Page 34 of Destined By Dragonblood (Blood Born #2)

“I do.” Primrose moved into the kitchen with grace as though I hadn’t nearly brought the mountain down on our heads with my roar.

Her bare feet stepped silently on the stone, but Tiggy’s nails clicked as he followed at her side.

Primrose even walked with Dahlia’s gentle sway, her head slightly canted to the side like Joseph’s had always been.

Dahlia had been a girl of the streets, downtrodden and in need of shelter, food, and protection from the john, who thought to abuse her body.

Having not seen or heard of another Blood Born in over a century after my parents’ passing, I’d taken Dahlia in and shown her how a human male ought to treat a woman.

Only once she had fallen deeply in love with me, did I reveal the truth of my inner beast.

She’d chosen to stay because she had no life to return to.

We had discussed a third, my beta, and hoped he would be the missing link I craved.

We dreamed of creating a bond between human and Blood Born for the first time in history.

Desperate, I’d stolen Joseph, a simple and beautiful man with no family, one who wouldn’t be missed.

“She and Joseph were mere humans. We tried to bond so we might procreate, but they failed me time and again,” I murmured as memories continued to flood my brain.

“Perhaps you failed them .”

“I did no such thing.” I frowned at Primrose’s back as she put her hands into threadbare oven mitts. “I left them, yes, but without knowledge we’d conceived and not without having provided for them—generously.”

“You are hungry.”

I had expected anger on Primrose’s part, annoyance at the very least, but not an abrupt topic change. “What?”

She merely glanced over her shoulder at me from her place by the stove, her face devoid of expression. “You. Are. Hungry.” She enunciated each word as though I were a child.

My spine stiffened, but she opened the oven door.

My dragon salivated at the blast of scents filling the air.

“I baked a chicken and potatoes,” she said, pulling a roasting pan from the oven. “With rosemary and thyme.”

The same way Dahlia had made my favorite meal. “Dahlia taught you to cook?”

“Grandmother taught me everything I know.”

Grandmother… not mother.

“Your mother is my daughter,” I said as my inner beast’s reminder clicked the truth into my brain. I glanced at the dark hallway Primrose had come from but couldn’t sense another female in the cavern.

“She was .”

I jerked my focus toward Primrose.

She set the roasting pan atop the stove and pulled the mitts free, placing them in a drawer. “My mother didn’t live through delivering me.”

A pang twinged my chest, and I rubbed absently at the ache, the knowledge of all I had missed out on due to selfishness. “Who was your father? And where is Joseph?”

“My bloodline, we’ll discuss over dinner. As for Grandfather, his heart gave out on him a few years after I was born. I don’t remember a single thing about the man Grandmother claimed to be a sweet, giving soul.”

I swallowed against another roar building deep inside me. Joseph and I had always been close. From day one, I’d felt affection for him even though he’d been far below my station.

“I’m so sorry,” I murmured, not sure who I spoke to.

“Sorry I had to grow up without my mother or sorry you never got to meet her?” A hint of anger laced Primrose’s words, and she set the platter in the center of the small table set for…two.

“Both,” I murmured my answer looking at the table, eyebrows furrowing. “Were you expecting company?”

“Yes. You.” Without glancing my way, she returned to the kitchen counter for a bread basket. “There is still clothing in your closet and dresser. It’s all outdated, but it will cover your nakedness. Dress, and I will settle your overwhelmed and tumbling mind.”

I moved to obey, striding back the pitch-black hallway?—

My feet abruptly stopped.

Primrose had sensed my thoughts . She had also somehow known I approached.

“She has dragonblood gifts,” I rasped in the oppressing rock tunnel.

Yessss.

“Not possible.” I stared down the hallway that my other side’s abilities allowed me to see without illumination. “If the history of our species is correct, she shouldn’t even be alive .”

My inner beast remained silent.

Primrose held the answers but had clearly wished for me to clothe my body first.

Shaking my head, I continued on, letting myself through an old oak door. My bedroom hadn’t changed since I’d last been there, but as with the rest of the cavern I’d seen, it smelled of cleaning products, without a lick of dust on every surface—large bed frame, bed stands, and three bureaus.

As Primrose had said, clothing still hung in my closet, severely outdated but free of dust. The thought of wearing polyester against my skin again after decades of going without caused a grimace to twist my face.

I pulled open the largest bureau’s bottom drawer.

Old jeans, worn and supple, lay piled unused and untouched since my days of playing at being a Greaser.

While no fresh scent of laundry detergent clung to the threads, I found they fit as comfortably as they always had.

Tight, white T-shirts along with a dozen other shirts lay in the drawer above.

I pulled one on, the neck stretching from age.

Far from my usual attire, but I couldn’t blame anyone but myself for not coming prepared.

Barefoot, I made my way back to the kitchen. Dahlia might have shown our granddaughter how to cook, but she hadn’t taught her shit about manners. A chicken leg, half-devoured, lay on her plate along with a heaping pile of potatoes.

While chewing, she pointed at the empty chair across from her with her fork, and again, I found myself obeying, my gaze glued to her deadpan face as she swallowed.

I settled into the indicated chair but made no move to serve myself.

“What?” she asked without looking up from her plate.

“Primrose.” I tried her name out loud, expecting she had been named for the flowers I used to bring back to Dahlia from excursions beyond our cavern.

My granddaughter lifted her head, golden brown eyes eerily similar to my own piercing me.

“Who were your fathers?”

“French Canadian twins,” Primrose said while spearing a potato. “My mother met them while in town getting supplies with the truck one fall. She ended up staying with them for a week before returning home.”

“Do you know their names?”

“No, and she never told my grandmother more than that.”

“Were they properly bonded?”

She shrugged and tore a bite of chicken off the drumstick in her hand and chewed. “I’ve read most of the books down in the library, so I know it takes three dragonblood to procreate. I’m assuming my fathers were Blood Born, otherwise, I wouldn’t be here, would I?”

“Joseph and Dahlia were not, and yet we created your mother.”

“You’re wrong.” She speared another potato.

I sniffed. “And what gives you that confidence?”

“I…know things about people.”

Crossing my arms, I raised an eyebrow.

“You don’t believe me.” She didn’t ask a question.

“Are you reading my mind?”

A slow smirk curled one side of her lips. “Maybe.”

“And what am I thinking now?”

“Beneath your wondering over my parentage, my Blood Born gifts, and longing for a certain someone—no, two someones—you’re questioning how I lived and survived in these high reaches of the Grand Teton.

Oh, and the truck? I upgraded years ago.

It’s in the garage far below, but you’re well aware of how the winters are here.

” She busied herself with her food, ignoring my stare and continuing to spew out answers without me asking.

“I know these things because we share blood. And you, Grandpapa, are very chatty between the ears.”

Grandpapa .

My inner beast snickered.

“Grand father ,” I corrected.

She tilted her head to the side, finally looking me full on in the face. A soft huff left her mouth. “Whatever you say.”

I pressed my lips tight.

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’ll stop now. Feel free to ask your own questions. Hearing another voice here in the cavern is better than focusing on the whispers in your head.”

I wondered at the true strength of Primrose as my heart beat heavy in my chest. I had missed out on so much, so many years with my blood, the child I’d longed for—because I’d thought Elijah more worthy of me than the humans—or possibly not humans—I’d left behind.

A frown dented Primrose’s brow as she peered at me.

Although she could read through the haze of my mind, I needed physical contact with my blood to gain all the knowledge I longed for.

My mouth watered for the food she’d cooked, but I held out my hand and waited, anxious to have even the slightest connection with my granddaughter so I might have some sense of her thoughts and emotions.

She stared at my palm, knife and fork still clutched in her white knuckles.

“Please,” I murmured, a slight flickering of energy between us in close proximity buzzing with anxiety. “You’re my blood, which means our inner dragons will be able to communicate what I’m struggling to fully comprehend—answer all the questions I have.”

“You don’t deserve my memories.”

“You’re right.” Shame flooded through me, causing my eyes to burn, but I kept my hand, palm up, on the table between us.

“I have missed out on so much because of my own selfishness. If I had been aware—” My voice caught, and I swallowed the pain attempting to choke me.

“I would never have left them. I’m begging you, please, allow me this gift. ”

A heavy breath lifted Primrose’s chest and thinned her lips. She set the utensils down and slid her palm along mine.

Electrical currents shot up my arm, straight to my chest.

Our inner beasts sighed in unison, but rather than speaking, they shared memories with each other. Visions zapped through my head, and I grunted at the rush of emotions flooding my mind. All were of Dahlia and Primrose—not a single one of Joseph or the daughter I’d never met.

Countless trips to Jackson Hole in the old ’50 Chevy pickup, snowed-in winter nights with tea and storytelling. Puzzles and reading in the library deep beneath us. Cleaning together, washing laundry, and baking.

My old lover, gray and wrinkled, lying on a bed, breathing her last caused a tear to trickle down my cheek. Had she been my fated mate, my seed would have sustained her life.

Chest aching, I closed my eyes, wetness dripping off my chin.

Primrose had prepared Dahlia’s body for eternal rest—and flew her to the mountain’s base where she buried her beneath a deep pile of rocks.

“You can shift?” I gasped.

Primrose pulled her hand away from mine but held my gaze, her calmness like a sea of glass beneath sunbeams of golden light. “Yes.”

Strong .

My body slumped in my chair as I stared across the table. “Can…” I swiped at my wet face, ecstatic by the truth of my bloodline yet baffled by her existence. “Can you cloak yourself?”

She frowned, her puzzlement clear through the bond we had created.

I bent the light around me to explain, shimmering out of sight.

Her eyebrows shot upward, her giddiness making me smile. “How did you do that?”

I grabbed hold of her hand again, showing her through the blood bond between us, my ability creating the same within her as a Blood Born descendant learned from their elder—as I had from Father centuries earlier.

Instantly, she winked from existence but squeezed my hand. “This. Is. Amazing!” A heartbeat later, she reappeared, flashing a dazzling smile that made her look no more than a teenager.

“I’m twenty-two,” she replied before I could ask the question that popped into my mind. “Sorry. Go ahead.”

I peered into her eyes since I could see them again, noting the wisdom and knowledge of one who had lived a long life rather than her handful of years. “How old were you when Dahlia passed?”

“Eighteen. How old are you?” she asked, her head tilted to the side again. My granddaughter was beyond beautiful, a kind and caring spawn any Blood Born would be proud of.

I grinned, my chest swelling. “Four hundred and twenty-seven years.”

Her jaw dropped open. “Will I live that long?” she asked, her voice breathless.

I pulled my hand away from my granddaughter’s as her memory of Dahlia’s aged face flitted through my mind. I reached for the serving spoon left in the skillet, needing to distract myself from what I’d lost. “Longer than a human, I’m sure, but not nearly the years I’ve had.”

“Because I’m not a full Blood Born.”

Once my plate was filled with chicken and potatoes, I glanced over at her. The tiniest bit of insecurity lay beneath her exterior. “How much do you know?”

“Not nearly enough.” A hint of anger reached through the blood bond, causing my inner beast to whimper. Want to soothe and help Primrose rushed through us both. “You’ve visited the library—can you read the ancient language?”

She picked up her fork and stabbed her chicken. “No.”

“Would you like to?” I asked, retrieving my own flatware so I could cut a bite off the breast on my plate.

“You’ll teach me?”

“Easily.” I found myself smiling, the ache of lost years and my mates left behind lessened by the opportunity ahead of me.

“Like how you taught me cloaking?” Primrose grinned and shimmered out of sight, her young, quick mind grasping what had taken me years to properly learn.

She’s amazing.

“Yes.”

“In that case—” she reached her hand over the table, fingers wiggling with the anticipation I could feel flowing off her like rocks tumbling down a mountainside “—show me everything.”

Dinner forgotten, I gave my granddaughter the remaining knowledge, all the wisdom I had collected over the centuries, wondering how much was actually true.