Page 50 of Drawn by Dragonblood (Blood Born #1)

Jonathan

E lijah’s words hit me like a kick to the gut, stealing my breath. Warmth spread through me as I clutched at Dakota’s hand.

Mate .

The word whispered in my mind as I studied the naked asshole in our home.

Some hidden piece of my soul lusted to rip through my skin and shred the intruder, slice his big dick off and shove it down his throat until he choked.

He was the man who had broken Elijah’s heart.

The one who’d almost ended me and Dakota years earlier.

Easily the same size and width of Elijah, the douche’s presence filled the cavern like Elijah’s did, but he didn’t draw me in like our lover—even if most women would find the blondish god-like man to be hot as fuck, which even I couldn’t deny.

But no magnetism reached across the distance, no awareness of his body or scent filled me with need.

Only Elijah.

Mine .

A low growl rumbled my chest so reminiscent of what I’d heard from Elijah a few times that a desire to laugh welled up alongside the possessive sound leaving my lips.

“You would give yourself to these… humans .” The man spat the word like a curse, his brow furrowed, shoulders tensing. “Seriously, Elijah? You’re royalty. Far above these…” He waved his hand, grimacing at me and my wife with disgust in his eyes.

Another low rumble rose from Elijah’s chest, pulling my full focus.

The dark shadow of my dragon flickered around Elijah’s shoulders, causing other memories of to click into place like perfect puzzle pieces, and suddenly, I knew .

“Holy motherfucking mother of God—dragonblood,” I whispered, my mind fucking blown .

Elijah’s breath caught, and he stilled.

I stared at his profile, willing him to face me, to tell me the truth he had withheld from us.

“My God,” Dakota whispered, her small hand squeezing mine as she realized her daydreaming perhaps wasn’t fantasy.

“Elijah, is it true?” I rasped, staring at the hair which was the same color of the scaled armor, the crop—and my dragon with the pale eyes.

His shoulders slumped. “Yes,” he finally said but still didn’t take his gaze off Dolyn.

Flashes of memories assaulted my brain from early childhood of the dragon had been my constant companion.

I’d simply needed to close my eyes, and he had been there to carry me away from pain and sadness.

Even before I learned what emotions were and how to attempt to regulate them, my imaginary friend carried me through, cradling me against his warmth, his low rumble—almost like a cat’s purr—steady beneath my face when I’d clung to him.

All in my head, of course. Concocted as a means for my mind to help me deal with shit.

Or had he been?

“Was it you?” I asked, my voice ragged as fuck, my pulse thrumming in my ears. “Those nights…” I swallowed hard, my eyes stinging. “Seeing me through the shit of my childhood until I met Dakota? And even after, you visited me in my dreams.”

“I have no recollection of these actions, but perhaps fate allowed future memories of your alpha to lead and offer you strength in your time of need,” Elijah confessed, finally giving me his full attention.

His large black pupils swirled same as I swore I’d glimpsed on occasion since meeting him, but a shit ton of vulnerability and wariness I still experienced filled them as he carefully watched me.

Did he fear my reaction to the truth of who— what —he was?

For some reason, the fact he wasn’t purely human didn’t surprise me like it should have. Too many unnatural things had gone down since he showed up in our camp, including how his energy along with my wife’s radiated through me as though Dakota taking our hands had somehow linked our emotions.

But I sure as fuck couldn’t decide what I felt about him lying to us.

I had promised myself to offer nothing but honesty in figuring out this triad shit and perhaps naively expected the same from him.

“Explain, Elijah,” I demanded, hating how my voice shook and betrayed my apprehension.

“The dragonblood...” He paused, and I bit my tongue to keep from ordering him to quit stalling, to tell us everything he’d been withholding before I blew a fucking gasket and lost my shit. “A mere drop flows through both of you.”

Yes.

I blinked at the whisper, that goddamned voice that had insisted from the beginning Elijah had been brought into our lives for a purpose.

Elijah’s gaze flickered over my face as though drinking in every line and freckle, like the sight of me alone filled a part of his soul.

Warmth spread through my chest, a desire to step closer, but I held still and waited for further explanation.

“I could feel you, see you, on the breeze, and I sought you out.”

“Our camp,” I said.

Elijah nodded. “The dragonblood in you spoke to the beast inside me, and I knew you were my fated mates. Both of you. The beta and female I have longed for my entire life.” His breath left in a rush, and his shoulders slumped.

“I am not human, Jon. I am a shifter, a dragon of old, an ancient soul almost five hundred years of age.”

“My God,” Dakota whispered again, and I glanced over at her to find her eyes the size of saucers, staring at Elijah. She clutched his fist as though needing the connection between them to keep her grounded.

She held tight to the man—the dragon shifter—who wanted us, both of us, even though according to the blond douche, we weren’t “good” enough. And royal blood? What a fucking joke. She and I were far from it, mere orphans, hicks from the sticks of upstate New York.

And yet Elijah had told Dolyn he belonged to us.

He may have withheld truth—hell, outright lied a few times from what I could recall in that moment—but I couldn’t deny the naked honesty in his voice and the magnetic pull between us from the second our gazes had first collided.

“You are the bonding gateway between an alpha and female, Jon,” he continued, searching out my eyes, imploring me to understand.

“That is the gift of a beta—they’re necessary, their purpose as essential to our bond as the precious female who will carry our seed. An alpha is nothing without his beta.”

“Elijah—”

I shot my head toward Dolyn and growled, stilling his vocal cords. Possessiveness flooded through me, and in that moment, I would stare down a hundred golden dragons in order to protect what belonged to me.

He ignored me, his focus on Elijah. “Did you feed them your seed that would bind them to you without their consent as our people of old practiced? Did you manipulate these two worthless creatures into submission as your beast wanted to do with me?”

“I would never!” Elijah’s voice raised. “Yes, I had the opportunity but denied my baser instincts as is right!”

Dolyn continued to glare, disbelieving, although why he gave a shit about our consent, I had no fucking clue.

“He offered us the freedom to choose at every crossroads,” Dakota whispered. There was no coercion involved.”

Connect .

I realized Elijah still clutched my left forearm, but it wasn’t enough.

Squeezing Dakota’s fingers with my right hand, I twisted from Elijah’s grasp.

He whimpered as though I’d physically hurt him, but I quickly laced my fingers through his.

My throat tightened as a ripple swept through Elijah.

His eyelids fluttered closed, and he filled his lungs with a shuddered sigh.

As though the press of our palms opened a gateway, I caught hints of his emotions and energy creep up my left arm, across my chest, and down my right toward Dakota, who stood behind us.

Nothing had ever felt so right in my life.

So fucking good. Even better than soaring after having my ass handed to me while strung up in the dungeon.

I lifted my head and stared Dolyn in the eye while swallowing away my outward emotion.

“Elijah belongs to us . He is our mate.” I inhaled until it hurt.

“My lover. My alpha, and that seed you seem jealous about him denying us so far? I’m gonna gobble that shit up and feed it to my wife.

Let her suck it off my tongue the second your unwanted ass is gone from our home. ”

Elijah’s breath caught again, and Dolyn’s gaze narrowed once more as it settled on him as though I didn’t exist. “You would choose the half-breeds over the last full Blood Born on this earth?” he asked Elijah as though I hadn’t spoken a word.

“Fate has destined what is to be among us three,” Elijah stated quietly. Kindly, even, when I was ready to physically kick Dolyn out of the space he had no business being in. “I won’t give up her gift of my two mates for anything—royal blood or no.”

“You would leave me stranded?” His voice rose, his hands fisting at his sides, whiskey-colored eyes widening. “Alone in this world where my years of searching has proved that I have no hope of finding another?”

“Isn’t that exactly what you did to me a decade ago?”

Point to Elijah.

I had to bite my tongue to keep from hissing my pleasure.

“I’m sorry fate hasn’t been as kind to you as it has to me after the choice you made to break my heart,” Elijah continued.

Dakota shifted behind me, drawing my focus over my shoulder. Brow furrowed, she peered at Dolyn with a look I recognized.

One I knew well—but this time, clarity lit in her eyes.

That sixth sense?

It was real, and I felt sure shit was about to get a whole lot more interesting.

That strange voice in my head snickered, and I relaxed fully, ready to see what my wife was about to reveal.