Chapter 12 - Camilla

I see the tray being slid onto the pedestal beside the door, only Stryker’s arm visible for a fleeting moment before it disappears again. With bated breath, as I watch the door close with a soft thud, I only exhale when the sound of his footsteps becomes quiet.

He didn’t lock the door again, just as I discovered this morning when I yelled at him. The absence of the clinking of metal means I’m free to leave the bedroom. But it’s not something I plan on doing.

I have no idea what I might find out there once I cross the threshold of the world beyond this bedroom.

Prison cells?

A dungeon where the dragon man cooks his next meal?

I scoff under my breath, rolling my eyes at my worrisome thoughts.

This morning, he made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t going to eat me. What he left unclear is what he meant by the term “mate.”

The term implies something as fundamental as sexual intercourse between a male and female. What I can’t understand is why a dragon man with the ability to transform into a beast almost ten times his human size would want to mate with a human like me.

I mean… He might break me.

The foolishness of that thought has me gulping nervously as I slowly slip off the bed and pad across the room to the tray beside the door. A hesitant hand comes up to reach for the handle, but I quickly snatch it back. I don’t know what I might find out there, and I’m too afraid to see what lies outside that door.

I can’t shake off the feeling that he might care about me, bringing me food three times a day. Even after the fiasco this morning, he’d come by to slip a set of cotton underwear and a silk kaftan of bright colors on the pedestal. It seems he’s too angry to see my face, slipping essentials through the door without showing me his face.

I’m not ready to see it, anyway. His face is a reminder of his trickery, and how foolish I was for being roped into his scheme.

It doesn’t matter what he says. His actions proved that he had no consideration for me. A sliver of my fury skitters down my spine, even as I take the tray to the lounger beside the balcony door.

Curling my legs as I prop the tray on my lap, I blow out a forlorn sigh as I stare out at the navy-blue sky littered with bright constellations. Somewhere out there is the world I know, where Abuela is probably worried sick about me.

I wish there was some way I could make contact with her, even if it was just to put her worries to rest and tell her that I was still alive. She’d warned me about the firebreather—and here I am, the firebreather’s prisoner.

I hate him for keeping me here against my will. But it seems that no matter what I throw at him, it’s not enough for him to change his mind. He’s convinced that out there, my life is in danger.

Glancing at the food, my appetite is lost to the throes of longing I have to return to my ordinary life. It was a life without much going on, but at least it was a life I didn’t fear. I can’t deal with the unknown.

My skin crawls with a fearful shiver that overwhelms my entire being just as tears well in my eyes and a lump forms in my throat.

When the bedroom door is pushed in, I stifle the urge to cry. I won’t show Stryker my weakness, and continue putting up a strong, fighting front. Sniffing to retract the sob lodged in my throat, I keep my chin held high as I watch the door.

To my surprise, it doesn’t open up just enough to slip something on the side pedestal. Instead, it comes all the way in to reveal a stunning woman at the door.

Inwardly, I gasp as her strikingly gorgeous face smiles at me. With long blonde hair cascading in waves across her shoulders, her blue eyes sparkle with a warmth that somehow feels familiar.

“Hi…” she greets, her voice as soft and delicate as her creamy skin. “You must be Camilla.”

I nod as if her observation was a command for my gentle reaction. “Wh—who are you?”

She steps into the bedroom and gently closes the door behind her before turning to me with a reassuring smile.

Somehow, the dread and fears I had before slipped away in her presence, surprising me.

It’s as if a soft, golden glow emanates around her like a visible aura as she walks in.

“I’m Olivia,” she reveals, the soft notes of her voice carrying to my eardrums to provide a sense of calm.

Short and curvy, the woman wears a kaftan that’s almost identical to mine, just with more blues on the paisley patterns, while mine are lilac. She saunters forward as if she’s dancing on subtle footsteps that make no sound.

“You’re gorgeous…” I mutter under my breath, the praise falling from my lips in awe. I’ve never noticed how beautiful other women were except to compare myself to them and feel worse about myself.

But this woman carries herself in such a way that I wouldn’t even dare to compare myself to her. Too stunned by her ethereal beauty as she saunters forward, I stare into her ocean-blue eyes as if she hypnotized me.

“Have you seen yourself in the mirror lately?” she giggles softly. “You’re more beautiful than I imagined…”

I blush when she’s close enough for me to catch her sweet, floral scent. “I stopped looking in the mirror a long time ago.”

The woman, Olivia, sighs. “Let me guess… You don’t think you’re beautiful enough?”

Why does she wear a knowing smile?

Is this another trick?

Why are my insecurities quelled around her?

Shaking my head and snapping from my daze, I frown at the woman. “What are you?”

“What? Oh—” her voice breaks off as she purses her lips. “I’m human, like you.”

A wave of relief washes over me. Not hypnotized anymore, I can tell she’s true to her word when she rakes her eyes over me from head to toe.

“Stryker is a lucky man…” she smirks with an appreciative glint in her eyes.

“A dragon,” I correct her. “And no, he’s not lucky. Neither will he ever be,” I retort.

Olivia raises a brow. “Because you don’t think you’re beautiful enough?”

“It’s not that!” I snort, but it’s like she hit the nail on the head when she made that observation. An observation that I wasn’t even aware of before. I stare at her intently, my brows furrowing.

Why does she have this effect on me? To dig up a deeply buried feeling of insecurity that had me questioning why the dragon man would want me. After witnessing how he magnificently transformed into a majestic dragon, the idea that I was meant to be his mate sounded absurd.

“You’re lying to me too. You’re not human,” I speculate, to which she winces as if I’m the one who just hit some nail of hers on the head.

“I’m not ordinary, no,” she admits hesitantly, pulling out a chair from behind the oak desk before taking a seat to face me.

Up close, she’s even more spectacular.

“But I was like you before I met my mate, Stryder. Thanks—”

“Stryder?” I interject. “I thought his name was Stryker.”

Olivia chuckles. “Stryder is Stryker’s twin brother.”

“Oh, so there’s two of them!” I roll my eyes in disbelief. “Great!”

“Trust me, I feel that way sometimes, too. But they’ve been on their best behavior since I gave birth to our daughter.”

All this new information feels like it’s too much for my mind. Lifting a hand to stop her, I say, “Woah… Hold on. Let me get this straight. You’re the dragon’s twin’s mate, and you had a child with him.”

“Correct.”

“So that’s what he meant by being his mate. I’m meant to have sex with a dragon?”

“No, silly!” Olivia exclaims with a light giggle. “You’d have sex with him while he’s in human form. He’d break you if you had to have sex while he was in dragon form. I mean…” She lifts a hand in front of her face and stares contemplatively at her manicured nails. “... It’s not like I haven’t fantasized about it. With Stryder, of course.”

“Of course,” I concur with a hesitant nod. Too much information again, and my mind feels like it’s going to break. “So, you’re saying I’m just the human incubator, then?” I scoff at the realization of how absurd that notion sounds.

But Olivia chuckles wholeheartedly as if she’s having the time of her life seeing me so confused.

“It’s so much more than that, Camilla. The fated mate bond between a dragon and his female counterpart is too profound for me to explain. You’ll have to experience it for yourself.”

“I don’t want to,” I admit with a huff. “I just want to go home and return to my life before dragons existed.”

“Yeah, I’ve been there too,” she laments with a drawn-out sigh. “But as the dragon shifter’s fated mate, you have no choice. Destiny will only lead you back to him. Trust me, I know how you feel. I’ve been in your shoes before, but there’s no denying the magnetic pull you feel.”

“I—” I hesitate with a diffident shrug. “He tricked me, Olivia.”

“He didn’t mean to trick you,” Olivia sighs, then proceeds to tell me all I need to know about the dragon shifter race. Their human mating process, some cube that contains the universe’s knowledge and tells the dragons who their fated mates are, and how bearing a child gives a human the gift of immortality.

“What if I don’t want to live forever?” I ask.

“You’ll change your mind once you have the best sex of your life,” she quips with a wink.

“The only sex…” I mumble, but Olivia catches my correction and widens her eyes at me.

“Wait… You’re a virgin?!” she exclaims.

I nod tersely, a blush creeping on my cheeks.

“That’s why you hate him so much…” Olivia laments. “You had this fantasy in your mind about how your first time would go.”

“Don’t we all?” I counter.

“Open your eyes, Camilla, and see that all of this is a fantasy of its own,” she says as she gestures around with both hands. “It’s a dream come true, and the love you’ll find will be much more intense than you could ever imagine?”

“Love?” I scoff derisively. “I hate the man, and he probably hates me after I told him off. Fate changes nothing. He kidnapped me here, and locked me in this room.”

I fold my arms defensively, reclaiming my conviction to stay mad at the dragon shifter. Nothing Olivia says can appeal to me more than my desire to go back home.

***

I stare at the door as if the intensity of my gaze would magically open it up, and Stryker would appear. Days have gone by since I was visited by Olivia, the only other human on the island. For now, she assured me. Apparently, there are others just like her.

Like me, who had become their dragon’s mates.

I haven’t come to grips with this sick twist of fate in the trajectory of my life. Without prior knowledge of the existence of dragons, I’m forced to accept their existence and the fact that I’m supposed to be Stryker’s mate, all thanks to some cube that knows more than I do.

Clearly, it doesn’t know anything about morals, like how it isn’t respectful to kidnap someone and force them into being a baby-making machine for a rare species.

Scoffing, I decide to give up on glaring at the door. Every time Stryker makes an appearance, it’s long enough only to see his arm slip through the door before it’s gone.

I know… I could easily catch up to him if I braved what was outside that door. I’d call him back and demand that he take me home. If he doesn’t agree, I’ll spit venous words at him again.

But is that all I really want?

To exact some kind of revenge on him, wielding a steely tongue…

In some ways, I’m relieved that I haven’t seen his face over these past few days.

I don’t want to face the undeniable attraction I feel. It’s preposterous to become aroused by the dragon shifter I hate so much for what he did to trick me.

Blowing out a frustrated breath, I climb into bed and close my eyes as soon as my head hits the pillow. I’d rather lose myself to my dreams than have to face the reality of being kept prisoner on a remote island against my better judgment.

As the weight of my situation hangs heavy on my soul, I welcome in the darkness that comes from the first stirrings of slumber.

***

“ Destiny…”

The word rings out like an echo in the open expanse of my private dreamland. Olivia was wrong. The island in my dreams was always better than being a fantasy. I

I can deal with what I know, and what I’ve been taught about my whole life. Like vivid dreams stemming from one’s subconscious mind, not existing in the real world.

Until the dragon in my dreams visited me, I always felt like I was in control of my dreams. Like right now, as the vines disappear and open up to the lush land ahead, I can feel how strong I am, willing away the thought of the dragon so he doesn’t appear in the dream.

My sanctuary land is my own again, where I’m free to explore the pretty flowers as I make my way toward the body of crystalline waters in the distance. My lips curl to a smile, my heart filling with the joy I thought I lost when I was kidnapped.

But something in the water catches my eye and freezes me to the spot when the surface of the pool ripples with movement.

Panic slowly and steadily thumps in my chest as the usually bright dream turns sinisterly dark, as if a veil covers the starlit sky. The movement in the water becomes two black balls that grow bigger until they become heads that rest on shoulders covered in black cloaks.

The two emerging figures don’t have faces, but I can tell they’re human when a voice rings out and repeats the word, “Destiny.”. They don’t walk out of the water but float across the surface, their levitating forms eerie in the darkness that clouds the dream.

I’m not doing this.

There’s no way I’m in control of such a ghastly dream.

This is a nightmare. One that grows more sinister as the two black figures approach me. Panicking, I try turning my face away but can’t move. I can barely breathe, my throat scratching with dryness with the fear that follows the figures’ movement as they come closer.

I want to scream. I want to run. But I can do neither. All I manage is a frightened whimper as my vision clouds, and I hear my name being called.

“Camilla!”

I recognize Stryker’s voice the second I’m abruptly pulled out of the nightmare. He stares at me with wide eyes full of horror, clutching my shoulders as he supports me in a seated position.

Relief floods me when I realize I’m not dreaming anymore, the influx of that pure relief forcing me into Stryker’s arms as I weep from the fear of what I am seeing.

Sobbing uncontrollably, Stryker holds me tightly to his chest and gives me a safe space to let out my emotions. Now that I’m awake, the nightmare feels so real, even though it was far from it. The looming dread that hung over my dream-like shoulders and had me paralyzed felt like a dark cloud weighing me down right now. Reality is even worse than the dream because I feel everything right now in my physical body. The trembling fear, quaking through me with every staggered breath through my sob.

“Shh…” Stryker tenderly soothes me, stroking the back of my head as he keeps me pressed to his strong chest. “You were dreaming. You’re awake now. You’re safe.”

Moved by his words, the fear I’m feeling disappears as I feel the safety of his arms. It’s not just his voice that calms me, but the warmth exuding from his being, enveloping me in protection, that has me forgetting how angry I was before as I look up and stare into his eyes.

A fleeting frown passes my brows as I become confused by the way I’m feeling. Though I’m calmer, my heart races with pattering beats that draw me closer to Stryker, pushing aside all my prior anger and inhibitions to recall what it felt like to be in these very arms before.

Not the dragon arms he’d kidnapped me in, but these strong, human arms that held me tightly when he kissed me before. The memory of that kiss comes crashing into me, igniting the fires of awareness while my lips tingle with the recollection of his soft, skillful lips on mine. Without thinking, without considering the consequences of what I’m about to do, I grab a fistful of his sweater and firmly tug him closer, crushing my lips to his in desperation.

With a firm hand on my shoulder, he pushes me back and abruptly breaks the kiss, staring disbelieving at my face. I see the flurry of questions passing his eyes and knitting his brows into a frown. But the brief sensation of his lips on mine leaves my toes curling, wanting more. So, I shake my head and lean in again, not wanting to speak, not wanting to exchange words that might come out bitterly. I don’t want to lose the moment or think too much about it before I change my mind.