The Dragon's Rogue

Chapter 30

 Mated?

That was not what I expected. I pulled back, my contentment vanishing into the night. How could we be mated? I fought it, after what we just shared I didn't want to lose our connection, or that contentment so fleeting, but a frustration grew within me. I didn't even know if I wanted to mate, I never thought it was a possibility. Maybe he was joking. It would be a cruel unhappy joke, but I checked nonetheless.

His expression was not one of someone pulling a prank. It was soft, and slightly bemused, looking up at me pushing off from his chest.

I struggled against his hold to sit, to distance myself somewhat.

"How could we be mated?"

It was a stupid question, but my mind was not working at full capacity. My tone must have set off some sort of warning for his expression grew shuttered.

"My dragon chose you as we coupled. I suspected he might, since he seemed to be highly interested where you are concerned. You are a Dragon Mate now."

"That's it? I don't even have a choice?"

Something cold passed over his features and he released me at last. I stood and backed away from him, ignoring muscles still sore from our intimacy.

"I do not have a choice either Lis, you know this, you grew up around Dragon Lords," there was something in his tone, a bitter bite, but I couldn't analyze it. All I could think was that I was now trapped. What kind of Shifter became a Dragon's Mate? What would that mean for me? I had done what all Shifter law forbade me to do, and now I was going to pay the price. No pack would associate with me at all, it was worse than going rogue. The Lords too would shun me. I would belong nowhere. And it was all my own fault, a punishment for listening to my body, my base instinct, before my head.

I paced, my agitation rising with each step.

Cillumn rose, a clump of moss had attached itself to his back. I fought the urge to go to him and help brush him off. Never again would I place bodily impulse before clear rational thought. He watched me with a wary, guarded expression.

"What now?" I wondered.

"What do you mean what now? Six Lis, you are behaving like some great disaster has fallen." Cillumn was scowling my direction. Probably the first time he had done so. The moss on his back chose that moment to fall loose, but he didn't notice. He ran a frustrated hand through his hair.

"It has, I will never do enough to redeem myself to my pack now. Nor will any other accept me, ever."

He blinked at me. Now that his eyes had lost their glow and returned to normal it was a difficult gesture to see. "You still wish to return to your pack, after all they have done?...Why?"

I shrugged. "I am a Shifter." And it was all I had ever known. A Shifter without a pack was not really a Shifter at all.

The loud snap of a branch, followed by a string of vivid curses effectively ended our conversation. Illaise.

Heat washed over me, this time of my own creation. She would know instantly what I had done, she would sense it. I made a desperate bid for what was left of the fabric I had worn, but the tearing I had felt when Cillumn removed it was more of a shredding. It lay in ragged little pieces upon the ground, like dead moths that had fluttered too close to the flame. Like me.

"Watch the traps." Scet's voice carried through the night just before three dark figures rounded a bend along the entrance trail. At first I thought the third shadow, hauled between the straighter silhouettes of Scet and Illaise was the shifter Cillumn had rescued from the cavern. But as they neared I reasoned that it slumped too much, forcing the others to half drag it along.