Chapter 45: Whispers in the Dark

[Orion].

I've never seen my mother so angry before.

I know that pacing cannot help, but I can't find a way to calm my nerves. I can still smell my mate all over my skin and I want to be with her so badly that it aches. Not just my body, but my soul craves to be with her, to connect with her in the way that only I can.

When we lie side by side after our act of love, our bodies returning to our more familiar form, I held her close while she cried. Here she was, in the arms of the man who took away the one person in her family who cared enough to try and find her when she disappeared.

"I have over a dozen brothers and sisters," she wept. "But nobody came looking when I disappeared. My mother was my father's favorite concubine, but I was their only child, and when she died, I had nobody left to defend me in the palace. Father spent so much time working on the surface that when I failed to return from my excursion, nobody thought to look."

"I'm your family now," I swore to her. "I will never let you go."

"Do you promise," she curled up into a small ball. "Will you stay with me no matter what?"

"How can you ask that?" I turned her in my arms so that she could see the depth of my sincerity. "There is nothing that you could have done that would make me love you less."

"Don't make promises you cannot keep, Orion Daax," her gaze was piercing and far too mature for a dragon not quite 50. Her eyes tell the story of a drakaina who has seen three times the life she has, all of it hard and dark. "I have done some terrible things. Unforgivable things."

"We all have to make hard decisions sometimes," I kiss her brow. "I forgive you. No matter what it was, I forgive you."

"And I forgive you," she kissed my nose.

I had told her everything about the day I came and rescued my parents, how her father had mine in a slave's collar and had plans to kill both my parents while their followers watched. When Ursa and I finally arrived, I didn't think, I just reacted. Maybe I could have saved him, but in that moment I only saw my father, a man I only recognized because I look so much like him, and my mother near death at the hands of a tyrant. It didn't matter to me that he was family. I just needed to save my parents.

"I wish I could have saved him for you," I apologized. "That it hadn't been my hand that had slain him and that...":

"I know you had no choice. My father had changed," she interrupted me, placing a finger on my lip. "During his time working with Uncle Segundus he became someone else, someone I didn't recognize. Your family was in danger, you were just trying to protect them."

"Just like I will protect you," I held her closer. "You are mine."

"And you are mine," she kissed me gently. "Always."

_________________

Pacing back and forth in the sick room, I keep replaying our last moments again and again, trying to make sense of what she was saying to me. It felt like there was so much more that she wanted to say, things she was afraid to voice.

What could such a kind-hearted person like Kora have done in her life that would make her so afraid that I'd hate her? She hasn't told me about her time with Segundus, not yet anyway, but from what I have learned from the survivors we rescued and brought to the Celestial Realm, he was ruthless with his torture methods, cruel in ways that required imagination, cunning, and a complete disregard for life. In his mind, celestials are in no way worthy of the same consideration as other dragons.

To him, we are little more than beasts.

And my beautiful mate is herself part sun dragon. I'm sure he found all sorts of terrible uses for her body and mind.

There is a shuffling of feet along the edges of the room. I look over at the younglings and they are all still sound asleep in their nest, curled up in a mess of legs and arms and fluffy yellow hair. Looking just beyond them I see my own blonde-haired beauty, her bright teal eyes shining from the dark.

"Kora," I hiss. "What are you doing here."

"I needed to see you, Ori, before I went to work," she was fiddling with her fingers, her body tense as if ready to spring out of the room with the slightest touch. "Are your parents here?"

"No," I shake my head. "My mother didn't take our news very well."

"Oh," she looks disappointed but not surprised. "I was afraid of that. I'm sure she must not be thrilled to have me as your mate."

"It's not that it's just..."

"Don't lie to me, Ori," she frowns. "I know I'm no prize. If you," she pauses, turning her gaze towards the sleeping youngsters. "If you want to take it back it's not too late."

"Take what back," I shake my head not quite sure what she was referring to.

"Our mating," she looks up and I see tears welling in her eyes. "I have the power to make it all go away if you want."

"Why would I take it back?" I reach forward and grab her. "What are you talking about Kora? You can't take away a mating. We mate for life."

She continues speaking, not listening to my words. "We can annul this arrangement. I am a Kraken. I can ensure that no children are made from our union and you can be free," tears roll down her face as she gives me a melancholy smile. "I would do that for you. It would hurt us both, but in the long run, you may find happiness."

"But what about your happiness?"

She doesn't respond with words. Instead, she extends her fingernails into long, sharp, black points.

"Did you know that Kraken drakaina produce more eggs than any other type of dragon? Sometimes more than we can sustain? This is because after they are fertilized and we are ready to go broody, instead of laying them in a nest as other dragons do, we lay them in the sea and our mates watch over them until they hatch. In the ocean, where the conditions can be unfavorable, and the waters are full of predators, we avoid extinction by over-preparing." She laughs, but it is not a happy sound. "If gifted with a talented mate, he can protect about half of the 20 or more eggs that we lay."

"Twenty," I sputter, my mouth agog, unable to imagine a quantity so large. "What if he successfully watched them all?

"Maybe a third might hatch," she sighs. "Often we lay several decoy eggs, empty shells, to trick predators. Most clutches only lead to 4 or 5 viable eggs and not all of them have a chance to hatch."

"My mother only had 1. My father wasn't a particularly attentive mate," she frowns. "So she did what all kraken drakaina have the ability to do. She culled her eggs before laying them so there was a number that she could watch herself without fear. Of the three eggs that she laid, I was the only viable one."

"Culled?" I want to make sure I understand her correctly. "You mean killed."

"Not quite," she shrugs. "She just kept them from growing into baby dragons." She presses the tips of her nails to her abdomen. Kraken nails are laced with poison.

"It won't hurt," she promises, "Not much. I will still need to lay the eggs but it will be as if nothing. They are barely bigger than a seed at this point.

"How can you know they are fertilized?" I query. "We just mated a couple of hours ago. Surely it's too soon to know if..."

"I know," she smiles sadly. "We are fated, Orion. And we were both in heat and in our true forms. I felt it as soon as your seed reached my waiting clutch." The way she looks up at me, brave and unafraid, willing to make this terrible choice, is breaking my heart.

Kora is asking me if I want to be a father. If I want to be a family with her. She will stab herself, killing any eggs we fertilized in our lovemaking. She will do it not because she wants to, but because she loves me enough to set me free. Because she thinks loving her is a burden. The girl who was so unimportant that nobody searched for her.

I reach forward, grabbing her hand, not caring that her nails might poison me as I pull their danger away from our young.

"Don't you dare," I growl as I wrap my arms around her. I feel her nails retracting, and I release my grip on her fingers. "Don't you dare suggest anything like this again. I promised you that I would protect you and our children. I meant that and I still do. I love you, Juliana Korallis. You are the only one I want. And as soon as we can make it happen, I will prove it to the world."

She holds onto my neck as I pull her into me, squeezing her against me until her chest stops heaving and her body calms.

We hold one another, resting in the shadows, until the sound of my parent's windfall brings us both to attention.

"I have to go," she kisses me right before she pushes open a panel I had never noticed in the wall. "I just have one warning before I go." Her eyes dart everywhere as she whispers. "Whatever you do, stay away from The Technician. I...can't promise your safety if you find them. They are dangerous to know."

Her scent follows her out as she leaves, disappearing into the confines of the castle as she leaves me alone and confused.