. Just like last time.”

“What?”

He had security cameras everywhere and heat sensors so sensitive they could detect a chipmunk farting in a tree, so when he’d told Jules before there had been nothing out there, he was pretty damned sure he was telling her the truth.

“Kai… I saw Stuart.” Her eyes searched his, waiting for a reaction.

“Alive?”

He kept his expression impassive, his mind going over this new fact.

“No.” She pressed her lips together then sighed. “I mean, yes. He was… looking at me. But he was dead.”

“So… it was a dream. Or a hallucination…?”

“I don’t know.” She sighed. “I don’t think so. But maybe. If it was a hallucination, then I must be going crazy.”

“That’s not necessarily true.” He smiled. “There are lots of reasons our minds play tricks on us. Sleep deprivation. Stress. Both of which you’ve got going on in spades right now.”

“Yeah but…” She bit her lip, which made him want to kiss her, but he refrained. “Not before. Not the first time.”

“The first time? You mean the first night you were here, when you thought you saw something?”

“I did see something.”

“Maybe, but it was just a reflection or—”

“No.” Jules met his eyes and he saw tears brimming there. “It wasn’t. I saw them.”

“Them?” He hadn’t pushed her that night, but he remembered her saying she’d seen “them” a few times. “Who?”

“My parents.”

“Your… dead parents.”

She nodded again, a tear slipping down her cheek. He cradled her head in his hand, wiping that tear with his thumb.

“Have you ever experienced anything like this before? Visions? Prophetic dreams? Seen ghosts?”

A shake of her head and another tear told him no.

“And now you’re seeing dead people…”

“I know, it sounds crazy. And it is.” Jules sniffed and gave a little laugh. “That’s why I told you… because I think I’m really losing it. Blue Creek might be full of shifters, but I’m not like them. I’m about as down-to-earth-human as you can get.”

“There are plenty of things in the world humans don’t know about or understand. That doesn’t mean those things don’t affect them. Humans have learned to live with shifters, but there was a time when…” Kai’s voice trailed off and he saw her looking at him, curious. “Never mind. Listen Jules, I seriously doubt what you saw was anything ominous. It was probably just your mind playing tricks on you.”

“But I don’t have that kind of mind.” She frowned. “Seriously, Kai. I was never the kid who thought the blankets in the corner were a monster sneaking out of my closet.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. I know you haven’t been sleeping well. Between your fear of losing the ranch, the stress of the tournament, and then losing Stuart… it’s a lot, Jules.” He lifted her chin so she had to meet his eyes. “Maybe too much for your kind of mind.”

“My kind of mind?” she snorted.

“Your very practical mind.” He chuckled. “I’m not a psychologist, but if I were to guess… I’d say your subconscious is trying to send you a message. Maybe it sent you visions of your parents, and now, Stuart, because those are the people you love most.”

“Before you, anyway.” She caught his hand in hers and turned it over, her lips brushing his palm. “I’ve never loved anyone more than I love you. And I understand it even less than I understand those… visions… or hallucinations… or whatever they were. How can I love you so much, when we’ve only known each other for such a short time?”

“Love knows no time.”

He pulled her close, tucking her head under his chin again, this time so she couldn’t see the pain on his face. He knew exactly how she felt—and while he understood it a little better than she did, it still bewildered him. Feelings this strong were usually reserved for people who had spent a lifetime of shared experience together.

Or several lifetimes.

“I love you,” he whispered, his lips pressing against her forehead.

Jules had confessed to him and he knew it was time he made his own confession. He had to tell her everything he knew—and what he suspected. Perhaps the visions she’d been having were simply preparations for expanding her mind, which might allow something in that was so strange and incomprehensible, it scared even him.

He’d never be a dragon shifter the way he had been, although in some ways, he always would be—even if he couldn’t ever shift again. There were parts of his history and experience that were permanently lost to him. Until he’d met Jules, he thought sacrificing his heart had meant never really loving again. But he was wrong. Because he loved her, and it was a love beyond time, beyond the world, beyond death. If Jules was who he’d come to believe she was, they were meant to be together, and had been together again and again for centuries, an eternity, before everything in his life had ended in fire and ice.

The last time he’d seen her, she had been Nia, and he had loved her with a fierceness only a dragon could manage.

“I have something to tell you.” He held her close when she wanted to lift her head to look at him. “Please, just… try to listen with an open mind. With the mind that saw your parents and Stuart. With the part of your mind that’s connected to something bigger than humankind.”

“Okay.” She nodded, tracing the lines of his tattoos, mere reminders of the magnificent beast he once had been.

“I’m afraid to tell you this,” he confessed. “But I’m afraid not to. I don’t know if you’ll believe me. And even if you do—if you can ever accept it. But I need you to know who I am. Who I really am.”

“You
are
Batman!” she exclaimed, giggling. Then she quickly sobered up. “Sorry, couldn’t resist.”

“No, I’m not Batman.” He chuckled. “But… I
am
a dragon shifter, Jules. Or… I was. Once upon a time, in a world long gone.”

“You’re a shifter?” She slowly lifted her head to stare at him, incredulous.

“I was,” he corrected. “I can’t shift anymore.”

“So… you’re
not
a shifter?” She cocked her head, looking confused.

“It’s complicated.” He sighed. “I haven’t been able to shift in about a thousand years.”

Her eyes widened as what he’d told her finally registered.

“You’re…
a thousand years old
?” Her words were almost a whisper.

“Thereabouts.” He cleared his throat, deciding it was now or never. “I don’t remember exactly when I was born.”

“Well…” She stared at him in wonder, as if seeing him for the first time. “What happened?”

“My last selfless act,” Kai said bitterly. He didn’t like to talk about it. He didn’t even like to remember it. “Scotland had many kings when I lived there. But there was a wolf king they said was destined to rule everything—what we’d now call the British Isles.”

“A wolf king? Like, a shifter?”

“Similar,” he agreed. “They call them wulvers in Scotland, but they’re a race of shifters, yes. The stories of how he came under the necromancer’s control vary, but the fact is, whether he simply let the wizard in or was bewitched, the outcome remained the same.”

“A wizard—are we talking about magic?” She looked doubtful.

“You accept that shifters exist, but you don’t know about magic?” He chuckled. Then his smile faded. “But you’re right—real magic is dead. It died with the dragons. And with the necromancer himself.”

“How?”

“The wulver king realized his mistake too late,” Kai said. “He was already under the necromancer’s control. So he secretly sent for me. He knew the only thing that could kill a lich was dragon fire.”

“A lich?”

“Necromancer, wizard, lich. They’re mostly the same thing.” He touched her cheek, smiling at the thought that this woman lived in a world with advancements the one he was born into had never dreamed of, but she had never seen a bit of real magic. “I knew the wulver king well—Eoin was a friend—but when I tried slipping into the kingdom in human form, somehow the lich knew I was coming.”

“He caught you?”

He nodded. “I shifted, but it was too late. He’d imprisoned me. Mystical bonds.”

“Mystical?”

“Dragons are, unfortunately, particularly susceptible to magic,” he admitted a little ruefully. “We’re immortal beings with the ability to fly and breathe fire, so I suppose that’s our trade-off.”

“So you didn’t get to roast him like a marshmallow?”

“Ha. No, the joke was on me.” Kai shook his head sadly. “The lich was more than ready for me. And he had plans.”

“I assume his plans didn’t involve dinner and a movie.”

“Hardly,” Kai replied dryly, but she’d made him smile. “He wanted to make sure no dragon ever shifted again. And he decided to use me to do it.”

“How?” she breathed, eyes wide.

“He needed a dragon’s heart. And he knew I would give mine to him.”

“But… why?”

“Because he had my Fireborne.”

“Okay, you had me, and then you just lost me.” She wrinkled her adorable nose and Kai kissed it.

“Dragon shifters had riders. They were our mates and came from a long line of priestesses called Fireborne,” he explained. “And the lich had kidnapped mine.”

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes.” Kai closed his eyes for a moment, and he could see Nia’s face, see the fear in her eyes. “I knew giving him my heart would keep
me
from shifting ever again. What I didn’t know was it would prevent
every
dragon shifter from ever shifting again.”

“Oh my God,” she whispered, a hand to her mouth. “Was he going to kill her?”

“Worse.”

“Worse? What could be worse?”

“Fireborne are immortal, like we dragon shifters are,” he explained. “Very few things can kill us. If a dragon ever died, his body would be burned and his Fireborne would walk into the flames to join him.”

“Whoa,” Jules exclaimed. “That’s commitment.”

He laughed. “She wouldn’t be going to her death. She would be reborn in the fire.”

“All Game of Thrones-like? She’d just walk back out?”

“That show. The way they depict dragons. Ugh.” Kai rolled his eyes. “No. Once the flames died down, there would be two eggs. Inside one, a Fireborne. The other, a dragon shifter.”

“The same people—I mean, shifters or whatever?”

He nodded. “In spirit, yes, they were the same beings. They wouldn’t remember their lives before, though. And they’d be raised apart until they were ready to be paired.”