Page 5 of Driven by Dragonblood (Blood Born #3)

Primrose

T hree Months Later

“Looking for crazies, huh?” The old woman peered up at me from the park bench with watery, blue eyes, not a hint of an inner dragon within her whispering to me.

I smiled, having learned over the months that pure humans responded better to kindness than the anger her words simmered to life inside me. “Some people’s inner thoughts can take on a mind of their own. Not everyone who hears voices has mental issues.”

She snorted, lips pressed in a tight line, and glanced around the small park, the first of many such areas I’d explored while traveling in an ever-widening circle around the Grand Canyon.

Leaves had burst from branches after their winter sleep, the promise of a new beginning, and gifted me a renewed hope that had dwindled over what seemed like a long winter.

I’d learned in my travels that older humans were full of stories—gossip, lore, and truth.

Weeding through the fantastical proved harder for me, especially since I hadn’t spent much time around others in my childhood.

I’d also found that while the older generation didn’t mind answering questions like the younger did, they had similar people skills like my own—almost nonexistent.

At least having lived in isolation for so long, I had a reason for my behavior should anyone pose a question about my inability to converse as well as others.

But being immersed in the human world over the previous four months had earned me knowledge of their ways, better forms of communication—mainly knowing when to keep my thoughts to myself—and how to dress so as not to draw unwanted attention, like the old-fashioned clothing I’d brought from Wyoming had earned me.

“What do you want with people like that, anyway?” the gray-haired woman asked, peering up at me from where I towered over her. “They’re the sickos who take guns into schools and blow themselves up for their religion.”

“Have you heard any good gossip lately about people hearing voices? Do you know anyone personally?” I forced myself to ask— again —rather than storm off for reasons she would never be able to fathom, ones that a recluse like me understood perfectly well.

Another snort of sarcastic laughter shook her shoulders. “All kinds of crazies like that over at Lockwood.”

“Lockwood?”

“Hospital for the crazies out in the middle of nowhere.”

I’d never once considered that humans would lock up people who claimed to hear voices to the extent I did, and I was far from mentally unstable.

While my forehead furrowed over the woman’s assumptions, a lightness roused in my chest that I didn’t dare trust. I smoothed down my blouse with shaking hands.

“Can you tell me where this Lockwood is located?” I asked while leaning toward her, my breathlessness betraying my rising hope.

Wrinkled hand waving toward the west, where she said a small town lay buried near the rim of the Grand Canyon with hardly a population worth mentioning. “Plenty of them crazies you’re looking for over there.”

Flutters woke in my belly, causing my limbs to tingle with the need to shift and escape her ignorance. But she was human and knew nothing about Blood Born and the inner beasts that might be mistaken for madness.

“I appreciate your time,” I told the old woman, rather than turn on my heel without offering a good day.

She hummed beneath her breath, and I took the dismissal for what it was, happy to leave her behind.

Old duffle clutched tightly in my hand, I hurried toward a line of trees and the privacy they would afford me for a quick shift, since flight would get me to the next town faster than any rented car.

My inner dragon purred at the possibility that one of the two I searched for might be at this Lockwood.

That I might finally feel the draw of our mates, the stirrings of desire only they would be able to sate.

My alpha and beta, the two I would need to procreate and rebuild the dragonblood line on earth, might be closer than I’d imagined.

While I longed for the physical hunger my grandpapa experienced with his fated mates, I had yet to meet anyone, human or dragonblood, who could make my body burn, yearn for my first sexual encounter.

Warmth stirred in my core, and a sense of calm settled over me.

Even though we had soared over that area before and hadn’t felt any connection drawing me toward the earth, I had no choice but to follow the lead gifted to me .

Once out of sight of the small park, I cloaked myself and readied to fly, taking care to pack my clothing away as I always did before shifting into my true form.

Invisible to the human eye, I soared through the warm, spring air, breathing as deeply as always, hoping for a hint of the scents that would bring my body to life.

The ragged cliffs and ancient openings in the earth lay below to my right in muted tones of red, brown, and gray, the deepest parts still hidden in shadow from the rising sun—a different beauty than the snow-capped mountains of my home, but no less stunning.

A small town nestled along a snaking, two-lane highway, so we banked slightly and drew closer, our dragon sight allowing us to focus in on buildings and cars easily.

No hint of male dragonblood floated on the breeze from my height, so we circled until we located what must be the hospital the watery-eyed woman had spoken of.

Stark white and sprawling, the building was surrounded by a metal fence topped by razor-sharp wire. It looked more like a prison than a safe place for those with supposed mental health issues or disabilities to reside.

Seeing no other towns on the horizon, and even though no pull of awareness enticed me to land, we did so on the town’s outskirts, near a rundown motel.

Once shifted into my human form, I hid amongst the fauna, uncloaked, and pulled on my leggings, a bra—something I’d hardly worn while living in seclusion and hated with a passion—and a long-sleeve tunic that fell to mid-thigh.

My favorite ballet flats, easy to tear through should I need to shift in a hurry, pinched more than I would have liked, and I told myself I would spend my days naked once fate allowed me to live in privacy with my mates.

I breathed in the soothing scents of spruce and juniper from the surrounding trees, and finding no hint of dragonblood in the air, I headed to the motel to reserve a room for the night and possibly longer, depending on what I did or didn’t find.

Belly still fluttering, I stowed my duffle bag away in my room and started off in the direction of Lockwood, which the motel’s owner had assured me I had properly located from above.

The purr in my head accompanied my light steps through town, past a cafe of sorts, a used car dealership, a small grocery store, and various other businesses that kept the community afloat.

Turning a corner brought Lockwood into sight, the three-story building the largest in the area by far and no more inviting than it had been from the sky.

My steps hurried as I approached, gaze roaming over the landscape and exterior, desperate for a glimpse of the ones who belonged to me.

Because they had to be here. I couldn’t handle any more disappointment, couldn’t imagine having to?—

Yessss .

A shiver slid over my skin, causing goose bumps to erupt and heat to pool low in my belly. My head swiveled toward the hospital’s closest wing as a sense of dragonblood, delicious and enrapturing, tangled with my mind and made my heart race.

This was the draw I’d been searching for, the feelings I’d read about but had almost given up hope of ever experiencing for myself.

Beta.

Swallowing against the thickness growing in my throat, I nodded in agreement with the creature inside me I trusted fully. Surely, she would be more aware of the Blood Born behind bars than my human half would be.

I eyed said bars on the windows, anger stirring over the fact one of my mates would be held against his will.

My dragon growled in my chest, and I bit my lip to keep it contained as humans approached me on the sidewalk. I didn’t bother forcing a smile or replying to their greetings, my focus flitted from window to window along the hospital’s wing, wondering which separated me from my beta.

I’d been mistaken to believe finding my mates would be easy. Even more so that connecting them wouldn’t require work other than simple introductions and being led by instinct to bond and live happily ever after.

I threaded my fingers through the chain-link fence holding me at a distance, allowing my dragon to take over my wandering gaze since her instincts far outshone those of my human form.

Energy rippled over the mostly-empty parking lot on the other side of the fence, the tether of dragonblood calling to dragonblood leading up to the second floor…third window from the building’s end.

He is there.

“Yes,” I whispered my agreement with my inner dragon, the draw strengthening enough I could almost feel it like a physical caress across my fingers.

Tingles rose to life between my thighs for the first time, and I gasped at the luscious dampness, the slight pulse of need for my mate to fill the emptiness inside me.

Biting my tongue against the whine building in my chest, I stared at his window as the sun warmed my face.

Did he sense me as I did him? Did he communicate with his inner dragon to the extent he knew who and what he truly was?

I clutched at the fence, unmoving except for the gnawing of my lip as questions plagued me and the minutes slipped past. What if the voice had driven him to insanity? What if the ability to think rationally, to understand the truth of his circumstances, lay beyond his grasp?

The energy between us strengthened with every passing minute, and I focused on finding a way to save my beta from those who wished to keep him from my side.