Page 60 of Thorulf
Chapter Twenty-Three
JADE KNEW THE momentshe saw her younger self’s age that this memory was going to be trouble. She felt it bone-deep as she and Thorulf stopped near the front gate where her lithe pre-teen dragon bumped her shoulder against an invisible wall trying to get in. Again and again, over and over, until she slumped against the wall and hung her head.
“I’m obviously younger than I was when I lost my virginity to you,” she murmured to Thorulf. “Yet I get the feeling...”
The moment she thought it, someone appeared on the horizon.
“Oh God,” she whispered when a familiar chill went through her. “Where are you, Thorulf?” She glanced left and right beyond the gate, looking for pre-teen Thorulf. “Why am I here without you?”
“You know why,” he said softly, keeping her close, sad about the situation. “Because you wanted to try getting into the Fortress without me. Try while I was busy doing whatever at the time.”
“That’s right,” she whispered, remembering. “I’d finally...” She frowned and shook her head, realizing just how vulnerable she’d been. Not only had she just gotten her period for the first time weeks before, but she was in her first heat and ovulating. “I thought it would make a difference. I was only twelve, but I thought becoming a woman,” she blinked back more blasted tears, “would finally allow me entrance. That it would somehow miraculously make us mates and the Fortress my home too.”
Though his thoughts were more turbulent than ever, Thorulf kept her close as her younger self sobbed softly. As the young black male dragon that looked so much like him at that age approached.
“Are you well?” he asked tentatively, deceptively, slowing in front of her.
For how else would Evil approach?
She wiped away her fiery tears and looked up at him with hope. “You can see me?”
“Of course I can see you,” he said kindly, sitting beside her. “Can’t everyone?”
“No.” She sighed. “Except for my mate, that is. He can see me.”
“I remember this...but I don’t.” Jade narrowed her eyes, trying to grasp the sensation. “It seems sort of dreamlike.” She frowned. “How is that possible? How do I remember this without being certain it actually happened?” She looked at Thorulf. “I lost my virginity to you well after this yet...” Guilt flared in her eyes. She pressed her lips together before continuing. “I stayed with you, but I get the sense...”
When she trailed off, he understood. “You get the sense you weren’t faithful?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. In any other reality, she wouldn’t worry about it. So what if she had a fling at some point? She wasn’t tied down. Not really. Because she didn’t believe in monogamy, right? Yet something about this felt all wrong. “He looks so much like you, Thorulf. Too much like you...”
“Well, I can see you just like your mate can,” the young black dragon said, drawing them back to the memory. He looked young Jade over with just the right amount of appreciation to make her blush if she were in human form. “And you are quite lovely.” He nodded once, his pep-her-up mannerism so much like Thorulf’s, there could be no doubt Evil was trying to mimic him. Reel her in. “In fact, you are exceptional.”
“That’s what Thorulf says,” her pre-teen self responded, handing everything to the enemy on a platter with the tentative, innocent way she looked at him. A way that revealed just how naïve she truly was. “Do you really think I am?” She frowned at the Fortress. “I mean, if I were so exceptional, wouldn’t I be able to get inside? Wouldn’t I be allowed?”
“I could not say,” the young black dragon said, sympathetic and contriving as only Evil could be before he cocked his head in thought. Then, as if he’d come up with a truly splendid idea, he perked up and considered her. “I bet you could make it into my fortress just fine.”