Page 19 of Driven by Dragonblood (Blood Born #3)
Patrick
W ith no clients demanding my presence at my office on Main Street this morning, I sat at my kitchen table, a second pot of coffee brewing.
I’d been searching online for hours, scribbling down notes and crossing some out as other sources changed the way my mind sought to explain what I’d seen, felt, and heard from the golden goddess’s hauntingly delicious mouth.
Dragonblood.
Even repeating the word in my head caused the darkness to swell inside me, pressing against the walls containing it.
Driven to find an answer beyond madness, which I refused to accept, I hardly got up from the chair the rest of the day.
I ordered takeout so I wouldn’t have to waste time cooking.
I also ended up shutting off my cell, since Jessie texted and tried calling, begging me to answer, saying she had been wrong about the Dear John letter she’d left me.
I couldn’t be bothered to care, and since she or her sister had retrieved Jessie’s shit off my porch as I’d demanded, I finally blocked her number and all thoughts of her from my mind .
My search for the dragonblood nonsense the golden goddess had whispered didn’t bring up any specifics, but digging deeper had taken me to an old blog, one no longer active, filled with Native American stories supposedly passed from generation to generation.
Were they a wannabe author obsessed with fantasy or a sincere old man trying to capture his past before their nation’s lore faded into obscurity?
Whatever the truth, their words acted like a soothing balm to my unrest. A sense of rightness pushed me forward in finding the owner of the blog.
I made a dozen calls, dug a little deeper, and finally reached the young woman responsible for uploading her grandfather’s stories, where others could access them.
“He’s been telling these tales to me since I can remember,” she said a short time into our conversation, once I explained I was a doctor researching patients’ inner voices.
“Do you know how much is based on fact?”
The young woman sighed. “I’m a dreamer, so I would love to tell you the stories of the dragons helping to see my ancestors through the bad winters are true.
Imagine if they were?” She laughed lightly, and that sense of being on the right path took on more substance in my mind, even though she seemed to dismiss the supposed history of her people.
“There’s never been any evidence of such beasts,” I said, more for my own sanity than to refute her stories.
“No, but my grandfather told me when the dragons passed, their souls rose to reign in the stars, and that oval-shaped orbs covered in glowing scales remained behind as a reminder of what used to be.”
I’d never heard of such an orb being found, no scientific proof of their existence.
“Is your grandfather available to speak with me?” I asked, thinking I might get more information from the source. “I would like to meet with him—sit and listen to those stories he’s shared with you.”
“I’m sure he would love that.” Her voice betrayed her smile, and I found my heart rate kicking up, a peacefulness inside me like I’d traversed the proper path toward answers.
Only an hour away, she agreed to bring her grandfather to a coffee shop near the halfway point between us the next morning.
Lockwood expected me in the office tomorrow, but I left a message with the administrator’s secretary, once more lying about not feeling well enough to come in.
While I didn’t have any specific answers or the truth I sought, I at least had something to go on besides the darkness and its quietness over my searching for answers.
The need to make sense of what I had experienced, of the puzzle the strange, beautiful woman had spread out in my mind, sat like fuel, ready to propel me forward in discovering the truth.
The old man’s gray hair hung down his back in a long braid, his skin tanned and wrinkled from the sun, dark eyes and cheekbones evidence of his heritage.
His granddaughter beside him had her ebony hair in a blunt, shoulder-length cut, a hint of hazel in her smiling eyes, her complexion a warm butternut.
“So, Dave.” I pushed my half-eaten plate of waffles to the side and leaned onto the table, my stomach churning. “Your granddaughter’s blog was very informative, but I would love to know more about your people’s history with the dragons.”
We had already briefly discussed what I’d read and how Dave’s own grandfather had passed on the stories to him when he’d been a teenager. The tales, from what he’d said, went back to the first of his ancestors when mankind didn’t yet rule the earth.
“The dragons owned the skies. Three families, three royal lines, all pure Blood Born.” Dave, too, pushed his plate aside and wrapped his gnarled hands around the tan coffee mug our waitress had refilled.
“They never bothered with man, and it has been joked in more recent generations that we were too tough to chew. They preferred the buffalo of the plains, the elk from the north.”
“Your granddaughter blogged about how they had provided for your people in harsh winters.”
“It was said they often did, and in return, mankind respected their need for privacy and the same right to live as all the beasts of this earth.”
“Were you ever told how they communicated with mankind?”
Brow furrowed, he peered over my shoulder, his eyes hazing over as though searching his memory. “My ancestors could hear the dragon’s voices in their minds—words of another language and yet understandable to my fathers’ spirits.”
I chewed on his explanation for a few seconds, hating that his words sounded right, felt right. The darkness in the void of my soul stirred, pressing against its prison with a strange gentleness, but I resisted its silent insistence to be set free.
A thought snaked its way into my mind, creating a tendril of fear to shiver down my spine. “Your fathers’ spirits communicated with those of a dragon.”
Dave nodded slowly, his dark gaze latching onto mine and holding steady. “It was said the first two dragons to become something more than mere animals claimed a female human, and they bore children together.”
Beasts mating with humans…
“Your face has paled, Doctor Macaire.”
I swallowed and cleared my throat, my body tensed tight, the hairs on my neck stirring as I fought to hold the darkness at bay. “Do you happen to know what the new species was called?”
“Those born by blood—of dragon and man were named dragonblood.”
I clenched my eyes shut, willing the madness inside me to remain silent.
“My grandfather was the last to believe these beings still walked the earth.”
I forced myself to meet Dave’s steady stare, needing so much more than what he had offered me.
“I’ve never met such a person or beast, if the stories of them are true,” he continued, his tone low, “but I have seen my share of people who hear voices.”
“As have I,” I murmured as hissing whispered around the edges of the prison in my chest. Adrenaline leaked into my blood, causing my heart rate to increase. Heat slid through my veins as my insides burned.
For more truth or to break free?
“Maybe it isn’t insanity that troubles so many.” His granddaughter spoke for the first time since we’d first sat down and introductions had been made.
I gave her my full focus, a sense of peaceful reassurance seeming to reach over the table and soothe me. I’d studied psychology and the human mind, known facts learned through science—but a part of me longed for the young woman’s words to be true.
“Perhaps there is more to this world than is seen,” she continued, staring into my eyes as though trying to root out the darkness inside me. “If they are real, it is for the beasts’ safety that the dragonblood hide from humanity.”
Or maybe their human halves fought for dominance out of their own fears of being seen as mentally unstable .
Unacceptable and unlovable to most.
My feet itched to move, my accelerated heartbeat needing to exercise the rush pumping through my blood as my greatest concerns flooded my brain. “I can’t thank you both enough for meeting with me and sharing your family’s history and stories.”
Dave shook my offered hand. “I hope you find the answers you seek, Doctor Macaire.”
I felt sure I had found them—and the possibility they went against all I had studied scared the shit out of me.