'Please be real this time,' Dragan Pyrrhus silently pleaded when he saw his mate walking toward him. Not that there was anything unusual about him seeing the ghost of her memory roaming through the castle. Ainsley haunted his soul so why not his home, too? Besides, he'd rather have this little bit of her than nothing at all.

At times he could almost convince himself that she was really there with him. That she'd never left and taken his broken heart with her. Those instances were becoming increasingly rare with the passage of time, yet the love he felt for her never dimmed. And the pain of losing his mate never ceased.

Nor would it until he drew his last breath.

For most of the day he'd had the same euphoric sensation that he'd experienced on the day they'd met. He could actually feel her presence, smell her sweet scent on the breeze. Dragan had walked into the courtyard that morning to stare sightlessly at the valley below, hoping against hope that the feeling was real.

That his mate had returned.

He'd stood there for hours, his soul basking in warmth it hadn't felt in over a decade. And when she'd walked into the courtyard, what was left of his heart came to life and began to beat again. She was so beautiful, his Ainsley. So perfect in every way. The mate he had waited centuries to find.

When she stood before him, his starving gaze took in every flawless detail. His battered soul sang with rapture at the sound of her voice speaking his name. "Ainsley, mea mate," he breathed in reverence and lifted a hand to caress her silken cheek. He could actually feel the warmth of her flesh against his palm, hear her sigh of pleasure.

Dragan could almost believe that this time, the hallucination was real. Much like they had seemed in the early days after she had left him. Of course, back then he had been trying to drown his pain with alcohol until he'd flown into the side of the mountain and crash landed bare-assed naked in the middle of Turquoise Lake.

His dragon hated water, so he'd shifted before they broke the surface. That sobering experience convinced Dragan that drinking and flying were a risky combination and that his dragon was a vindictive bastard. The two of them had barely been on speaking terms since, and the beast had actually gone into hibernation just to spite him.

But his unruly dragon had awakened today and kept insisting that their mate was near. Dragan had been afraid to hope, unwilling to suffer the crushing pain of despair if the beast was wrong. But now that she was standing right in front of him and he could see her, smell her, touch her, he finally allowed himself to believe.

His mate had returned!

Lightheaded with euphoria, sheer joy bubbled through his veins like the finest champagne. Overwhelmed by the barrage of dormant emotions coursing through him, he pulled Ainsley into his arms and held her trembling body against his. He had imagined this moment so many times. Longed for it in the depths of his soul.

His lips sought hers for a kiss that reawakened every particle of his being. After years of wandering aimless and alone in the darkness, trapped in a cold, emotionless state of existence, Dragan was wonderfully, vitally alive. It felt as if he had been reborn into the creature of fire and light that his dragon was supposed to be.

His beautiful Ainsley had returned to him, and no power in heaven or hell would ever keep him from her again. Her love was the reason for his existence. Loving her gave him a reason to live. She was his mate, his heart, his everything. From this day forth, he vowed to be everything that she needed.

A shudder racked his body when she wrapped her arms around him, giving herself over to his keeping. Consumed by his need for her, to be one with her, the kiss turned hungry and demanding. Filled with a passion that he could neither control or contain, he was overwhelmed by an urgent need to claim her.

Make her his forevermore.

"Ah-choo!" The sound of a sneeze followed by an unmistakable whoosh of flame barely registered until Ainsley tore her lips away from his. "Oh, shoot. Mom!" The panicked cry did not register nearly as much as the horror-stricken expression on his mate's beautiful face.

When she looked back over her shoulder, he lifted his gaze to see a young girl peering nervously back at him around the side of the garden gate, a column of smoke rising from behind the wall. Dazed by the riot of emotions ravaging his senses, Dragan looked questioningly at the woman he loved.

"What the hell are you, Dragan?" She demanded brokenly. "Why can our daughter breathe fire?"

His gaze swung back to the miniature version of his Ainsley. Blonde hair like his mate's shone gold in the sunlight, but it was his deep brown eyes that stared back at him warily. The world tilted on its axis as comprehension dawned. Ainsley had borne his child. A living legacy of the love that he and his mate shared.

"Daughter," he breathed reverently.

"Please, Dragan," Ainsley pleaded and placed her hand against his chest, directly over the part of his heart that still remained. "Tell me what's happening to her. Can you make it stop?"

"She's becoming the majestic creature that she was born to be," he responded absently, tearing his thirsty gaze away from the glorious sight of his daughter to look down at her mother's worried face. "It's her birthright. Nothing can stop the change."

"No!" His Ainsley denied vehemently and shoved free of his embrace, her hand falling from his chest. Losing the warmth of her touch was like being doused in an ice bath, and it cleared the haze of euphoria clouding his mind. "I haven't come all this way for nothing. You have to fix this, Dragan. Tell me there's a way to stop it!"

Realization dawned as brutal and deadly as a lance through the heart. His Ainsley had not returned to be his mate. The only reason that she had come back to him was because the girl's dragon was beginning to emerge. She'd returned because she needed his help for the child that he'd known nothing about.

The daughter that she had deliberately kept from him.

The fragile flame of hope had been brutally extinguished. Pain slashed and clawed at his heart, eviscerating his soul. Anguish and despair consumed him while his dragon roared at the betrayal. The bitter truth enraged him, and he wanted to set the world on fire with his fury. Watch it burn to ash along with his dreams of a life with her.

Overwhelmed by long-dead emotions that he had forgotten how to feel, plumes of smoke blew from his nostrils in a rush of heated air. "You dare come to me for help," he accused in a guttural tone as fire licked through his veins and burned in his eyes. "After you left me. Kept my child from me!"

"Dragan, please," an ashen Ainsley said anxiously as she backed away from him, her amethyst eyes wide with fear. "She's your daughter. Help her."

"Don't yell at my mom," the girl growled in a deep rasping tone as she darted between them, the red, glowing eyes warning that her dragon was very near the surface. The situation was about to become dangerous because it was obvious that she barely had control of the deadliest creature in existence.

"Ember, no," his mate admonished as she placed herself between himself and the girl. In spite of his rage, the action flooded his soul with fear. When his daughter lost control of the beast, he could withstand a baptism of dragon fire unscathed. His mate could not. She would be burned to death within seconds.

Reacting purely from an instinctual need to protect his mate, Dragan swept her up into his arms. His wings unfurled, wrapping securely around Ainsley, effectively shielding her from the blast of molten flame that engulfed him. His barren soul rejoiced at holding her close even as his body baked in the heat of the blaze surrounding them.

 

***

 

The situation was quickly turning into her worst nightmare. Aside from being jailed for trespassing, that is. Ainsley had known that Dragan would be angry with her, and she freely admitted that he had a right to be. Learning they had a child that she'd never told him about would be a shock in and of itself.

But the man that she remembered had been infinitely patient, so very gentle and loving. She had hoped that he would display that same compassion in aiding their daughter with whatever it was that she was going through. His reaction to her arrival had been more than she had expected and everything that she had yearned for.

Just as it always had, being held in his strong embrace had felt like coming home. The hunger in his kiss, the tenderness of his touch, had opened the floodgates of her soul and every molecule of her being had become vibrantly alive. She was filled with an all-consuming need to be one with him, forever.

Her daughter's plaintive cry for help had forced her back to the present where she shoved the memories of the past into the back of her mind. The timely interruption had come as a sobering reminder of why she was there. Although blurting it out in a less than tactful manner clearly hadn't been the best way to handle the situation.

Dragan had appeared shell-shocked as he'd stared at Ember, a look of wonder on his handsome face. Then he'd started talking about her baby changing into some kind of creature and scared her half out of her wits. Ainsley had gone into panic mode and demanded that he make it stop.

Obviously, that had been a mistake because he'd changed right before her eyes. The expression on his face had hardened into a forbidding mask of fury. Smoke had escaped from his nostrils, and his eyes had glowed a fiery red. She could have sworn that there had been flames flickering in their depths.

It scared the bejesus out of her.

"You dare come to me for help," he had accused in a guttural tone that sounded nothing like his normal melodic voice. "After you left me. Kept my child from me!"

"Dragan, please," Ainsley said anxiously as she backed away from him, terrified of what he might be yet desperate for his help. "She's your daughter. Help her."

Before he could respond, Ember had suddenly darted between them, sounding more animal than human as she growled, "Don't yell at my mom."

"Ember, no," she had admonished as the protective instincts of a mother had her moving between the pair. Without warning, she was swept up into Dragan's arms before some type of leather covering was flung over her. Wrapped tightly inside a cocoon of darkness, she struggled to free herself from the suffocating heat.

After endless seconds that felt more like hours, the covering was removed, and Dragan gently placed her back on her feet again. Before she could demand to know what the hell was going on, her daughter's frightened cry snared her complete attention. "Mom? Oh, God. Mommy! I'm so sorry."

Ember was ghost white and shaking like a leaf when she pulled her into her arms for a fierce hug. Turning to level a glare at her former lover, Ainsley could only stare at him in shocked disbelief. Dragan was standing there barefoot with the legs of his pants burned away as tendrils of smoke rose from his body.

"You could have killed your mother," he accused in a tone as harsh as his expression.

"I didn't mean to do it," her daughter sobbed hysterically, tears rolling down her cheeks. "It just happened."

"What happened?" Ainsley demanded at a complete loss.

"I breathed fire, Mom," Ember wailed. "And I almost burned you alive."

"It will happen again unless you learn to control it," Dragan growled.

"Then tell me how," her daughter pleaded desperately as she released the death grip on her mother to face him. "I don't know how to make it stop!"

A myriad of emotions crossed his face before he nodded confirmation. "I will teach you, but you'll have to stay away from your mother," he commanded. "For her own safety."

"Now just a damn minute," she protested hotly and wasn't about to abandon her child to deal with this insanity alone. Or trust her to Dragan's less than tender care. The man looked positively livid and about as welcoming as an angry wasp.

"He's right, Mom," Ember insisted and sounded slightly less shaken than she had been. "The fire didn't burn him at all, but if he hadn't wrapped his wings around you…"

"Wings?" Ainsley choked out in shocked disbelief. "Like… an angel?"

"No. More like a dragon," her daughter imparted, and there was a spark of excitement in her eyes when she added, "It was really cool."

A dragon, she thought wildly as her logical mind tried to reconcile the pieces of this puzzle. Dragons were reputed to be able to breathe fire. Was it possible that they were real? That Dragan and her daughter were the mythical creatures? Turning wide, frightened eyes on her former lover, she choked out, "You're a… dragon?"

"I am," he confirmed in a matter of fact tone.

"Holy sh…" she breathed as her last conscious thought before darkness engulfed her.