The Dragon’s Throne 1

Chapter 13

Anna sat on the sofa in the office, still holding the painting of herself in the butterfly dress she had created almost ten years after the painting was made, trying to make sense of it all.

“So, I’m your Fated Mate?” she said after a long silence.

Eli sat on with one hip on the corner of his desk, having waited silently for her to come to grips with everything he had told her. 

“Yes,” he said softly.  “You are my one true mate.”

“But, I thought that dragons were fated to be with other dragons.  How is it possible that a human is your fate?  Am I really a dragon?”

Eli chuckled.

“No,” he said, shaking his head.  “It’s a long story, but I think you’re ready for it now.”

“Is this the thing you’ve been hiding that you were afraid I wasn’t ready for?”

“It’s not the only thing,” he said honestly.  “But this is a big thing.”

“And the other things?”

“They aren’t about you personally.  But, like the differences between how Aldeians live, and how those of us in Aman live, there are a lot of things in this world that will shock you.  I don’t want to put too much on you at once.”

“And what about all this?  This was a lot more than I could handle.”

“I wasn’t going to talk to you about these paintings until you were comfortably settled here and we had gotten to know each other better.”

“What changed today?  Why tell me all this so much sooner than you had planned?”

“Because you tried to run away.”  He slid off the desk and came to kneel in front of her, gathering her hands in his.  “If you hadn’t noticed the other side before you jumped over those bushes, you would be dead right now.  In that moment, when you admitted what you had done, I knew that I needed you to trust me.  There are so many dangers in this world.  I can’t have you defying me simply because you think I’m trying to control you.  I need to know that you’ll listen to me and trust that I’m always acting in your best interests.”

She made no move to pull her hands from his, the familiar feel of the electricity between them almost comforting now that she knew why it happened.

“I’m not that woman,” she said.  “I don’t have it in me to just sit by and let you tell me when I can act, or how I can act.”

“I’m not trying to control you.  I’m trying to protect you.”

“Do you know something that I should be afraid of?”

“No,” he said quickly.  “But I know that you’re in a very difficult place.  The villagers think that your death will protect them from harm, and the WereDragons are not going to be happy with a human in their midst and on their level.  The last time humans were equal to us, it didn’t go so well.”

“The Great War,” she said. 

“Exactly.  The universe created us to protect mankind, but in doing that, we almost died ourselves.  As long as greed drives more men than righteousness, the dragons will always keep their distance from humans.  Even our clan living this close to humans has been frowned upon, but we have a legacy of protecting humans that our clan hasn’t been able to break from, even during the war.”

“And these Fated Mate dreams, did they tell you anything else about me, about us?”

“No,” he said.  “Fate doesn’t run our lives the way so many think it does.  We’re given the potential and the road map, but it’s still our choice.”

“So, I can choose to leave here and not fulfill this destiny?”

“You can, which is why I told you that you are free to leave, but you promised me that you would give me a chance.”

“Why not find another?  Wouldn’t you be happier with another like you?”

He shook his head.

“My soul was made for you.  Actually, it would be more accurate to say that you were made for me.”“You will have to explain that to me.  My head is reeling with everything I’ve learned so far.”

“I’ll try my best to explain it.  But, do you know the date your father died?”

“I do.  It was the Ides of March.  My aunt thought it was fitting that the beginning of my cursed life was on a day with such a heavy history.  I was conceived the day my father died, and she always thought that it was the reason that my mother died giving birth.  My father died after giving me life, and my mother died to give me life.”

“She sounds like a real peach.”

“She only took care of me because my mother made her promise to love me and raise me like her own.  She did her best.”

“The first painting upset my mother because it was something that happened to her.”

“It was?”

“She was pregnant with me and didn’t know until she slipped from a boulder and into the river.  She almost drowned, but a man saved her.”

“My father?”

“Yes.  Your mother was there beside the river, and in the end, it was your mother that saved them both.  She took a fallen limb that was twice her size and somehow managed to get it on the water, saving them both.  When my father came to find my mother, he thought at first that your parents had hurt her.  In the confusion, your father forced your mother to run. “When my father realized that your father had saved my mother and her unborn child that he didn’t even know about, he took your father to our doctors, but it was too late.  He drowned that day, and while he fought so hard to overcome it, the water was already inside his lungs, the river taking his life from miles away.”

Anna closed her eyes. 

“He died alone and my mother never knew.  I know that hurt her and I always thought she died from a broken heart.”

“Do you know what day my mother fell into the water and nearly died?”

“I can guess.”

He nodded.