Callan
The SUV pulled up to her house far too slowly for his liking. He had the door open before it was even stopped.
“Wait here,” he growled at the driver, unfairly letting out some of his anger at him.
It wasn’t the driver’s fault. He’d moved with all haste that he could, but he was unwilling to break the law just so Callan could get to Kathryn’s house sooner. It angered him that he couldn’t have just changed into his dragon and leapt from the top of the apartment building. His massive wings would have carried him across the city far faster than any vehicle could have traveled its stop-and-go streets.
Despite his worry and fear, he’d kept just calm enough to ensure he didn’t do something quite so drastic, though the temptation had been hard to resist. Now, as he rushed up the walkway to the front door, he tried to figure out what he would say to her.
The most important thing, he figured, was why?
After taking a longer shower than normal, he’d emerged to find the apartment empty and Kathryn’s chair gone. His first fear had been kidnapping, but a quick test of the air had proven that theory false. The only scent he’d picked up was Kathryn’s. Whatever it was, she’d left of her own accord.
Fear had gripped his heart next. She’d said she was going to call her mother and ask about the date with Brian. Had something happened to her mother that she needed to leave right away? Did she have to go to the hospital…or worse, the morgue? Callan felt terrible that he’d been in the shower while she got the news.
That’s when he’d seen the necklace on the table next to the elevator. He’d picked it up carefully, noting how it had been deposited in a pile, not laid out neatly. There was a message in that, he knew. Kathryn was getting rid of it.
And she was trying to get rid of him.
Part of him wanted to let her go. This was twice now she’d acted like this, attempting to cut all ties without warning. There was something going on with her, something that she hadn’t told him yet, that was causing this reaction. But try as he might, he couldn’t figure it out. What exactly had he done to make her run away from him, not once, but twice? There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to it as far as he could figure out.
That alone would have driven him to confront her, to find out what it was. He could change it, fix it—whatever needed to happen, he would do it for her. All she needed to do was tell him. Speak to him. Trust him. He only wanted the best for her, couldn’t she see that?
Was it not enough? He hesitated before knocking as the new thought entered his mind. Maybe it wasn’t enough. His mate deserved better than what he’d been giving her, but without his treasure it was next to impossible for him to do that. He wanted to buy her a new house, and her mother one as well. To give Kathryn everything she could ever dream of, but so far all he’d been able to do to profess his love was little trinkets like necklaces and clothes.
He was lucky she wasn’t a dragon, but a human. A female dragon would have laughed at his offering at best, though a much more likely outcome is they would have tried to kill him. Female dragons were a prickly bunch, which is probably why there were so few of them, thank goodness.
That was definitely it. Idiot. He should have bought her more. Showered her with as much lavishness as he could wring out of Colonel Mara’s stingy hands. Angry at himself, and even angrier at the military for withholding his treasure from him, he turned his back on the door, taking several breaths to try and calm himself.
It was a mistake. Nothing more. She had rejected his small gifts, so now he would talk to her and tell her his grand plans. Of all the wealth he’d secreted away in his cave before falling asleep. Gold chalices and coins, rings and crowns. Diamond-encrusted rings, necklaces, bracelets, and more. Rubies in untold amounts, and sapphires and emeralds too. They would all be hers. He would hire the world’s finest gemsmiths to create jewelry beyond her wildest imagination.
The greatest doctors in the world would see to her injuries and her scars if she wanted, though they bothered him not at all. Nothing would be beyond her, he vowed, determined to make the biggest, most grandiose display for her that he could possibly imagine.
Once he got his treasure back. That would be the next step of course. Which would mean a trip back to where he’d been awoken, Fort Stark, to search for it there. And wherever else was necessary as well. Nothing would stop him.
For now, he needed to focus on Kathryn. Spinning back to the door, he rapped his knuckles against it smartly and waited. There was a long pause without any sound from the other side, and Callan had to work to keep his feet planted so that he didn’t bounce from side to side or shuffle or do anything else that would betray his nerves.
Finally he heard some scrapes, and Audrey opened the door.
“What do you want?”
He paused mid-word, the caustic tone of the Pine matron scrambling the circuits of his brain.
“Well?”
Snapping his jaw closed, Callan reevaluated the situation. Despite the fact that he towered over her by close to a foot and a half, the little woman still somehow managed to glare up at him and appear completely unintimidated by his hulking presence.
Probably because she’s smart enough to know you won’t do a damn thing against her.
“I’d like to speak to Kathryn, please.” He’d almost said Katy, but right now was not the time to get formal. It pleased him that Audrey was quite obviously doing as well as ever, but that meant the issue lay squarely with him, and not some sort of outside circumstance.
“I’m sorry, she’s not home.”
It was a lie. He could smell her scent with ease. It was fresh, and the gentle tingle of fresh rain that was her perfume tingled in his nostrils. Kathryn was in the house right now. It would have been pitifully easy to just walk inside and find her, but that wouldn’t achieve his point.
“Please, Mrs. Pine. I’m not here to argue with anyone. But something happened, and I obviously made some sort of mistake. I can fix it. I promise. Just let me talk to Kathryn.”
“She’s not home.”
He sighed. “Have I disrespected you so, that you feel the need to lie to me? We both know she’s in there, either in her room or somewhere within earshot but out of sight of the door. You don’t want me to see her because I’ve somehow upset her. I understand that. But please don’t lie.”
Callan had hoped that his honesty and straightforwardness would help ease the tension, but if anything Audrey’s face hardened even further. “She’s not home. Now please go away.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“You can, and you will, or I’ll call the police. I’d really rather not take that step, but I’m more than prepared to.”
He could tell it wasn’t a bluff. Mrs. Pine was in full-on offspring defense mode, ready and willing to do anything to protect her hurting child. How was it fair then, that nobody would acknowledge that he was hurting? Callan hadn’t done anything with the intent of hurting her, that was for certain. Why would he do that to his mate? It made no sense. Yet nobody could see that, it seemed.
“Please, Mrs. Pine. At least tell me what I did wrong? I never got the chance to even realize something was wrong. She simply left while I was in the shower, without a word or explanation. You must understand how that would feel. To know you’ve wronged someone you care for, but to have no clue how?”
A flicker of compassion crossed the older woman’s face, but her resolve didn’t weaken.
“I’m not letting you in,” she repeated. “I cannot let my daughter be hurt by men like you again.”
The door closed in his face.
Callan closed his eyes, looking down. What the hell had just happened? All his politeness had gotten him nowhere. Should he have appeared angry and hostile, barging his way in?
Of course not, you idiot. How the hell would that have made it any better?
He didn’t know. It seemed like the flavor of the day, him not knowing anything. And what had that last comment meant? Men like him? What could she possibly mean by that?
The most obvious answer was dragons. It was the thing that, as far as he knew, set him apart from everyone else. The only problem about that was that to the best of his knowledge, Kathryn had never met another dragon before. Most of his kind were asleep, and had been for years. So Kathryn had no idea he was a dragon.
As he all but threw himself into the back of the SUV, another thought came to him. Maybe that was the problem. She didn’t know he was a dragon. That they were meant to be, mates destined to be together.
He closed his eyes, speaking to Beatrice’s memory as the familiar guilt welled up.
I’m sorry, Bea. I loved you, you know that. But that’s different than this. My dragon accepted you, but you had my human half, not all of me. I see it now. That doesn’t diminish you, or make you less. It just makes you different. I’ll never forget you, but I need to move on. I need you to let me go so that I can be with Kathryn. She needs me…she just doesn’t see it yet.
The guilt he’d felt growing paused, and then all at once just melted away, leaving him in one giant sigh as his shoulders relaxed. The tension he’d been fighting since he’d started to believe his dragon about Kathryn similarly disappeared. His soul was at ease, having been waiting for that acknowledgment for a long time. It freed him to think about Kathryn, and what he should do there.
You need to tell her the truth. All of the truth. Let her see the facts clearly, and then make her decision.
Trust her completely, and perhaps then she’ll be able to trust you as well and tell you what’s going on.
His course of action decided, there was only one problem left outstanding before he could reveal everything to Kathryn and hope that explained whatever action it was she’d found error with.
How the hell did he get her to talk to him?