Dragon Blood

Forty-Seven: A Woman Scorned

He'd imagined his conversation with Cassie going in several different ways. They ranged from unlikely to very likely and desirable to very undesirable. The order was the same for each description.

One: Cassie wouldn't much mind that he'd scorned her and was traipsing around with another female right in front of her. They'd have a chat about it, laugh, and move on with their respective lives.

Two: Cassie would kill him.

He wasn't worried about her attacking him. It was completely warranted on her part, and he knew he could hold her back. He was worried about the aftermath and the tension it would cause between the two clans.

He'd been avoiding this conversation for as long as possible, enjoying his time with Skylar. Cassie had conveniently stayed out of sight doing who knew what. For all he knew, or anyone else for that matter, she could have been gone for the past week. He knew that wasn't the case, but that was how scarce she'd been. Luckily, when he'd asked Penelope about her whereabouts, his ex-betrothed's mother knew she was in the far pastures collecting herbs for Nana. Once he'd located and confronted her, all of the scenarios he'd envisioned had disappeared.

Instead, Cassie now clung to him like she was drowning, sobbing into his chest. He patted her back awkwardly, unsure how to escape from her embrace without offending her further. He could feel her tears soaking into his shirt and he could only image Skylar's reaction when he returned smelling heavily of the other female.

He would have preferred an angry Cassie over this weepy one.

"Orion," she whimpered. "We were so happy. I don't understand why you left me for her."

He cleared his throat uncomfortably. How did he tell someone it was because he wasn't happy with her, not at all, and he was happier than he'd ever been in his life with Skylar.

"Cassie," he said slowly, forcing her away from him so he could look down at her. "Cassie, we really weren't good together."

"That's just not true, Orion." She looked up at him with watery eyes. Her crying was so dainty, so gentle, it didn't even seem real. Perfect tears fell down her face, which wasn't puffy or even all that red. He'd seen Skylar cry once, on that first night in the woods, when he'd barely known her an hour, and her crying had looked nothing like this. Her crying had been real and genuine, true sadness and not at all attractive, and it had tugged at his heart like nothing else. Whatever Cassie was doing had no such effect on him.

Cassie sniffled and touched his face. "I love you. You're mine."

He shook his head with a heavy sigh. "Not anymore, I'm not. There was once a time I thought we could have been happy together. I would do what was best for my clan, and I thought that was to be with you. Then I discovered my True Mate-"

Cassie scoffed and pushed away from him. "Your True Mate? Orion, please. You don't believe in that nonsense, you never have. True Mates don't exist. It's just people who feel passion for one another. Guess what? Passion goes away, and you're stuck with whatever is left. What will you be stuck with when your infatuation with this new female disappears? You'll realize that she doesn't know how to be a dragon. You'll spend your whole life making up for what she missed learning when she was a child. She won't create an alliance with the Eastern Clan, not like your father wanted. She can't ever be enough dragon for you."

There was the anger he'd been waiting for. Now he felt comfortable retaliating with his own.

"Don't you dare talk about her like that. Everything Skylar has been through has made her more of a dragon than you ever will be. You didn't get what you wanted and now you're acting like a child," he snarled at her. "You're trying to belittle that happiness I found because you're miserable."