The Spirit Dragon (4 page)

Jasmine stared up at Ryuu’s stark expression for a moment before she turned away. She couldn’t afford to let him get under her skin. She didn’t want a mate who would try to rule every aspect of her life. She wanted a partner, a helpmate, not some male who would stand dictator over her every movement.

“I won’t accept you as my mate.” She crossed her arms and stepped away from him. How could she? It would contradict everything she believed a marriage should be.

“May I ask why not?”

“Because,” she said, spinning around. “I believe a marriage should be a partnership between two people. You dragons tend to take over your mate’s lives with no thought to what she wants, or how she feels.”

He cocked his head and stared at her as though he couldn’t understand what she just said. “I find that difficult to believe.” He stepped closer, rested his hands on her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes. “Believe me when I tell you that your health and happiness will
always
be set above my own.”

“Sure it will.” She pulled away, casting her gaze to the ground. “The first time something even remotely dangerous comes up, you’ll shove me into some gilded cage for my own safety. You’ll continue to do that, over and over until there’s nothing left of me but an incomplete shadow of the woman you want me to become.”

She swiped her arm over her eyes. Damn the tears that fell now. She didn’t care if he saw them. If he wanted her happiness as he claimed, he would see that being with him would eventually steal all of the joy from her life. He
had
to see that because Jasmine didn’t know how long she could resist him.

“That’s not true.” He stepped in front of her again. Reaching out, he cupped her chin, lifting it so she would meet his gaze. “I
swear
that isn’t true. I
would
cherish you, yes. You are my greatest treasure. However, I would never imprison you the way you think I would.”

“You wouldn’t mean to, but you’re starting to do it already. You took me into a series of tunnels that I could not have exited on my own. To someone like me,
that
’
s
a prison. A house where guards never let me go anywhere on my own, where I want, when I want, is nothing more than a gilded cage.”

She stared up into his beautiful silver eyes framed with thick, dark lashes and felt her heart breaking. “As much as I might need a dragon mate, or
want
a dragon mate, I cannot agree to be yours. I would die in any cage. Can’t you see that?”

Jasmine stood mesmerized by his gaze as he grew closer. He was going to kiss her. There was no doubt about it. She blinked, nervously licked her lips, and tried to turn away.

“Kiss me, Jasmine. Just once.”

The raw need she could hear in his voice stopped her from turning away. Jasmine closed her eyes, and then reopened them slowly. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t afford to allow herself to feel a weakness for him, yet she continued to look up at him.

His eyes, so silver and so filled with desire captured her gaze. The color swirled, a kaleidoscope of several shades of gray and shining mercury. No one had such beautiful eyes. No one but Ryuu.

Slowly, she shook her head, even as she tilted it back and parted her lips. Her mind screamed for her to run, to leave him here and to reject him. Her heart held her in place, her feet glued to the ground as he grew closer, bit by slow bit, lowering his head toward hers.

Gentle lips pressed against her mouth and she felt the stirrings of something strange. Mist gathered around the edges of her consciousness and she wondered if she would faint. Instead, she saw through Ryuu’s eyes. She felt it as he shifted shape from human to his dragon. He was nothing but fog and mist. He flew through the air, charging over the countryside, shifting from this reality to what he thought of as the ether, then again to another world. The spirit world.

He was ancient, as old as time itself, yet he still held a certain strange innocence that spoke of his ability to see and travel through the heavens. He was lonely.
So
lonely. All of his life, he had been alone with no one to comfort him, with no one to share his unique and endless pain.

Jasmine pushed against him. She didn’t want him to share this part of him with her. She didn’t want him to make her feel for him, fall in love with him. She didn’t want…what she knew was already too late to prevent.

Her heart broke a little bit before it expanded and wrapped itself tightly around his. She could feel their lives mesh. Jasmine felt their hearts and souls threading together to become one. Tears rolled down her cheeks when she realized that no matter how much she feared sharing her life with a dragon, she feared a life without Ryuu that much more.

Opening her mouth, she allowed him to deepen their kiss. She felt his memories, his power flow through her as his tongue tangled with hers. As much as she wanted to push him away, she wanted to pull him closer, crawl inside him and huddle in the light and warmth of his enlightened soul.

Slowly, very slowly, he ended their kiss, stepped back, and released her. She stood still, lifted her hand to her tingling lips and stared up at him. What could she say? Nothing. What could she do to convince herself and him that they didn’t belong together? They couldn’t belong together.

How could she manage to balance her life with him in it? Pulling away, she stared up into his silver eyes and knew she would find a way. She must. Now that she had shared a kiss with him, Jasmine knew there was no Jasmine without Ryuu. She only hoped there was no Ryuu without Jasmine. She needed to know that if she committed to be with him, that he would stay with her. Becoming a divorce statistic was out of the question.

Ryuu reached up and brushed her tears away with his thumbs. “What is wrong, little one?”

“I can’t become attached to you. I just can’t.” Jasmine averted her eyes. She didn’t want to see the confusion or pain in his eyes when she refused him. She
must
refuse him. She was weak and becoming weaker by the moment, where he was concerned. What she needed was a way to get away from him where she could gather her wits and regain her perspective. Refusing him was something she knew she
must
do, no matter how much it hurt to do so.

Taking a deep breath, Jasmine straightened her spine and braced herself as she prepared to refuse his suit. “I refuse you, Spirit Dragon. I refuse your suit and the blending of our souls.”

It almost killed her to say the words, but she could never align herself with him. She would always wonder if she accepted him because her heart told her it was the right thing to do or because she chose to use him to see her parents again.

Jasmine knew she would never be able to live with herself if she bound herself to him for the wrong reasons. Love was precious. She knew that. Jasmine also knew that it was fragile and she would never regain his trust if he should find out she accepted him for anything other than a heart-felt commitment. Right now, she didn’t feel that. How could she? She barely knew the man.

Ryuu stared at Jasmine for a moment, speechless. He had expected her resistance, especially since she kept insisting he was dead. However, he never expected an outright refusal after their heated kiss. She felt something. He knew it.

Hers wasn’t the typical reaction. That much was certain.

Usually, even the most recalcitrant of brides accepted a dragon’s suit after they shared a kiss. A kiss proved a match by sharing emotions, memories, hopes, and dreams with a prospective mate. Once the person in question shared the dragon’s deep-seated loneliness and honor, they almost always capitulated. Almost.

Jasmine’s refusal nearly brought Ryuu to his knees. Pain like no other sliced through his chest and he wondered if he could survive much longer. How could he continue on alone when he knew he had a mate and she had found him lacking?

He could do or say nothing to change her mind. If sharing all that he was, his very essence with her didn’t convince her they belonged together, nothing would.

“Why do you refuse me?” He wanted to know. He
had
to know. What was it about him that drove her away?

Jasmine didn’t meet his gaze. Instead, she turned around and looked out over the cliff to the sea. Waves washed the shore, removing the birds’ footprints as they scuttled through the surf looking for their next meal. It was like the washing away of sins. If only something could remove
his
sins so easily. If only
he
could get a clean slate.

He wanted to grab her by the shoulders, turn her around, and shake the answer out of her, but he wasn’t a violent man. Not towards women, at any rate. Instead, he sighed and moved away. “There are no human remains here on this island. Perhaps I could convince you to stay here for a time. Perchance, get some rest before you return to Scotland and the strain of reanimating corpses.”

Maybe, just maybe, if he could convince her to stay here with him for a time, she could learn to accept him. What if she simply needed a few days to come to terms with the fact she had a dragon mate?

“That would be nice.” She sighed as she looked out over the incredible blue water that surrounded his island. “It’s been at least a month since I was able to walk about without the fear of something or someone dead following me.”

“Please do not misunderstand me. There are plenty of animals here. There are just no humans.”

“Animals don’t bother me so much.” She waved her hands as though in dismissal. “Animals want nothing from me. They don’t realize I’m the catalyst of their rising and they certainly don’t want to eat my brains.” She bit her lip and gave him a sheepish grin. “At least they haven’t so far.”

“Then will you accompany me to my lair? I apologize that we must enter through a cave high up on the mountain. That and another even higher up the mountainside is the only two entrances to the cave. It is more to keep the wildlife out, than to keep my mate, or others in,” he hurried to add at her look of censure. “

“Can I find my way to the exit without your help?”

“Yes,” he hesitated to answer further. “However, you will not be able to climb down from the ledge.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” She shrugged. “I can get claustrophobic on occasion and I just wanted to know I could get out and see the sun anytime I wished.”

“Any lair I have would afford you that comfort. You merely need ask for its addition.”

Jasmine turned to face him. “You would do that for me?”

“I would do so for my mate.”

He hated putting stipulations on something so simple, but why alter his lair if it wasn’t needed? His mate’s comfort was the only reason. If she refused him, there would be no reason to make the changes.

Still, he itched to do so now. Even if it was just to prove he
could
change. That he could do as she asked and not treat her as a possession, but as an equal. As a witch, she was more an equal to him than a full-blood human woman, yet, a human would have been just as welcome as his mate.

“Where is your lair?” She turned inland to look up at the closest peak. “Is it up there?”

“No.” He turned her to the right, stepped closer and pointed to a peak in the distance. “That mountain houses my lair.”

“Why is this one so far away from civilization?”

“After I walk through the shadow realm, I need to rest. This is easily defended and it is quiet here. I love the sound of the surf rushing over the sand. The sound echoes through the caves during high tide when the water fills the lower reaches of the caverns.”

“It sounds beautiful.”

“It is not nearly as beautiful as you.”

“Please don’t, Ryuu.” Jasmine cast her gaze down toward her feet. “I want to be what you need, but I can’t.”

“Why? Please tell me why you cannot accept my proposal.”

“Can’t you see?” She turned to him, her eyes filled with so much sorrow, he wanted to pull her to him and tell her everything would be okay, but he didn’t have the right. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.

“No, I cannot. You tell me you can’t accept my offer of love, of protection. Yet, you do not tell me why. You have tied my hands. I cannot claim you as I wish because you refuse. I cannot comfort you as my mind tells me I must because you refuse. And still, you decline to share your reasons with me so that I might find a way to prove to you we belong together.”

“I can’t accept because you wouldn’t know if I accepted because I am truly your mate or because I want you to take me to the spirit realm to visit my parents, to help me find a way to bring them back to us.” She found a tree growing sideways as it reached for the sun and sat down on it, resting her head in her hands. “Most importantly,
I
wouldn’t know. I can’t live the rest of my life wondering if I mated with you because I wanted to see my dead parents again. I wish my mother were here. She would know what to do.”

“What if I go find her in the spirit realm and ask her on your behalf? Would you trust me to tell you the truth?”

“I—I don’t know.”

Ryuu stared at her for a few moments. “That isn’t the only reason, is it?”

She shook her head. “No. But it’s the most important one.” Reaching up, she wiped the tears from her eyes.

He couldn’t stand to see her cry. Like all dragons, he felt a primal need to see to his mate’s happiness, yet she had tied his hands. He could do nothing unless she trusted him to relay a message from beyond. He couldn’t take her with him until they bound together. Otherwise, he took the chance of losing her on the other side.

Mind made up, Ryuu concentrated on his dragon. Iridescent scales covered his body as his bones popped and cracked, changing him from a human to his dragon. He saw the surprise on her face when he grabbed her, jumped into the air, and flew through the sky toward his lair.

I
must
see
you
protected
before
I
leave.
When
I
do
so,
I
will
be
gone
no
more
than
five
hours.
There
will
be
plenty
of
water
in
the
lair,
but
there
will
be
no
food.
Do
not
fear.
I
will
return
in
time
to
see
to
your
needs
before
your
hunger
becomes
more
than
a
nuisance.

“Where are you going?”

I
will
go
into
the
spirit
realm
where
I
will
find
your
parents,
ask
them
their
advice
and
have
them
tell
me
something
about
you
that
only
they
would
know.

“What will I do while you’re gone? I’ll be bored to death.”

There
are
books
aplenty
in
my
lair,
certainly
enough
to
keep
you
busy
for
five
hours.
He didn’t mention the ancient text she couldn’t read, the gold she could bathe in should she wish or the gemstones in the walls that had him mesmerized for hours when he first found the cave. There was also the pool of warm water where she could bathe and another pool of cool water where she could swim if she so desired.

His lair might be on a deserted island, but he did everything he could to prepare it for the woman he loved. He could only hope Jasmine learned to adore the cavern as much as he did. It would go a long way toward gaining her approval.