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Chapter 6.
KATERINA
“Miss Kat! Miss Kat!” One of my students ran over holding up her latest drawing of... a bear?I think that’s what it was supposed to be.“I made this for you!”
“It’s beautiful,” I said, taking the drawing and setting it on my desk. “I especially love your use of purple and blue. Did you know those were my two favorite colors?”
The little girl nodded enthusiastically. “I hope you feel happier soon!”
“I’m very happy,” I said, meaning it for the moment.
All of my kindergarteners made life a million times better for me. I loved them so much. Even when they acted out and frustrated me to tears, I wouldn’t have traded them for any other job. There was alwayssomethingto smile about.
“Okay,” the girl said and shrugged, almost like she didn’t believe me.
Kids had a way of being able to read me better than most adults. They were also far more honest and braver than anyone gave them credit for. I’d never tell her just how much happier her noticing my sadness made me feel.
I looked at the clock. “All right, class, it’s time to start cleaning up so we can get ready to go home!”
The kids all excitedly cleaned up their tables. I shared their excitement. So much so, that I opted to bring all my work back home with me to do there rather than stay at the school for my usual extra two hours.
I loved my job, but was exhausted at the moment. Ever since my adventure over the veil, I hadn’t been myself. My body just wasn’t as energetic as it used to be, and I’d wondered—several times—if maybe the magic messed me up somehow. Was that possible? I was an ordinary human, after all. I didn’t belong over there. What if my molecules scrambled every time I crossed over? Was that why I felt like death warmed over every morning? Like I could never get enough sleep.
The exhaustion was more than physical. It was mental, too. My mind kept wandering back to the night of the wedding, the night I’d spent with Lucian. Not just the incredible sex we’d had, but all the subtler ways he’d expressed his desire for me. The gaze across the room, the hands catching me as I almost fell, the smile...oh, the smile. All of those moments haunted me like a ghost with unfinished business.
Then I’d remember the huge dragon, and how scared I’d been. And the fact that he’d left me and hadn’t so much as tried to make contact with me since then. It had been more than two weeks. If we were supposed to be together, where was he?
Then I would remember that this was why I’d left. I couldn’t deal with the emotional rollercoaster.
I drove home early, glad it was Friday and the weekend was around the corner. I’d have a couple of days to re-group and eat a pint of ice cream...or three. Maybe. That was how I’d normally comfort myself after a difficult week, yet even the thought of my beloved Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough left me feeling nauseous. Sad!
In short, I was a hot mess, and the stress was taking its toll. Even my period was late in protest. That only freaked me out...a little...okay, more than a little. I wouldn’t jump to conclusions until more time had passed. Periods could be late for all kinds of reasons, not just because I’d had unprotected sex with a dragon.
I shook the idea out of my head. Nope, not going to doom spiral over a “what if”.
And I hated that I’d let myself get so emotionally crazed over a one-night stand. I went into his room with the intention of just enjoying myself. One night of hot passion and then letting him go, because he’dwantto be set free. With that expectation, I shouldn’t have ended up getting hurt!
He just had to be a freaking dragon, didn’t he?
Fated soulmate business aside, just the fact that he was a shifter blew my mind several times over. I’d grown up not believing in much beyond what I could observe.
If I could see it, taste it, touch it, and so on, then I knew it was real and true. It would make sense. Men shifting into dragons? That was harder to pull into my sphere of logic.
But I’d seen it with my own eyes. I’d heard his roar. Felt the scales on Damon’s back. So my five senses were backing up the truth—dragons were real.
I walked into my house and did the first thing I did every day when I got home from work—checked in on my sick father. Part of the reason I lived away from Nadia and Sarah was so that I could take care of him. As the oldest, that fell on me. Okay, it was also something I chose. My sisters did not need to help shoulder the burden. I handled it all fine on my own.
