Chapter Fourteen
Ashlyn slept alone that night, and the night after that, and the night after that. By the next day after, she couldn’t stand the silence or the separation between her and Sigurd. At first, she refused to seek him out. How could she after the hurt she’d witnessed, caused him, inside the haven. But it ate at her, damn her pride, damn her dragon mate for the connection they’d established in their hearts.
What was she thinking? A dragon!
Ashlyn slammed the incubator door shut.
“Easy there. We’re protecting them, remember? You keep slamming doors like that and you’ll crack the eggs.” Quintin pulled out another tray of eggs in the next incubator. He reached in, picked one up, looked it over and proceeded to go to the next and rotate the eggs alongside her.
Ashlyn hesitated before reaching for a clipboard and marking off the rotation of that incubator complete. “Or wake them up so they hatch faster.”
Quintin smirked, rolled an egg in his palm and placed it back in the tray. “Next you’ll try turning up the heat on them.”
“And burn them before they’ve had a chance to be alive?” Ashlyn hooked the clip board on the side of the wall beside the incubators, then turned toward him. “I’m not a monster.”
Quintin pulled up his sleeves. “I didn’t say you were. Matter of fact, I know you are not.”
“Don’t be so sure of yourself.”
Quintin pushed in the rack of rotated eggs. He closed the door and moved onto the larger incubators. “Dr. Kovak wants you to check the haven nests and prepare for a delivery.”
“Delivery?” Ashlyn didn’t remember her foster father mentioning anything about a delivery, especially one which would require the use of the haven. In fact, she hadn’t spoken much since her foster father’s return from seeing Emily.
“Sigurd and the Irish druk are due back tomorrow with it.”
“Tomorrow? So that is where he has been. Why didn’t anyone tell me?” She put her hands on her hips, irked.
“Maybe he thought you needed time to cool off. I hear a little time apart makes the heart grow fonder.” Quintin winked. “And the makeup sex…” He whistled.
“Oh no you didn’t!” Ashlyn punched him in the arm, her cheeks on fire.
Quintin laughed, dodged her next punch, opened his arms wide. “What? Have make up sex? Or just sex? It’s a common thing between males and females. How do you think eggs are made? Or did you really think they came in padded cartons or rescued and extracted by trained Keepers, like your mother and sister?”
She glared at him, hard. Concentrating with all her might, wanting her eyes to shift or at the very least sparks to fly from her lips. But they didn’t. What kind of dragon was she if she couldn’t shift at will? Or even make fire?
She sighed heavily. She’d let the remark go about her foster mother and Emily. “I’m the daughter of an oologist. Of course, I know where eggs come from. You, on the other hand….” She waved her hand, “I’ll have to talk to Minna to see what she’s been teaching you in the dark.”
“Ashlyn Sullivan Kovak.”
Ashlyn stiffened at the sound of her foster father’s voice. She dared a glance at him. He pushed up his glasses, and she slouched. She’d done it now.
“Quintin, the haven?” Dr. Kovak asked.
“I’m on it.” Quintin gave Ashlyn a nod and headed out of the incubation room.
She tried to put on a smile, pretend his voice didn’t startle her or the look in his eyes didn’t cause the younger version of herself to fear what she had done wrong. What did she do wrong?
She watched Quintin retreat.
“Ashlyn. My office.”
“Yes, Father.” Ashlyn followed him. Neither spoke as they left the room, or down the hall. Dr. Kovak held the door of his office open for her and indicated for her to step inside. Once he closed the door he walked over to the window looking out at part of the Harghita mountain range. His desk had recently been polished, she could smell the beeswax and lemon scent rubbed into the wood.
“You’ve changed since I’ve left.”
“How so?”
His eyes, so like her sister Emily’s, softened. He took off his glasses, cleaned them, then put them back on his face. “First of all, you called me father. I don’t think I have ever heard you say it. At least, without the ‘foster’ in front of it.”
“Yes, well. Someone pointed out to me that family is more than blood.”
Dr. Kovak took a seat by the window and indicated for Ashlyn to sit in the chair beside him. “And would this someone be a certain male dragon?”
“He told you.” She grabbed her wrist, covered his mark on her flesh, just a faint outline against her skin.
Dr. Kovak took her hand and uncovered her wrist. “He didn’t. You did.”
“I’ve failed. I’m no better than Emily and now I have put us all in danger of losing the hatchery.”
Dr. Kovak shook his head. “Ash, you always have had a way of looking at the worse to come. I suppose it is the fear in you after losing Edgar and Mary.”
Ashlyn hadn’t heard anyone speak those names before she came here. Her parents, the ones who tried to protect her, the ones who she could never ask about the truth. “But Emily, and now that I have…” she didn’t want to say it. Didn’t want to see that disapproving look on his face she’d come to dread in disappointing him.
“Found your mate? It is all right if you say it, dear.” Dr. Kovak tilted his head and waited for her admission.
She took a deep breath and nodded. “I feel like a fool. I have only known him for such a short time, days really, but I don’t know how to explain it.”
“It’s called love. You feel it more deeply than others. It’s part of your DNA I’m afraid. When a dragon finds its life mate, the connection can be instant.”
“I found the folder on your desk.” She didn’t like telling on herself.
“I hoped you would.”
“You did?” She expected that look, disappointment or a frown, but instead she could swear he appeared relieved.
“It was due time. There are far greater secrets amongst us to hold this one. I see no point in concealing your true birth from you. Seeing Emily with Blake and the family they have become with little Aurelia tells me I have made the right choice.”
Ashlyn sat back in her seat. “So, the egg hatched? Or is that what we prepare for the arrival of?”
“No. Blake’s fiú hatched and claimed Emily as it’s surrogate. The delivery we prepare for comes from elsewhere. Your mate will explain when he arrives. Until then it is best little or no information about this is shared. Prepare the deeper nest, the one for keeping the endangered females hidden.”
“He’s bringing back a female?” She crossed her arms, tried to shield her heart from the pang of him being away with another.
“No, but we need to keep this hush, hush. Understand.” He stared at her, looked her hard in the eye. “No one. I repeat no one, besides you, me, Sigurd, and Quintin shall know where and what is in that nest.”
“We have to tell Margaret. As the leader of the Keepers, she must know.”
Dr. Kovak stood, balled his fist and walked over to the window. He kept his back to her, his posture stiff. He stared out the window. “Margaret may have stepped up to lead the Keepers in Laurel’s absence, but it is no business of hers what happens in my hatchery. The government funds my research and this haven, but I still control who and what may enter my doors.”
Slowly, Ashlyn got to her feet. She’d never seen him so upset, not since Laurel, her foster mother, had been found dead when a retrieval mission had failed. “I’ll go prepare the haven with Quintin. Do you know when Sigurd will return?”
Dr. Kovak turned back toward her. “He didn’t say, but knowing how long the two of you have been kept away from each other already, I suspect him here very soon.”
Or not at all, she thought, but kept it to herself. “I’ll go see to the haven. Don’t worry, Father, all will be kept safe. You have my word.”
She started to walk out the door, turned and went back and hugged Dr. Kovak. It took a moment before his stiff posture relaxed and he wrapped his arms around her. “I have no doubt.”