Chapter 14
“What the hell are you doing hiding away in here when Gayle is about to leave with Volkov?” Dylan demanded as he strode into Grigor’s study without knocking.
His jaw tightened. “I am giving my mate the space she needs to make her happy.”
“Are you?” his brother challenged. “Or does it make you happy to be mated and yet not have the responsibility of a full-time mating?”
Grigor surged to his feet. “You know nothing about my relationship with Gayle.” Least of all that having Gayle leave him was like ripping his own heart from his chest.
“I know she’s upstairs right now, crying in my mate’s arms,” Dylan snapped.
“What?” He scowled. “Why?”
“You know, Grigor, I’ve always admired you.” Dylan leaned against the side of the desk. “We’re all aware of the selfless sacrifices you’ve made over the years regarding your own life in order to ensure our family’s survival.”
“And?”
“Haven’t you ever, just once in your life, wanted to be selfish and take something for yourself alone?”
Grigor drew in a ragged breath, knowing the answer to that was never. Not until he met Gayle and recognized her as his mate. Once aware of who and what she was to him, he had seen and wanted nothing else but her. His greatest desire was to ensure her happiness. Unfortunately, that happiness didn’t include him.
“Gayle has a job offer in London with Markovic’s organization,” he dismissed. “If she’s crying, then it’s because of the thought of another separation from her sister.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“I beg your pardon?” Grigor was still the nominal head of this family, even if his own mate chose not to respect that fact.
Dylan gave an impatient shake of his head. “Gayle is…complicated. Stubborn and proud. But underneath that, she’s scared of needing anyone. Her sarcasm is all bluster in an effort to hide that vulnerability.”
“You think I don’t already know that?” he derided. “She’s been running rings around me with that sarcasm since the moment we first met.”
His brother chuckled. “Me too, if I’m honest.” He sobered. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t know or understand why she behaves that way.”
“And you think I don’t?” Grigor’s expression was grim as he paced in front of his desk. He had made love to and with Gayle for days, had tried to show her, through that lovemaking, how necessary she was to his life. She still wanted to leave him. “If I try to use our mating to cage her, then she’ll only fight all the harder to be free.” He gave a shake of his head. “I won’t do that to her.”
“Even if she’s miserable at the thought of leaving here?”
“As I said, she’s upset at the thought of leaving her sister, not me.”
“Sure about that?”
Grigor sighed. “It’s for the best, Dylan. Besides, Nathaniel and Chloe are sometimes apart when she travels to London to see friends. Tegan and Bryn are too. And Izzy attends university every day.”
“And our brothers hate every minute of their separation, can only bear it because their mating is already established. Holly and I have been mated for a week, and even this brief separation while I talk to you is painful for me. Your own mating with Gayle has existed for even less time than that.”
Grigor avoided meeting his brother’s probing gaze. “And we’ll be together again when the mating lust becomes too uncomfortable for one or both of us.”
“We mate for life, damn it,” Dylan growled. “Our mating connection, once we find it, is as necessary to us as breathing. We certainly don’t live apart from our mate.”
“Gayle never wanted this mating, Dylan,” he snapped as his brother would have voiced another protest. “She only agreed to it because the alternative was death for both of us.”
Dylan gave a frown of frustration. “Are you sure?”
“Very.”
His brother sighed deeply. “And what about you? What do you want?”
His hands clenched at his sides. “I want my mate at my side every minute of every day and every night.”
“Then tell Gayle that!”
His eyes narrowed. “If I did, then our mating bond would make her feel compelled to stay for my sake. I won’t ever use emotional blackmail to hold on to her.”
“And being apart from her could drive you insane from the worry over her safety and the mating lust!”
“I am fully aware of that.” Grigor grimaced. Like Dylan, even the separation from his mate of a single floor of the house was enough to cause him, and his dragon, to clamor to be with Gayle again. “I’ve already spoken to Volkov in regard to Gayle’s safety when she’s in London. He’s assured me it won’t be a problem to ensure two of his men are watching over her during the hours she isn’t working with them. I never thought I would say this,” he said self-derisively, “but it helps that Volkov and Markovic are aware we’re all dragon shifters.”
Dylan laughed softly. “Those two men keep so many secrets already, what’s one more to add to the list.”
“True,” Grigor drawled. “I won’t ever—” He reached out to grip the edge of the desk as a sudden crippling pain ripped through his whole body. “Gayle just left,” he gasped, falling to his knees as the pain became excruciating.
“Fuck.” Dylan fell to his knees to draw the collapsed Grigor into his arms. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
Gayle stared miserably out the darkened window of the second black SUV. Something she had been doing for the last hour, since the moment the vehicle pulled away from Pendragon Castle.
And misery was something of an understatement as to how it felt to leave Grigor. It was as if her heart and lungs, at the very least, had been ripped from her chest, robbing her of breath and a heartbeat.
Grigor hadn’t even bothered to say goodbye to her.
Holly had come to see her leave, as had all the other Pendragon mates. Along with Nathaniel, Bryn, Deryk, Aeran, and even the taciturn Rhys, whom she didn’t even know. Garrett had disappeared somewhere.
And she hadn’t seen Grigor again.
Or Dylan.
If the Pendragon brothers drank alcohol, then Gayle would have said Grigor was off somewhere with Dylan celebrating her departure. But as alcohol had no effect on dragon shifters, meaning they didn’t drink, she knew that wasn’t true.
Grigor could at least have made the effort to say goodbye to her.
As it was, Gayle felt numbed from the depth of the pain she was feeling at their separation.
Grief-stricken.
As if someone or something had died.
Her heart, maybe?
“You are making a mistake.”
She turned to look at Nikolai as he sat beside her in the darkness of the back of the vehicle. “Sorry?”
His teeth gleamed as he smiled. “Grigor is…a difficult man to understand. Cold. Arrogant. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a heart that can be broken.”
Gayle gave a snort. “Are you speaking from personal experience?” In many ways, Grigor and Nikolai were alike, both cold and arrogant, with that unshakeable certainty in everything they did.
“As it happens, yes,” the Russian confirmed softly. “I almost let Daisy—my wife—leave my life because of my blind stupidity in believing I knew what was best for her.”
“That wasn’t you?”
“I believed it wasn’t me,” he drawled. “Daisy convinced me otherwise, and we have now been happily married for three years. We have a family together, something I never thought I would have. They are my life,” he said softly. “But it’s hard for men like us to admit to the weakness of feeling love for another human being.”
“Grigor can’t admit to feeling something that doesn’t exist.”
“I cannot speak for Grigor, but I know that loving Daisy is not my weakness, it is my strength. That together we are so much stronger than we are apart.”
“Grigor doesn’t feel that way about me.”
“He hasn’t told you he feels that way about you. There is a distinct difference.”
Gayle breathed in deeply. “Nikolai, why are we having this conversation?”
“Because if Daisy hadn’t made me see how stupid I was being in insisting we part, then I would have missed out on the best part of my fucking life!” He almost shouted the words.
“So I’m supposed to do the same with Grigor?”
“Are you too proud to do that?” Nikolai rasped. “Will that pride keep you warm at night? Provide the love, the companionship, the family you could have with Grigor?”
“He doesn’t want me, Nikolai,” she insisted shakily.
“He doesn’t want you to realize how much he wants you. I know him, Gayle, because I am him.” He turned in the seat to face her. “What do you really have to lose by telling him how you feel?”
“I… Only what’s left of my stupid pride,” she acknowledged in a small voice.
“What do you have to gain?”
She didn’t hesitate in how she answered that question. “Everything!”
“Then we’ll turn back.”
“You would do that?”
Nikolai placed one of his hands over hers. “When you return, talk to Grigor. Don’t argue with him, just talk to him. Tell him your feelings for him.”
Could she do that? Could she tell Grigor she loved him and hope he felt even a little of that emotion for her?
More to the point, how could she bear to be apart from him a moment longer when each mile seemed like a hundred?
“Daisy is the light to my dark,” Nikolai spoke softly. “You can be that for Grigor.”
She could. She really could. Whenever Grigor became too serious, she could tease him out of it. Whenever he needed someone on his side, she could be that person. Most of all, she could be his mate.
“Okay.” She nodded. “I’ll go back and talk to him.” She decided before the doubts set in again and she changed her mind.
“That’s the best decision you’ve probably ever—” He broke off the comment as his phone pinged, announcing he had a text message, a frown darkening his brow as he read it before leaning forward to tap the driver on the shoulder. “Return to the castle,” he instructed harshly. “Now!” He dropped back against the car seat, his expression grim as the driver immediately turned the SUV into a U-turn before racing back toward Pendragon Castle.
“Nikolai?” Gayle sat forward. “What is it? What’s happened?” she demanded, too worried to care about the distress in her voice.
He drew in a controlling breath. “It seems your mate has…lapsed into something Nathaniel described as dragon sleep.”
Gayle alarm deepened. “What the hell is that?”
“He didn’t say.” The Russian shrugged. “Only that your presence is required back at the castle, or there’s a real danger Grigor might not wake up. Ever,” he added grimly.
Gayle did still have her heart and lungs after all, because right now, the former was beating at twice its normal speed, and her lungs were raggedly breathing in and out.
Although she was sure her heart stopped again when she ran into Grigor’s bedroom a short time later and saw the beautiful raven-haired and ivory-skinned woman sitting at Grigor’s bedside holding one of his hands in both of her much paler ones.
Admittedly, she had been in such a hurry to get to Grigor that she hadn’t lingered downstairs any longer than it took for Holly to tell her that Grigor was in his bedroom, before running up the stairs to be with him. But surely someone could have mentioned he had another woman with him?
“Who are you?” Gayle demanded as she stepped possessively to Grigor’s other side and grasped his limp hand in hers. Tears stung her eyes at the pallor of his face. Grigor looked as if he was sleeping, and yet somehow, it seemed more than that, deeper, darker.
The dragon sleep Nikolai had spoken of?
The woman rose gracefully to her feet, slightly shorter than Gayle, her hair a black silky curtain down to her waist, her eyes the deepest blue Gayle had ever seen, the long gown she wore of that same vibrant color. “I am Branwen.” There was a soft lilt to the gentleness of the woman’s voice. “And you are Gayle, the one chosen to be life mate to my son.”
Son?
Could this woman be referring to Grigor?
She wasn’t old enough to have a son who admitted to being sixteen hundred years old—
Grigor had told her his mother was a Welsh goddess.
Immortal.
Timeless.
Named Branwen?
Gayle swallowed past the lump that had risen in her throat. “I—I’m pleased to meet you.”
The other woman smiled. “And I you.”
“You are…?” Considering the cock-up she’d made in her life so far…
“The gods and goddesses do not make mistakes, Gayle.” Branwen seemed to read her thoughts. “You are my son’s fated mate, destined to be at his side for many, many more years to come. To give him children—”
“How do you know all this?”
“I am also the goddess of Vision.”
Gayle’s eyes widened. “You can see into the future?”
“I can. But it is not wise to know all of the future, Gayle,” she added before Gayle could even ask. “Know only that the two of you are meant to be together. To love each other.”
Gayle chewed on her bottom lip. “I thought you lived on the island of Annwn?”
A slight frown married the woman’s smooth brow as she gazed down tenderly at Grigor. “I lost one son. I do not intend to lose another.”
“I don’t understand.”
Again, that gentle smile. “My first son, Gwern, should have been King of Ireland, but my half brother killed him before he could be crowned. Most believe I died of a broken heart that day but in fact, I descended to the island of Annwn and became the Welsh goddess of Love and Beauty. I also gave birth to my beloved Grigor, son of the human Uther and half brother to Arthur.” Love glowed in her eyes as she glanced down at Grigor. “I do not leave Annwn often, but if my son ever has need of me, I will always come.”
“And tonight, he needed you?”
“Yes.”
Gayle felt as if she was back in the same alternate universe as when Grigor told her dragon shifters were real and he had been alive for sixteen hundred years.
But there was no doubting this beautiful woman was standing right in front of her.
No missing the ethereal and unworldly quality of the air that surrounded the other woman.
Because she was a Welsh goddess.
Was Branwen, goddess of Love and Beauty. And Vision too, apparently.
And Grigor’s mother.
Gayle drew in a shaky breath. “Did my leaving do this to him?”
“Yes,” Branwen confirmed without condemnation.
She nodded. “Then please tell me what I have to do to bring him back to me.”
Branwen smiled. “Love him with all your generous heart, as my brave and strong Grigor so deserves to be loved.”
Gayle could do that.
Easily.
Because she already loved Grigor with all her heart, exactly as Grigor deserved to be loved.
It no longer mattered if he didn’t love her in return.
Gayle had left him once, but she would never leave him again, no matter how much he might want, demand, she do so.