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8
Olive
On my walk to work the next morning, I tried to see if I could sense him.
Nothing.
Maybe it really was all bullshit.
I started my shift without interruption, but I couldn’t stop my eyes darting to the door every time it opened. When was he going to stop in?
Around eight in the morning, I set aside the prettiest pastry I had made. Still nothing.
By the time ten rolled around, he still wasn’t back. I could feel my cheeks heating up as I denied anything was wrong to my coworkers.
The reality was now plain as day: he was just some crazy dragon shifter, and I’d let him carry me around because he was attractive. That was way too dangerous. Dragon shifters were known for jumping to violence quickly.
What if he’d attacked me? I couldn’t have done anything to protect myself.
At least he was cute. He had an assertive strength about him that revved my engines. I caught myself looking for him while I walked home, but I couldn’t sense or see him anywhere.
The next day was the same story.
I kept finding myself looking for him, but he was nowhere to be seen and I was left feeling foolish.
On the third day, I started to wonder if I’d just made the whole thing up, but his footprints were still visible in the dirt of the backyard where we landed.
He was real.
I’d just managed to question him enough that he didn’t want to see me anymore.
Guilt rolled in my stomach.
What if he really was my fated mate? We hit it off so quickly, so vividly, that it felt like that could have been possible. I arrived back at noon on the third day and headed straight for my old laptop. I needed to find out whatever I could.
I wasn’t sure what to search, but I knew if a small kingdom existed, there would be a paper trail.
“Kingdom near Ember Abyss” didn’t bring anything up. I tried to search his name, but again, nothing. It was crazy—like he was never born. Running out of searches, I put in “dragon shifter kingdom,” hoping that it would help.
It did. Tons of results poured in, from children’s books to conspiracy theories, about a hidden dragon kingdom. My heart pounded loudly in my chest as I skimmed through document after document to find anything.
Eventually, I came across a message board that was six years old.
“It’s gotta be in Ember Abyss, those woods have been haunted since the burning,” one commenter said.
“Agreed, but I’m not going out there to find them. Hundreds of dragon shifters with old-school values seeing you as a threat? No thanks fam haha.”
“Placing my bets now!”
And then there were maps and maps of the Ember Abyss area, with circles guessing where it had to be.
It felt right. As I kept scrolling, I found a user had uploaded a blurry sketch of a spiraling dragon. “The crest of Everglast” was all the post read, and most people had looked over it.
There it was.
The tattoo that I had seen writhing and moving on Lerin’s chest.
I’d met a prince of a small mythic kingdom, and not only had I told him I didn’t believe him, but I’d also ignored him to the point that he probably wasn’t coming back.
Slumping down in my chair, I traced the design with my fingertips.
It was beautiful.
If he didn’t come back, I wasn’t sure what I’d do.
