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I wasn’t sure he was wrong. Kaitlyn certainly seemed to have taken to him much more than me. At least, that was how it felt. Again, I had the absurd sensation of being jealous of myself—jealous of the other half of me. Why could Kaitlyn so easily accept a ten-ton beast with scales and talons who breathed fire than a male in human form who only wanted to hold and love her?
“Oh, son…” My mother had been sitting on one of her pink chaises and watching me pace. “I take it she wasn’t happy with running away in the middle of the night?”
“No.” I shook my head. “She wanted to stay and tell everyone the Blind Crone was lying or mistaken.”
“Heavens forbid!” My mother looked at me anxiously. “The people would as soon hear that the sun wasn’t real!”
She had a point. The Blind Crone had been the closest thing we had to a priestess here in the Royal Court. She had made so many predictions over the years and not a single one had ever been wrong. She was so respected that my own Sire consulted her before battles with other provinces and the other royals and nobles asked her for auspicious days on which to hold celebrations like Joining ceremonies and dedications.
Had been respected, I reminded myself. She was dead now, dead after making the only wrong prediction she’d ever uttered. It was almost as though she’d been living at Court, deliberately building her flawless reputation for years all for this one moment so that everyone would believe her. And now she was gone and couldn’t take her prophecy back, even if she’d wanted to. Which I doubted—the Blind Crone had never gone back on a prediction or a seeing even once in my memory.
“Kaitlyn is angry with me, Mother,” I told her, looking up from my pacing. “She doesn’t understand about the Blind Crone’s status and she thinks…” I sighed. “Thinks this is just a way for you and my Sire to get rid of her so the Court won’t have to keep seeing her and ask questions about her scars.”
“Oh, Ari…” My mother looked truly upset at this. “Please tell her it isn’t so,” she said to me. “Though I wish your Drake would have chosen another, it isn’t because I don’t like Kaitlyn. She seems like a lovely girl and I can tell how deeply your Drake feels for her.” She sighed reminiscently. “It’s the same way your Sire’s Drake feels for me. Though my relationship with your father has endured ups and downs through the time we have been Joined, the love of his Drake has never wavered once—it’s the one true constant in my life.” She shook her head. “Sometimes I think I love your Sire’s Drake more than I love your Sire—though perhaps I shouldn’t tell you that.”
“That’s the same way Kaitlyn seems to feel about me and my Drake!” I told her earnestly. “She loves him with her whole heart but it seems she gives only half her heart to me. I’m…I’m almost jealous of him.” I scuffed the toe of my boot against the carpet, feeling ashamed to admit it.
“Don’t feel bad about your feelings, my son,” my mother said gently. She always had been able to read me and understand my emotions, even when I had a hard time speaking them aloud. “Your father struggles with the same thing,” she went on. “It’s natural. For the human part of a male—any male—can never be as constant and unwavering as his Drake. And there just seems to be an instant connection between the right woman and a male’s Drake. I can’t explain it—maybe it’s the feeling of being loved so completely and unconditionally, no matter what.”
She shook her head. “I remember that it took me a long time to believe that your father could actually care for me—a poor peasant girl who came from nothing when all around me were the fine noblewomen of the Court with their delicate white hands and refined manners who looked down on me constantly. I couldn’t understand why he would pick me over one of them. But with his Drake, well…” She shrugged. “I knew that he loved me for who I was and he didn’t care about my poor past or my rough hands, callused and scarred from doing hard labor for so many years before he plucked me out of my village and carried me off.”
“It’s like that with Kaitlyn, I think,” I said slowly. “She can’t seem to believe that I would want her despite her scars. But Mother, I don’t even see them—she’s beautiful to me. She has been from the moment my Drake chose her.”
“I know that, my son.” She smiled at me sadly. “But it may take some time for Kaitlyn to know it too—to really feel it in her bones. She’ll come to understand it at last—just be patient with her.”
