Peggy
One.
One second is all I need.
One second is all I’m asking for.
One second and my entire world can change.
That’s all it took for David to make the choice to save Cameron.
That’s all it took for me to decide to kick Cameron and steal Daisy at the stone tower.
That’s all it took for Cameron to save me from the wolf.
One second.
One second can change your future.
I’m snuggled on Henrietta’s couch between Ellie and Cameron. Daisy is asleep in the play pen and Mocha and Frappe are curled up in front of the fireplace. Henrietta and Luther, Cameron’s father, are asleep upstairs.
And the world is quiet.
“What’s going to happen next?” I ask. I hate to break the silence, but not knowing is killing me. Will there be a ceremony for David? Will he be honored by his clan? Surely he will. Surely there’s some sort of dragon way of honoring the passing of a loved one.
“We’ll make funeral arrangements in the morning,” Ellie whispers. “We brought back David’s body. He’ll be buried with the clan. He would have wanted that.” She sniffles, and I reach for her. I can’t imagine the pain she’s feeling right now, the loss. This is the kind of pain she’ll carry the rest of her life. There’s no way to minimize the fact that today, she lost her mate, and she’ll be raising her daughter without him.
She won’t be on her own, though.
We’ll all be there for her every step of the way.
David might be gone, but his daughter? She’s going to be so loved. She’s going to be taken care of. She’s going to be protected by all of us.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her.
“Don’t be,” Ellie squeezes my hand. Then she runs her fingers over the scar she left when she bit me. It doesn’t hurt anymore. “You kept your promise, Peggy, and you saved my baby. I can never repay you for that.” I look down at the place where she’s touching me and I think of that day not so long ago. I swore an oath, and I never imagined that doing so would mean I’d end up here.
I was just an ordinary janitor, happy to do my work and go home to paint, and now?
Now I’m a dragon’s mate.
A lot can change in a week.
“What happens to the scar?” I ask, suddenly curious.
“What do you mean?” Cameron glances at it.
“I mean, the scar from my oath. Will it be here forever?”
“Yes,” Ellie says. “As a reminder. It’ll fade, like a normal scar, but you’ll always have it, and everyone who sees it will know you took a dragon’s oath and kept it. That says a lot about your character, Peggy. Not everyone would have kept their promise.”
“What if I hadn’t kept it?” I don’t know how dragon magic works. Will the scar have turned black or something like that?
Cameron and Ellie exchange looks, but neither one of them speaks for a long time. Suddenly, I feel uneasy as I wonder what they’re keeping from me. There’s so much I don’t know about the dragons, so much I have left to discover.
“Come on, guys. What’s the big deal? I kept the oath, so you can tell me what would have happened if I didn’t.”
“A dragon’s oath is tied to your essence,” Ellie says.
“So, what? Breaking it would have destroyed who I am? Would it have killed me?”
“You won’t die from breaking an oath,” Cameron says. “But a dragon’s oath is a very serious thing. Breaking one means you’ll slowly go insane. The longer it takes for you to fulfill your oath, the more crazy and distraught you’ll become until eventually, the only thing you’ll be able to think about is the oath itself.”
“You didn’t tell me any of that,” I say sharply to Ellie. “What if I hadn’t kept the oath? I didn’t know what would happen.”
She shrugs. “You did keep it, though, so everything is fine.”
I glare at my new sister-in-law. “You probably should have warned me, to be honest. It would have been nice to know what I was getting into.”
She chuckles, and then she gives me a little hug.
“Peggy, I should have warned you, but I figured that if I explained everything to you, you’d freak out and wouldn’t keep your promise. It’s kind of a lot of pressure. Besides, I didn’t have a lot of time. There were two evil scientists hunting me, remember?”
I think of the two people who showed up on my porch, and I shiver.
“I remember.”
We sit in silence for a long time then, just watching the kittens sleep in front of the fire. Life at Fablestone is going to be different from anything I’ve ever experienced. It’s going to be scary sometimes, but it’s also going to be incredible. It’s going to be strange, but it’s also going to be wonderful. Right now, I’m happy to take the good with the bad when it comes to my new life.
Next week, Cameron and I will fly back and get my belongings from my little cabin. I’ll tell my landlord I’m moving and pay my break-lease fee, and then I’ll officially be a resident of Fablestone. I’ll be part of the dragon clan for the rest of my life, and I don’t know if there’s anything better I could have wished for.
I don’t know what’s going to happen next.
I don’t know if we’ll be able to defeat Lucky.
I don’t know how things are going to turn out, but I do know that with Cameron by my side, the future is bright, and somehow, I think everything is going to be just fine.