Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 77127 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77127 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Shoot.
How had I ended up with a mate who meant what they said?
“Daddy?” Deciding to bite the bullet and at least try, I waited until he made a humming sound of acknowledgment and I heard him put the mug back down again before I snuggled closer.
I ended up with my head on his thigh and didn’t get splashed with coffee, so I focused on doing a good job and not what I was going to say. “I didn’t know I had a mate waiting for me, so I dated before I met you.”
It shouldn’t have been a surprise, but I was glad when he made a casual sound and kept rubbing me. “Being human, I think that’s more than reasonable, and honestly, most dragons and mages date and have other relationships before they meet their mates.”
He was so relaxed, I asked a question I’d been thinking about for a while. “Why? I didn’t ask my friends because it seemed rude? Mean, maybe? Judgy, definitely. But why? If I’d known the ancestors would give me a mate, wouldn’t I have waited?”
It was a weirdly worded question, but he didn’t point that out.
“Some people, dragons especially for some reason, do wait for their mates without getting serious or even dating anyone else. From what my grandparents said, mates used to show up earlier in life, so that made sense. It also might be cultural? I’m not sure how it was here, but for a while, I met people who never found their mate.”
“Here too, but now it seems like mates are popping up left and right.” Happy mates were jumping around like popcorn and there was a baby boom going on too. I knew several dragon women through work who were over the moon happy to be pregnant.
“That’s great.” He chuckled as his hand moved down to stroke my back. “But there’s always been a variety of types of bonding. Some people get smacked in the face like those fated mate books Erin reads and sometimes it grows slowly. If you didn’t date the people you were drawn to, you might miss your mate.”
Oh.
“That sounds stressful.” And slightly confusing. “I think I might be glad I didn’t know you were out there. Is that weird?”
“No.” He made another happy, rumbly sound and squeezed my shoulder. “But it can take a while for people to sort out desire and excitement from a growing bond. That’s why most communities I’ve heard of don’t push the wait for your mate mentality. There are probably some out there, but even when I was driving to find you, I never met any current communities that did that.”
“Did you see a lot of towns like ours as you drove down?” My question got a snicker out of Grady.
“Your town is unique, baby boy, but I did find some other towns with a lot of dragons and mages and even ended up staying at the farm of a nice mage family for a couple of days as I waited for a part.” Daddy groaned and was adorably dramatic. “Water pump issues but it was in the middle of nowhere and I had to wait for the part to get mailed to me.”
He finally sounded frustrated and I thought it was cute that my drama was something he could be relaxed about but car parts made him crazy.
“I’m glad you found other dragons and mages.” Snuggling closer, I told myself not to relax too much even if it sounded like a really good idea. “I know there are large towns with mages and dragons in Scotland and another big community in upstate New York, but the smaller areas where dragons settled aren’t something I’ve thought about.”
Maybe Daddy should give some notes to Boyd to make sure the council knew where they were?
“Keeping better track of where everyone is might be a good idea, but we’ll think about nagging someone like Boyd to do that later.” Daddy having the same idea made me want to laugh as I nodded. “Yeah, I thought he’d be good at that.”
Daddy was smart.
And had a good memory.
“But it sounds like you didn’t meet the nicest people when you were dating.” He gave a silly, dramatic sigh. “Or while you’d spelled me with a compulsion to get off my ass and come find you.”
I wasn’t sure we needed to rehash that clusterfuck, so I focused on the first part, which should’ve been more stressful.
It wasn’t.
“No, I met a few nice guys but they were never Daddies and usually not Doms. I met a few dragons and mages that were in the lifestyle in different ways but we never clicked in that mate bond kind of way, so we didn’t even go out to dinner.” That’d been frustrating at the time, but I couldn’t imagine life without Grady.