Page 16

16

Saffron

We never ended up finishing a movie, let alone start one. After Rorik blew me, we cleaned up in the bathroom—where I returned the favor with a cheeky shower handjob—then we snuck into my bedroom. It was late, and though I could’ve stayed up all night having sex with him, I knew Jade would kill both of us if we were late to the rescheduled second challenge.

As Rorik took his first step into my actual bedroom, he paused and sniffed the air. “It smells like you.”

I snorted. “I sure hope it does. Who else would it smell like?”

A blush dusted Rorik’s chubby cheeks. “I like it, is what I meant.”

“Good, ‘cause I like how you smell, too.” I flopped onto my bed and waved him over.

Rorik sauntered over, still glancing around curiously. He paused on the yellow dragon plushie propped up on my pillow. “What is that?”

Grinning, I held it up proudly. “This is Saffron Jr. Isn’t he cute? Taylor made him for me.”

Rorik smiled. “Yes, he is cute. Like the person he’s based on.” He gave the plushie a quick pat on the head, then continued looking around. “This bedroom of yours is generous. It could hold half the barracks.”

His comment made me frown. “Barracks?”

Rorik nodded as he sat on the edge of the bed. “Yes. We have no individual space back—” His brow scrunched. “Back at the tundra clan.”

My heart tightened for a few different reasons. I was happy to hear him not refer to the tundra as ‘home’, but at the same time, I felt sad for all he’d been through. I also felt guilty because I didn’t know any of it. I was totally ignorant.

“Rorik,” I said softly. “I’m sorry.”

His brows rose as he turned towards me. “For what?”

“I don’t know anything about your past.” I reached for his large hands and held them in mine. I brushed my thumbs over the ridges of his hairy knuckles. “I fell for you without really knowing you. I know that happens with fated mates, but I should know.”

The corner of Rorik’s lip curled wryly. “Maybe it’s best you don’t know.” He hesitated like he wanted to say something else, so I didn’t interrupt. Then he sighed. “It’s nice that you fell for me without knowing anything. It feels… clean. Like a fresh start.”

“Nothing you say will change my feelings for you,” I promised. “I just want to know everything about you. I’m nosy. Did you know I read every single word on the back of DVDs? Every single word in actor and director interviews? It’s a problem.”

Rorik chuckled. He’d been laughing more lately, and it melted my heart. I was glad to see him open up.

“I’m not that interesting,” Rorik asserted.

I scoffed. “Are you kidding me? You’re a fucking assassin polar bear.”

He tried to stifle a grin. “I’m a failed assassin, remember?”

“And good thing, too.”

I flopped against the bed and pulled Rorik’s arm so he tumbled down with me. As we lay together, I smiled at him. But the longer I stared, the more scars I saw. My smile fell into a frown. I sat up on my elbow and examined him, suddenly conscious of all the old white marks against his skin. They were everywhere. Single indents, the rake of claws, studded rows of bite marks…

“What did they do to you?” I asked quietly.

Rorik grimaced. “It’s not—”

“If you say it’s not a big deal, I’m going to dump the uneaten popcorn on your head.”

With a hint of amusement, Rorik sighed. “I’m only saying it’s in the past. There’s nothing to be done now. Besides, we bears are proud of our scars.”

I wrinkled my nose, but didn’t argue. Rorik seemed genuinely accepting of his scars, so I believed him.

“Fine. Just tell me who put them there,” I said.

He shrugged. “What difference does it make?”

“I’m an alpha dragon possessive over my mate. That’s the difference it makes.”

Rorik grinned. “That makes no sense.”

I rolled against his chest, hooking my arm beneath his neck as I snuggled him. “Yeah, well, sometimes love makes no sense.”

We cuddled in silence for a few moments.

Then quietly, Rorik said, “The scars are all from discipline. Inadequate battle simulations, failed training drills. The oldest ones are for disobedience. All from the clan alphas.”

The hairs on the back of my neck bristled, threatening to shift into dragon spines. I tempered my rage before a full transformation consumed me.

“I see,” I said stiffly.

Holy Drake, how I wish I’d been there to stop them…

I ran my hand down his thick arm, brushing my fingers against the pale divots and long-healed scrapes. Each scar was a reminder of the hardships he’d suffered—and a reminder of how much courage it took to break free of the past.

“You mentioned a barrack,” I murmured.

Rorik grunted softly. “Yes. I slept there, alongside the other omegas. I always took the bottom bunk because of my size.”

My stomach lurched. Rorik wasn’t the only one who’d suffered in the tundra clan. By the sound of it, there were many omegas left behind in that wretched place. A little part of me wondered if, when Rorik was emotionally healed, we could do something about it...

“How many alphas are in charge?” I asked.

“Now? Two. Sheba and Knox.” Rorik paused gravely. “There used to be a third. Konrad.”

“What happened?”

Rorik turned to meet my gaze. “He was killed by a dragon.”

I gasped, startled. “What?”

Rorik lifted his face to the ceiling, staring past it as he slowly recounted. “It was many years ago. I was barely a teenager when it happened. Out of nowhere, a dragon attacked our clan, razing buildings and destroying everything in sight. It murdered Konrad in cold blood.”

I stared at him, unable to believe what I heard. My heart pattered in a rapid, unsteady rhythm. As far as we knew, there were no other dragons. The seven of us—and our children—were the only dragons in existence.

But if that was true, then who attacked Rorik’s clan?

“It couldn’t have been one of us,” I insisted. “We would never do something like that.”

Rorik turned towards me. His expression was serious, yet resigned. He knew he couldn’t change the past, and that I had no involvement in that tragedy, but it still hurt him.

“How do you know?” he asked.

“Because I wouldn’t—we wouldn’t…”

Suddenly, I bit my tongue. Moments earlier, when looking at Rorik’s scars, I’d fantasized about biting the perpetrators’ heads off. Maybe I wasn’t so different from this mystery dragon after all. My shoulders slumped and I quieted down, ashamed of myself.

To my surprise, Rorik ran the back of his finger comfortingly down my cheek.

“We all make mistakes,” he said softly. “We all have the capacity to do terrible things.”

I tensed my jaw and nodded. We both understood that. But it didn’t make it any easier to hear that a dragon—one of my own kind—had committed such an atrocity.

Rorik waited, then continued his tale. “Our village stood at the base of a mountain. It was deep winter, when the snow piled at its thickest. The dragon’s onslaught caused an avalanche. Many people were buried. Lost.” He swallowed a thickness in his throat. “Dead, we assumed.”

“Assumed?” I asked hopefully. “Does that mean some of them lived?”

“Only one.” Rorik’s eyes flashed. “And he’s here.”

My mind reeled. I was frazzled by this cascade of information. “What are you talking about? Who?”

But as Rorik stared at me, waiting for me to come to the conclusion on my own, the pieces fell into place. My jaw dropped.

“Poppy?” I breathed.

“Yes.”

I felt dizzy. I put a hand to my temple.

“That’s how you knew each other,” I mumbled. “But then, why were you two so distant?”

Rorik’s mouth pulled into a shameful grimace. “He has misconceptions about me. I can’t say they’re misplaced. He begged me not to hurt you, or Aurum, or any of your brothers. But I did. In the end, I earned Poppy’s resentment. All I can do is hope he forgives me.”

I couldn’t imagine Poppy not forgiving anybody. But then again, Rorik knew him on a deeper level. They shared a history I would never understand.

My skull swarmed with questions. “How did Poppy survive the attack? How can he still trust dragons after that?”

Rorik shook his head. He seemed exhausted. “I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me the full story. All I know is what I saw with my own eyes—and that was a dark dragon burning down my village, burying half my clan mates, and killing the clan’s highest-ranking alpha in front of everybody.”

A dark dragon? None of us have dark scales.

Except maybe…

My blood froze in my veins.

I didn’t want to say it. I didn’t even want to think it. But Rorik’s tale put the idea in my mind, and I couldn’t get it out. I was painfully torn between revealing the truth and living in ignorance. Between my family, and my fated mate.

“Saffron?” Rorik asked in concern. “What is it?”

Suddenly terrified, I huddled closer to him. His warmth and scent comforted me, but it wasn’t enough to dispel my fear.

“If I know who it was,” I whispered, brittle with terror, “you won’t abandon me, will you?”

Rorik frowned, sympathy flashing in his eyes. “No. Never.”

“What if… what if it was someone in my family?”

“It was not you ,” Rorik stated.

He held me closer. Our bodies were flush, like one being. Still, I was scared. I didn’t want Rorik to push me away. Not now. Not after all we’d been through.

“Saffron, look at me.”

As I glanced at my big, beautiful bear, I felt pathetic as an alpha. I was supposed to be strong. I was supposed to be the one protecting Rorik. But here I was, shaking like a leaf because of something I had no control over.

“Tell me why you’re frightened,” Rorik urged in a gentle, firm tone.

I breathed out. “I… used to have a boyfriend. Billy. He was human. I thought he loved me, but he only loved the idea of me. A wealthy alpha dragon.” My throat tightened. “He couldn’t even tell me and Aurum apart.”

Rorik held me closer. I noticed he was trembling, too. “I have a confession to make. When I attacked Aurum in the forest, there was a horrible second where I thought he was you . In that second, I lost all hope. I knew that if I’d hurt you, the light of my life, I could never live with myself.”

I blinked at him, my eyes hot with tears. “Did you just call me the light of your life?” I chuckled wetly. “That’s gay, dude.”

Rorik’s cheeks turned bright pink. “It’s true,” he grumbled. He angled his face to press his forehead against mine. “I’m sorry. I could distinguish you two in a heartbeat, but in the moment, I was possessed. I was evil,” he added, choking with disgust.

“You were not,” I argued.

“I was. Because I let cruelty take over. I wasn’t thinking for myself.” His eyes flashed again, bright and clear. “But that version of Rorik does not exist anymore. I promise you that, Saffron.”

My heart fluttered with affection. “I know, Rorik. It’s okay. Don’t apologize anymore.”

We cuddled in silence, soaking up each other’s embrace. It felt like a weight had been lifted off our combined shoulders.

But there was still one more thing bothering me, and though our bond was secure, I wasn’t sure how to forge ahead.

“Rorik,” I murmured. “The dark dragon you mentioned. Were its scales a deep shade of purple?”

In Rorik’s long beat of hesitation, there was a hidden understanding: he knew that I knew the dragon’s identity, and he recognized how difficult it was for me to speak his name.

Finally, Rorik said: “Yes.”

A shudder ran down my spine. But Rorik didn’t let go, or push me away. He held me closer in a silent promise to stay by my side, whatever happened.

Even though his old enemy shared my blood.