Chapter 22

AS SCARLET AND EIRWYN"Sfootsteps echoed up the stairs, Olive moved to her chair by the fire and frowned at him.

"Have you decided to take a chance on love?" Olive asked, her face guarded with an emotion he couldn"t identify.

He nodded and moved to sit in the other chair by the fire. "I don"t know about love, but I have a message for you from Lailant."

Olive"s eyes widened at the name, and he continued.

"She says I need to go to the Hartsgrove to step into my destiny. She says to tell you it"s time and something about dragon mates?"

He didn"t want to hope but he couldn"t stop himself. If he could identify what he was, maybe he could convince Eirwyn to accept all of him.

Olive sat up straighter and grinned. "I knew it."

His brows rose. "Knew what?"

"When I saw the way you looked at her last week, I knew she was your mate."

He shook his head and leaned back on the chair. "Mates aren"t real, Olive."

"But you don"t deny that you"re attracted to Eirwyn, right? Well, it"s a start."

"Can you just tell me what Lailant meant?" He shifted on the chair, trying to distract himself from his still hard cock.

Olive reached for her knitting basket. "Do you remember what I told you when you were a child?"

Knox nodded. "You said to keep my hatching a secret. You said to never reveal all my powers to anyone, only the plant manipulation, which was a normal druidic ability. Lailant said she came to see me as a baby?"

Olive leaned her head back and sighed. "Yes, we thought it"d be best to wait to tell you the truth. You know how innocent kids are. We didn"t want you wandering into town and telling the entire kingdom that you..."

She trailed off, and Knox sat forward on the edge of his feet. "That I"m what?" He rested his elbows on his knees and waited, his heart pounding.

She sighed and shifted, pulling her knitting basket from beside the chair to in between them. She rummaged around to the bottom, then pulled out three pieces of broken egg.

She fit the pieces together. It was the size of Knox" two fists put together. Once it was back together, she held it up to the light. It glittered green and brown with streaks of gold here and there.

"You weren"t born, Knox. You hatched."

He blinked. "Yes, you"ve said that."

She sighed, "Knox, think about it. When was the last time there was a hatchling? Do you think Eirwyn was hatched? Or the king? No, they were born like normal humans with inherent magic from their drakin bloodline. But you..."

She turned the egg, both of them staring at how the light reflected off its surface. "You"re not just a drakin. You"re a dragon."

Knox blinked and took a deep breath. All this time, and she"d known he was a dragon? Why hadn"t she just told him? His chest tightened and he leaned back, crossing his arms as he waited for Olive to continue.

"Three hundred years ago, the continent was ruled by one powerful dragon king. He had four children. When they reached majority, he divided the kingdom into four. Busparia, the Feral Forest, Glathen, and the mountains to the north."

Knox frowned, reaching out to take the egg, carefully making sure it didn"t break apart again. The pieces were incredibly tough, though, and it took both hands to hold it together.

"The druids of the forest served the Feral King. But the in-fighting among the other dragon siblings brought devastation to every corner of the continent. Whole cities were razed to the ground, which caused the people to rebel. The Hunters were created to kill the dragons, eliminating them from the land."

Knox shook his head, leaning back in the chair and staring at the egg. "That doesn"t make any sense. The royal families still claim to have draconic heritage. They"re drakin."

Olive nodded. "The smart drakin, the weakest of the dragons, hid. They assimilated into human culture and hid their dragon abilities, or at least disguised them to be acceptable."

"And use them to seize power and rule?" Knox said.

Olive nodded again. "Exactly, with the Hunters backing them, they"ve been ruling both nations ever since."

Except the Hunters were just a mercenary guild now. They didn"t work only for the ruling families anymore. The Robins had grown in just a decade to rival them as one of the leading guilds in the kingdom, but their missions were completely different. The Robins were about freedom and protection; whereas, the Hunters were for hire to the highest bidder.

Silence settled, the crackling fire and the thunder booming outside the only interruptions. After Knox thought through the importance of it, he asked, "What"s all that have to do with me?"

Olive leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. She wasn"t used to the late nights, or rather the early mornings. It was now almost three in the morning.

"When the Feral King was hunted down, he enchanted the forest to protect his home. And his faithful druids swore to watch over his heir."

She pointed to the egg in his lap. "Honestly, most of us assumed it was an old wives" tale. The egg sat on a custom made egg cup on my parents" mantle while I was growing up. They used to tell me bedtime stories about the dragons and our duty to protect the egg."

She chuckled. "I think I actually slept with you in my arms when I was about six. I held you like a stuffed doll and even put the egg in a tiny dress."

Knox smiled. "And then one day I just hatched?" It boggled the mind. It didn"t make sense. "After hundreds of years of not being nested, I just decided to break free?"

She wrinkled her nose. "Actually, there was an attack on the cottage by the Growlers. Everything was busted up, and your eggcup fell off the mantle. The egg rolled near the fireplace. It was several days of cleaning before I found you. By then, the first crack had appeared. Lailant thinks there was a spell on the egg to protect you."

The fire had kept him warm enough to make him want to hatch. He nodded, trying to process.

"So that makes me... a dragon?"

Olive stared at him, her lips thinning. "A dragon king," she corrected.

Knox scowled. "I"m no king."

Olive stood, taking the egg gently from his hands and putting the pieces on top of her knitting in the basket. "Not yet, but you will be, if Lailant"s prophecies are to be believed. It"s why I"ve hidden you in the forest, why I wouldn"t let you go off with Scarlet and her father as they ranged Busparia. What else did Lailant say?"

Knox rubbed his head, scratching at his scales. "Go to the heart of the forest, eat the golden apple, and find answers. Then go back and see her."

Olive nodded. "Then it"s a plan. Scarlet will go to the king tomorrow with a heart. You will go to the heart of the forest and find your destiny."

Knox stood and stretched, yawning as he finally grew tired. "I"m going to see if I can find an animal before turning in. The storm will make it extra challenging."

Olive frowned and rolled her eyes as she stood and stepped to him, wrapping him in a hug. He froze. It"d been a while since she"d hugged him.

She was the only mother he"d ever known, but he"d been on high alert his whole life. Always afraid that he was going to make a wrong move or hurt someone.

But all of that could change. He wrapped his arms around her small frame and took a deep, calming breath. Perhaps it was alright to hope in a better tomorrow.

Eirwyn was safe upstairs, and he might break his curse after all. He might find a home and family of his own.

He kissed the top of Olive"s head and grabbed his cloak from beside the door.

"I don"t want you to catch a chill, so don"t stay out all night." Olive said.

He turned, pulling his hood up once more. He couldn"t leave without asking one more question.

"What about fated mates among dragons?"

Olive"s brow arched. "You want to know even though you don"t believe in them?"

He shrugged, not meeting her gaze. Finally, she said, "The stories passed down generation after generation might be wrong, Knox."

He adjusted his cloak and kept waiting. Finally, she sighed and looked into the fire.

"Dragons can have sex with anyone, but it"s often violent. Sometimes their partners do not survive. But when a fated mate is found... it changes both partners. The stories don"t say how."

Knox" heart raced. "So–I could"ve had sex before now?"

Olive blushed and scowled, waving her hand. "Well, maybe, but with your tail?" She shook her head. "When you were a kid, it was hard for you to control it. If you got worked up during sex, there"s no telling what your tail will do. We"ve talked about this, remember?"

He nodded slowly. There was no forgetting their birds and bees talk years ago. It involved actual birds and bees in the forest.

Then she"d reminded him that being intimate with someone could see them poisoned or stabbed with his venom. Their talk had been purely academic, though. He"d only had passing feelings of arousal throughout the years, even during puberty. He"d never felt attracted to an actual person, though. Not face to face. Only when he closed his eyes and pictured a shadowy figure was he able to take himself in hand and find relief.

He"d tried, though. He"d gone to the brothels and watched some activities, intending to join in. But the urge to participate had never come.

Until now. Until Eirwyn.

He narrowed his eyes at Olive"s comment. "My tail isn"t a separate being, Olive. It"s part of me, and I have control now. I"m not a child."

She nodded, crossing her arms. "I know, I know. You"re thirty years old. Trust me, I know." She put her hand on her back and stretched.

Guilt stabbed his gut, and he walked over to her. He put his hands on her shoulders and looked down.

"I"m sorry I was such a pain in the ass growing up, but if she"s my fated mate... if we can be safe..."

Olive pulled back with a scowl. "I"m very excited that you"ve found her–"

"Maybe. We don"t know for sure."

"I don"t want to a witness dragon mating rituals. So go distract yourself and kill something." She shooed her hands, and he grinned. On impulse, he leaned down and kissed her cheek.

She blushed but relaxed as she smiled, so he strode to the door, pulling his hood up.

She called out before he could reach the door handle. "I"m serious about no sex under my roof. We don"t know how violent it might be. Wait and find the answers at the heart of the forest. Better safe than sorry, right?"

He paused, turning to meet her gaze, but he didn"t reply as he pushed open the door and closed it behind him. The stinging rain hit his face. It was a welcome reprieve from information overload and raging hormones.

He"d had a rough few years when he"d hit puberty. Controlling his emotions had been one of the hardest lessons he"d had to learn. His tail barbs had almost hit Olive more than once.

Perhaps that"s why he"d never felt the urge to mate with someone before, because his body had been too busy trying to control his tail, venom, and poison.

But it"d been years since he"d gone out of control. Maybe his tail wasn"t as big of a deal as he thought. As long as he didn"t stab her with it, she"d be alright if they had sex.

He grinned and strode into the forest on silent feet, letting his mind wander to all the possibilities with Eirwyn. He wanted to try so many things.

His thoughts shifted to dragon sex. What dragon mating rituals were there? Would he know what to do and it"d just come to him or was there a book out there somewhere on it?

Stalking and finally hunting his prey far into the woods, he smiled again. He was so excited–about Eirwyn, about finally finding answers–and just needed to be patient a little longer.

Now that he knew what he probably was, he had a starting point. He could ask the right questions, research and find the answers.

A stag walked slowly through the trees ahead of him, making his smile widen. He was a dragon and dragon"s hunted to kill. He closed in on the massive stag, the rush of adrenaline flowing through him.