A Tiger's Destiny (Tiger Protectors Book 3) (19 page)

Tonight had been risky, but they’d been fine. Would it be safe to try it again? To go even further in the future? He didn’t know.

He also didn’t want to know if Draven was worrying about it.

He just wanted to hold his mate, stay here in this bed that needed three instead of two, and think over the past few moments. He had no doubt they would always be some of the best of his life.

No matter how long that lasted.

T
he next morning
, no one seemed to know what to say. As they all sat sipping coffee and eating the scrambled eggs and bacon Draven had cooked, there was an uncomfortable silence and tension in the air.

The night before had been so unexpectedly amazing, so connected. Without even a word spoken between them, they had known each other’s bodies and how to love each other, and if that wasn’t magic, what was?

“So what are we doing today?” Melissa asked, finishing her last bite of eggs and taking the other plates to the sink to do dishes. Before she could, Ran was there, taking them from her hands as he turned on the water to rinse them and put them in the dishwasher.

The dragons seemed unwilling to let her do anything for them. That would have to change if she planned to stay.

Ran grinned. “Forgive us for being a little too grateful,” he said, gesturing for her to sit back down and join Draven. “I’m sure we’ll calm down after a while.”

“Right,” Draven said, rolling his eyes. “Because that’s what dragons are known for. Calm.”

Melissa sat forward, eyes glowing. “I want to know more about dragons. I want to see your dragon forms. When do I get to do that?”

Ran and Draven shared looks.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Draven said, running a hand through his dark hair, setting it on end. His blue eyes were cool and calm, and she loved the contrast between them and the black lashes and brows and hair he had. Everything about him was harsh but somewhat beautiful.

If he were the black dragon, she was sure he looked incredible.

Ran went quiet, as if sensing her thoughts, and paced over to a chair far away from them in the living room, resting his head on his palm and looking lost in thought.

Draven gave her a quiet smile. “That was a good move, including him last night. He always stays too distant.”

“I can hear you!” Ran said, but he let out a sigh and continued facing away.

Melissa could sense something was wrong but couldn’t put a finger on what.

Ran was getting edgier as the morning progressed, and she didn’t know what was causing it.

Draven shook his head. “We’ll still have to be careful. You see, the relationship between our human forms and our dragon forms is a complicated one,” he said.

Ran waved a hand. “Do we really have to go into this now?”

Draven stood, keeping a hand on the table. “When are we going to tell her, Ransom? When is fair?”

Ransom. Was that his full name? She looked at the beautiful man sitting in the corner, lost in his own personal storm, and thought it was the perfect name.

He was holding something ransom. Maybe even holding her ransom. And neither she nor Draven could release whatever it was until he was ready.

And she sighed because Draven had finally been willing to tell her about dragons.

“Don’t look like that,” Draven said, sitting down again and putting a hand over hers. He was still his stern self, but he’d backed off on her after their moment together yesterday, when he’d held her after the memories.

She didn’t remember ever feeling so safe, so protected. It had been the opposite of being alone. Or being dead.

And then the lovemaking that had come after had been even more wonderful. She felt those moments helped her grow in her relationship with them in leaps and bounds.

She’d seen just how much Ran enjoyed watching her and Draven come together, but when she’d looked into his flickering green eyes, she’d seen a heartbreaking kind of longing she couldn’t resist soothing. She’d wanted to bring him with them. She kind of had.

But she wanted more. She wanted both dragons inside her. Wanted them all to be one.

Ran snorted in the corner, and she felt a blush at her own thoughts.

Draven was torturing his hair with his hands again. She reached over and did it for him, running a hand through the thick, coarse locks as he closed his eyes and enjoyed it.

“You have a way of healing,” he said quietly. “I noticed it with Ran last night. You know, you really just might save us.”

Her hand froze. “What do you mean save you?” she asked.

Draven went still. She could feel the tension radiating off his huge body. Feel the same tension from Ran.

Growing up in foster homes or other settings, always alone, she’d become an expert on reading moods. Sensing anger. When you were alone, you had to always have your guard up. She supposed it was why she never got involved. She’d been alone for so long and things had been just fine.

Now these men had made her want more but wouldn’t tell her things she needed to know about their life together. If they wanted to have one.

“We need to start being honest,” she said, folding her arms and sitting back in her chair. Her long, curly hair fell over her shoulder in wild waves, and she pushed it back. “We can’t keep going like this, just having sex and pretending everything is fine in the morning. Something isn’t fine, and I can sense it. And I hate it,” she said.

Ran stood up abruptly. “Want to go flying?”

Her heart pounded. “Flying?”

“Dragon scales can be invisible. We could take you flying.”

She looked at Draven, who pressed his lips in a hard line. When he said nothing, she turned to Ran.

“Where would we go?”

His eyes were soft, wistful. “Wherever you want. When you find out everything, you might leave us. I want to give you everything we can before that.”

Her throat tightened even as her heart leapt at the thought of flying on dragon wings.

Did they really want to give her everything, or were they just trying to sweeten the deal even more before telling her the truth of what was to happen?

Quill, the blue dragon, had talked about the mating ceremony and what would happen after.

“Are you really ready for it all to end?” Ran asked, tilting his head so his golden hair fell away from his face. His gorgeous features fairly sparkled in the sunlight, green eyes glowing like emeralds, perfect lips pursed. Like something from a painting, but he was real.

He’d made love to her last night. He and Draven, working together.

Perhaps more than anything, she was falling in love with how much they cared for each other. She didn’t think she’d ever had a friendship like that.

She wanted one.

“That settles it,” Ran said. “We can fly. And then we can show you our treasure.”

“Ran,” Draven said. “You can’t…”

“My dragon would never hurt her. I could feel it last night…”

Draven slammed a fist down on the table. “Dammit, Ran. When will you get I’m not worried about you hurting someone? I’m worried about you hurting
yourself
. When will you get that I don’t want to protect anyone from you? I want to protect you! I always have.”

Silence fell over the room. Whatever was happening, it felt far over her head.

“Ran’s dragon is sick,” Draven said in a low voice, his big shoulders hunching in on themselves like he was sealing himself in a cage. “Ran’s dragon is making him sick.”

Ran’s eyes widened in anger. “Don’t do this, Dray.”

Draven’s angry eyes studied Melissa’s face. “Is that what you want? To fly around on dragon’s wings and be ignorant of the truth? After what I learned about you last night, I can’t do it. Dammit, Ran, are you going to tell her or am I?”

“What do you mean?” Ran said, green eyes deepening in color as they narrowed. His lean body was tensed in anticipation. “What do you mean what you learned?”

“Ah, that’s right. You can’t read my mind,” Draven said to Ran. “So you don’t know what I found last night when you were sleeping off the day.”

Ran’s mouth tightened and a muscle twitched in his jaw as he jerked his head lightly, making his hair flip. “Then tell me. Mind lock with me now and just tell me.”

“Can I?” Draven gave her a wry glare. “Can I tell him what I saw last night?”

Melissa’s eyes widened as panic filled her. That had been private. Her memories. They rushed through her again, and Ran cried out, leaning forward over his knees.

She looked at him and then fled from the room, unable to watch as they took something from her she hadn’t meant to give. She slammed the door behind her as she tossed herself on her bed.

All she’d wanted was to escape, to forget about all of it and live in a fantasy.

And now the dragons were making everything real again, dredging up her secrets and…

She heard them arguing in low, angry voices.

She held her breath and focused on the covers beneath her until the arguing stopped.

“Can we come in?” a low voice said—Ran standing at her door, looking in.

“Fine,” she said. “But I can’t believe you did that.” She sent Draven a glance. “Every time, you lay me bare. Every time, you’re still concealed.”

“Why do you care if I know?” Ran asked, coming forward to take her in a hard hug. His steely arms, so unexpectedly strong, wrapped around her. “I need to know. If I’m going to be your mate, I need to know your pain. Being with us won’t be about erasing any of that. You’ll still be Melissa, with your needs and fears and doubts. But you won’t be alone in the dark anymore. When you run, we’ll catch up. When you’re hurt, we’ll be your support.”

She nodded into his shoulder. Already, it felt like she’d known him forever. Not that she knew what his life had been like, not that she knew what his past was down to the details, but she just felt after the past few days, she knew his heart. She could feel it radiating from him.

She felt weak in the knees and Ran sat down with her while Draven watched protectively from overhead.

“Would it make you feel better if I showed you mine?” Ran asked in a low voice. “My time being alone, before I had Draven?”

She nodded. Everything about these men seemed perfect. She was tired of being the broken one.

“I’ll have to invade your mind,” he said. “And not just listening. I’ll have to come in. Is that okay?”

She nodded.

He took her hand. It looked small in his. Sometimes, because he was smaller than Draven, she forgot how large Ran really was. His tanned fingers brushed lightly over her wrist, and then he pushed his hair behind his ear and closed his eyes.

She could hear Draven let out his breath in a huff.

Her mind suddenly felt light and odd. And then images came, like a projector had been placed in the back of her head and was broadcasting in front of her eyelids. Flickering. Real.

As if an old video were playing, she could see Ran. He was alone and little, sitting in the middle of a large room. If she squinted, she could see it was a cave. The walls were rock. From up above, a few lone beams of light shone down on the dirt floor.

Ran was in the middle, hands around his knees, rocking. As he muttered, energy emanated from around him.

Then time started to pass. She saw Ran changing positions, flickering like it was stop motion. Occasionally, she saw dark figures, there and then gone. And she saw Ran was growing.

Intermittently, she saw a flash of something grim and dark, something huge that would be in the pictures for only a few frames.

And then Ran on the ground, on his face, golden hair splayed.

He was still a boy. Then he was getting taller. She saw different areas of the cave. Saw Ran drawing on the walls. Saw the cave empty, like Ran had been removed. Saw people enter and exit, looking at him, poking him, marking things down.

The soul-haunting loneliness of the situation permeated everything, and she felt tears fill her eyes for what he’d been through.

She hadn’t been the only one to be totally alone.

But at least she’d found him now.

And then she saw the pictures slow, flickering less and less, and saw a tall, dark-haired boy enter the room, a golden glow around him. Saw Ran look up at him through his hair, saw the two make eye contact.

For a moment, she swore she saw the image of two dragons flash around them. One in gleaming gold and one in burnished black.

She saw one reach down and pull the other up, saw them embrace and then look into each other’s eyes, and then saw them walk from the cave.

When she opened her eyes, as the memory was gone, she saw Ran studying her quietly while Draven had his head in his hands. It was odd to see the big man looking so tortured.

“Dammit, that day. That day I made a huge mistake,” he said, standing to leave the room. “That day, I doomed all of us.”

“Dray,” Ran said.

“No,” he said. “No, I can’t stay here right now. I have all this power and I can’t do anything.”

“We’ve found her,” Ran said. “We found a mate. It’ll be okay now.”

Draven gave him a hard look, one that gave Melissa chills even though it wasn’t meant for her. “That may not fix this and you know it.”

“Dray, it’s time for you to accept some things don’t last forever. But I have never regretted making you my partner.”

Melissa blinked. Draven had said Ran was meant to choose the blue dragon. She didn’t know why, or why it was clearly causing Draven so much agony.

Draven stopped at the door and put his hand on the wooden frame. When he tightened his hand, she heard the wood crack, and it made her jump.

“Fine,” Draven said. “We’ll take her in the clouds. We’ll show her the treasure. We’ll take our last chance. But I don’t know if I can ever forgive you for being so stupid.”

“You never had to forgive me,” Ran said. “You just had to love me.”

“You know I always have,” was his low reply.

Then Draven was out of sight and Ran stood and pulled her with him.

“Did you get enough to eat?” he asked.

She nodded hesitantly.

“Good, because you’re going to need your strength if you’re going to fly with dragons.”

A
s they walked
out of the apartment, Melissa looked between the two men. There was a curious tension between them, something that had presumably been building for a long time.

She knew what she was seeing in front of her was the grown version of those boys that had met in the cave.

Why had Ran been in the cave?

Years of isolation will do that to you,
Draven had said the other day.