CHAPTER 26

Three months later, Liam Donnelly and Dawn McCord walked down the aisle together in front of the entire village of their clan members. It felt like the most wonderful day of her lives so far as they stood before the minister and recited their vows in front of people that loved and cared for them.

It felt like a dream as they shared their first kiss as man and wife and then made an exit from the large pavilion as everyone tossed bird seeds over their heads. They climbed into a limo decorated with streamers and cans with tons of shoe polished words indicating that they were just married.

Heading to the airport in Dublin, they climbed aboard a flight that was bound for St. Lucia where they would spend a week on their honeymoon. Dawn still couldn’t believe all of this was happening. It was as if she was lost in a dream that she never wanted to wake up from.

“Are you happy?” Liam asked as they strolled along the water outside their bungalow.

“Are you kidding? I’ve never been happier,” she replied. “I have everything any woman could ever hope for.”

“I just don’t want you to ever be unhappy. You mean everything to me, and I can’t wait to share the rest of our lives together.”

“Aren’t we already well on our way with that?” she asked.

“Almost. Just one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“The house we looked at on that Sunday after you went dress shopping? Remember it?”

“Which one? We saw several.”

“The one that is done in an American colonial style just outside the village.”

Dawn smiled. She remembered it well. They had both fallen in love with it, but it was seriously overpriced and need some refurbishments even beyond that.

“I remember that they want way too much for it.”

“Correction. They wanted too much for it.”

“Oh? What changed.”

“Divorce, apparently. He left with some woman from his office, and she doesn’t want to be there anymore.”

“That’s sad,” Dawn replied.

“It is, but it is also our good luck. She also wants it off her hands as soon as possible. She is willing to meet our price if we can close within the month.”

“I don’t know. It’s a beautiful house, and I really love it, but do we want to move into a place with that kind of bad karma under its belt?”

“It’s not our bad karma. It’s just a house. We will make so many wonderful new memories that the house will be as happy as we are.”

“I do love that house.”

“Then, we want it?”

“Yes, we want it.”

Liam pulled her to him and kissed her on the forehead.

“You are the most beautiful woman on the planet. I’m never going to let you down. I promise you that.”

“I know you won’t, Liam. You never have.”

“Yes, I did once. On those cliffs. I wasn’t able to protect you. Instead, I ended up on that rock, broken and bloody while you had to save both of us. Then, I wasn’t there when you had to face the people who wanted to punish you for it. I left you alone to fend for yourself.”

“You were hurt, Liam. You didn’t run. You fought, but he just hit you too hard, too fast. There was nothing you could have done any differently. You’re a dragon, not an alley cat. Your body doesn’t move like a ninja in the dark when you are that size. What else could you have done?”

“I don’t know. I just keep playing it over and over in my head. I keep wondering what I could have done differently. It plagues me. I hate that you are stuck with knowing you had to kill another dragon. It is not in your nature to kill. You are a healer, full of compassion, and I know it pains you.”

“It does, Liam, but you know what would have pained me more? Having you die on that rock because I couldn’t do anything to change it. You are the center of my universe, and you always will be. Do you remember laying there together?”

“All too vividly. I was terrified,” he replied.

“We both were.”

“I wasn’t afraid I was going to die. I could have accepted that, but I was afraid that you were going to die instead. If he had killed both of us, I could have spent an eternity roaming the heavens with you, but if I had died without you, I knew I would spend centuries waiting for you to join me. If you allowed yourself to be drained to give me a chance at life, I would have spent the same here on Earth, waiting to join you in the heavens.”

“We were lucky. Kergot telling us about that bottle saved us. What are the odds?”

“I don’t know. I think that sometimes we have some intervention from above that helps us with whatever life throws our way.”

“Perhaps. You could be right. The odds of having the bottle even after shifting and losing the pants it was in have to be crazy ridiculous.”

“I guess we will know someday, but hopefully not for a very long time. You and I still have a lot to share in this life and the life of those little beans you are carrying around.”

“I think they are a bit bigger than beans by now. They are approaching halfway done here soon.”

“Do you think we’ll be good parents?” he asked.

“I think we will be incredible parents,” she told him, stopping to look out at the way the moon created shimmers of light against the rippling tide. “How could we not be when I can know their every thought, their every pain? It’s truly a gift what I have. It took me a while to realize that. It felt like such a burden for so long.”

“Will it still be a gift if these children share your abilities? You’ll never be able to bluff a single thing with them. Neither of us will.”

Dawn turned back toward him, wide-eyed. She had never considered that possibility. What if they were like her? They say you reap what you sow. She would quickly learn what her parents had gone through all those years of dealing with her.

“You shut your mouth!” she chided.

“Best be prepared. It could happen.”

“Jesus. I’ve never even thought about that, but you are right. They will still be part human, and who knows what they will be capable of. Don’t one of the Higgins brothers have children that can shift into multiple creatures?”

“Yes, but I think their mom is part tiger shifter.”

“Right. I think you are correct. Wow. I just realized that our village has gotten crazy with all these variations. Can you imagine what our ancestors would have thought? All those laws they made to keep the bloodlines pure for dragon shifters, and now we have all sorts of anomalies floating around.”

“Be careful how you use that word, my little anomaly princess.”

“Now I’m a princess? I thought I was a turd.”

“Well, you know, I can’t go around calling the mother of my children a turd all the time,” he laughed, pulling her close to him as they turned and walked back the way they had come to go to their bungalow.