Dragan was in a foul mood as he had barely slept a wink all night. Leaving his Ainsley in her bed and going to his own solitary room had been pure torment at best. After tossing and turning for hours, he had crept silently back into his mate's room and slipped soundlessly into the bed beside her.

As if she had known he was there, she had instinctively turned toward him, burrowing her body against his side. Holding her in his arms had been both heaven and hell. The sense of peace at having her near was a balm to his battered soul yet the torment of not being able to make love to her had left him aching with need.

The experience was bittersweet yet infinitely preferable to the countless nights he'd spent longing to hold her once more. The lure of sleep had not been strong enough to overcome his need to bask in the pleasure of her embrace. Dragan had lain awake content just to gaze upon the beauty of her face.

During the interminably long separation, he had never understood why his mate had left him. Ainsley had loved him, of that he had no doubt, but it had not been enough to make her stay. His heart had nearly burst with joy when she had told him that her choice was to stay with him this time.

So during the darkest hours of the night, he had daydreamed about courting his beloved Ainsley again. Roses, a romantic dinner, and a moonlit flight through the night sky would be a nice place to start. And if he were very lucky, please gods, let him be lucky, worshiping his mate's body in his bed afterward.

With the coming of the dawn, he had forced himself to leave her and return to his own room. His daughter had emerged from her room, practically vibrating with excitement as she bombarded him with a barrage of seemingly endless questions. Which is how he found himself in the courtyard giving her an impromptu lesson.

"You are not listening, little one," Dragan said with forced patience. It would seem his eyes, temper, and dragon were not all that Ember had inherited from him. His daughter was proving to be as obstinate as her sire, which was annoying as hell.

"Stop calling me that," the fiery-tempered girl snapped, her eyes glowing red. "I'm not a child. I'm twelve."

Not at all amused by her insolence, or intimidated by her fury, he bent so they were at eye level, to respond dryly, "And I am twelve hundred." Give or take a century or two. After all this time it was so easy to lose count.

Her eyes grew round, and her mouth dropped open in shock. "Years?" Ember exclaimed.

"Unless you know of another way to mark time," he confirmed dryly as he stood upright.

"Holy crap! You're like prehistoric," she accused.

Dragan folded his arms over his chest and glared down at his vexing offspring. "I am hardly that old, and your education is sorely lacking if you don't know the difference between the medieval period and the stone age."

The girl was obviously not listening to a word he said because she bounced up and down in excitement while demanding, "Ohmygosh! Have you ever seen a dinosaur? Wait. Are we dinosaurs?"

He pinched the bridge of his nose to stop the smoke from erupting, closed his eyes and counted to ten before complaining, "Little one, you could try the patience of a saint."

That sobered the girl, and she dropped her head, shoulders slumping. "I'm sorry," Ember mumbled as she stared at her feet. "There's just so much I don't know, and I want to know everything."

"Brendyn will tutor you on all of the things you wish to know," he assured her and thanked the gods for that. His mage had infinite patience whereas Dragan most assuredly did not. "My purpose is to train your dragon and instruct you how to interact with her."

"Yeah, sure," she grumbled and kicked a pebble with the toe of her shoe.

"You must learn to trust your dragon's instincts just as she will trust your human logic," he imparted solemnly, determined to accomplish something in this lesson.

'Do tell,' his beast responded facetiously. 'Like you trust mine, hmm?'

'Leave me be,' he warned, in no mood to be harassed by his beast. Arguing with one's self was a futile effort. Arguing with one's dragon was maddening at best. The girl was proving to be damnably vexing, and he wanted to get the lesson over with so he could properly court his mate. 'I have better things to do than listen to you complain.'

'The problem is that you don't listen to anyone,' his dragon responded. 'Perhaps you should spend some time getting to know our daughter first. She might listen better if she actually liked you.'

"Dad?"

'She does like me,' he informed the pest in satisfaction. 'In case you've forgotten, last night Ember said I was the coolest dad ever.'

His dragon sighed wearily and replied, 'She was referring to me, not your human half.'

"Dad?"

'You're the one who scared her half out of her wits,' Dragan accused.

'Yes, and I'm trying to redeem myself in the eyes of my child,' he fired back hotly. 'Perhaps you should do the same and stop arguing with me.'

"Dad?"

The repetitive query had him snapping impatiently, "What?"

"Umm, need a little help," Ember said nervously.

While he had been arguing with himself, his daughter had been entertaining herself. She had managed to sprout one wing, and the weight of it was too much for her small human body to support. Ember lay in a tangled heap at his feet, looking up at him with an anxious expression, her lip caught between her teeth.

Was he really such an ogre that the girl was afraid that he was going to chasten her for the mishap? Such things were commonplace for fledglings, and she would know that if she'd listened to anything he'd been trying to teach her. But she obviously hadn't so maybe he was going about this all wrong.

Perhaps he needed to learn to be a father as much as she needed to learn to be a shifter. Bloody everlasting hell. It would seem that his dragon had been right. There would be no living with the beast now. Oddly enough, the contrary creature didn't bother gloating over the victory. Maybe he was mellowing with age.

The dragon's disgusted snort of denial had Dragan grinning in response. He dropped to his haunches beside the girl and said in a tone far more patient than he felt, "This will happen on occasion, little one. It's nothing to fret over."

"I'm sorry," she sighed and dropped her head back onto the pavers. "I can't seem to do anything right."

The defeated tone of her voice had him asking curiously, "What were you trying to do?"

"Nothing, but I was thinking that it was a beautiful day to fly, and my wing just popped out," she admitted.

"Then perhaps we should put it to good use and do a bit of flying," he suggested.

A huge smile covered her face before she asked, "Do you mean it?"

"Absolutely," he agreed and was overjoyed with her obvious pleasure at the prospect. "We can use the time to get to know each other better as well."

Ember's brown eyes grew round. "You want to know about me?" She squeaked.

"Of course I do," he assured her. "You're almost a teenager yet I know virtually nothing about you. It seems I have a lot to learn."

"How about for everything I tell you about me, you tell me something about you?" She queried hopefully. "You have a lot more years to cover than I do."

Dragan laughed in genuine amusement at that. "Indeed I do, litt… Ember," he corrected himself and used her name. The brilliant smile she gave him proved it had been the right decision. "We'll put aside the lessons for today and just get to know each other."

'There may be hope for you yet,' his dragon said in satisfaction.

Hopefully, the smug bastard was right.

 

***

 

Ainsley had awakened feeling more relaxed than she could recall being in a very long time. Every night since she had left him, she'd dreamed that she had slept in Dragan's arms, but this time it had felt so real that she'd expected to find him lying beside her. Waking up alone again was just one of her many regrets.

The biggest one was that she'd kept the knowledge of their daughter from Dragan. The guilt of not telling him about Ember had been a punishing load to bear, but now that he knew it felt as if a huge burden had been lifted from her shoulders. She had hurt him by not telling him, and he'd had the right to be furious with her.

Thankfully he hadn't held it against their child.

That much was evidenced by the sight of her daughter and the man she loved frolicking through the sky. It looked like so much fun that she envied them the ability. The flying part. The whole shifting into a fire-breathing dragon, not so much. Still, it was thrilling, and she thoroughly enjoyed watching their playful antics.

Deciding to give them some much needed time to get to know each other, she had showered and changed into fresh clothes. Obviously, someone had retrieved her backpack from the garden because she'd found her freshly pressed clothing hanging in the wardrobe and her toiletries placed neatly on the bathroom vanity.

Certain that Brendyn was responsible for the thoughtful gesture, she went in search of the majordomo and found him in the completely modernized kitchen. "Thank you for putting my things away, Bren, but you shouldn't have gone to the trouble of ironing," she said gratefully.

"No trouble at all, my lady," he assured her with a smile. "Would you care for coffee?"

"I'd love a cup," she confirmed, and with a wave of his finger, a steaming cup of coffee appeared on the island before her. "How the hell do you do that?" She demanded in amazement.

"I'm a mage. Magic is what I do," he replied in amusement.

"First dragons, now magic," Ainsley said more to herself than him as she lifted the cup and inhaled the heavenly aroma. "What else don't I know about?"

"How much time do you have?" Brendyn queried as if he was prepared to tell her everything. "This could take years."

She almost choked on the swallow of coffee. "There's that much?" Ainsley asked in astonishment.

"The supernatural world encompasses a great many things, yet they are all hidden in plain sight from the world at large," he imparted. "I can assure you that Dragan is not the first shifter that you've met, but the average human will never know the difference unless they want them to."

She recalled the way that Mrs. Beecham's eyes had flashed gold. Was it possible that the school nurse was a shifter as well? That would explain why she had suggested that Ainsley get in contact with Dragan and how she had known that her daughter was more than human. Good Lord. The prospect was mind-boggling.

The thought prompted her to ask, "Are there other types of shifters?"

"Certainly," he agreed. "Wolves, all of the big cats and bears just to name a few. Practically every species of animal has its own form of shifter or did have at some time. A lot of the races are becoming extinct or have already done so. Dragan and Ember are almost the last of the golden dragons."

"They're becoming extinct?" She asked in surprise.

"Yes. Dragons can only produce children with their fated mate which makes the process infinitely more difficult," he confirmed.

"Fated mate?" Ainsley repeated in confusion.

"The one person created just for them," he imparted solemnly. "It's where the term soul mate originated. They are two halves of a whole and once found they simply cannot go on without each other. Which makes it almost inconceivable that you were able to stay away from Dragan for so many years."

"I don't understand," she interrupted. "Why would my leaving be inconceivable?"

"Because you are Dray's mate, my lady," the mage clarified. "If you weren't you never could have borne his child."

"What does it mean? To be a mate?" She asked curiously.

"That the two are meant to be together as one forever," Brendyn said seriously, his blacker than night eyes as solemn as his tone. "There can be no happiness for them without each other, my lady. Nothing but a lifetime of sadness and despair."

Exactly what she had felt since the day she had walked away from Dragan. My God. She was meant to be his mate. So why the hell hadn't he been miserable enough to come after her? Why had he just let her go? The only possible reason was what she had suspected all along. He hadn't loved her enough to want her to stay.

"You're trembling, Lady Ainsley," she heard Brendyn's deeply concerned voice say as if from a great distance.

"It must be the altitude," she replied absently.

"You're in need of sustenance," the majordomo deduced, and a veritable buffet appeared on the counter before her. "Please eat something."

"Thank you, Bren," she managed with a weak smile. "Tell me more about mates."