Fighting For Her Dragon by Julia Mills Page A

her hand sweep across his chest. It was as if now that she’d touched him, she was able to break the connection. She grinned at herself, thinking that once upon a time she’d pictured him as a smaller, scrawnier version of his brothers, which she now knew couldn’t be further from the truth.
    Her fingers began to trace the tattoos that covered almost every millimeter of his arm. They were unique and beautiful and appeared to have been burnt into his skin. Her head popped up as she looked at Devon’s arms and then asked, “None of you have tats or markings on your arms that are not part of your dragons, do you?”
    “No, we don’t.”
    Leaning forward, she closely examined an especially dark glyph that took up most of Andrew’s forearm. It looked like two infinite symbols perpendicularly intersecting one another to form a cross, with a band of interlocking Celtic knots forming a circle around the edge touching the four tips. In the center with the tip pointing north, was the symbol of the warrior arrow. There was power emanating from the marking that made the hairs on her arms stand on end.
    “Come, look at this.”
    She held up Andrew’s arm as Devon approached and waited while the Guardsman examined the marking. “I’m sure this symbol means the balance between two opposing forces, but we really should ask Mom to be sure.”
    “Ask me what?” Siobhan appeared in the room carrying several large tomes, which Devon rushed to take from her.
    “Can you look at this symbol, please?” Emma asked. “I would swear I can feel it.”
    As Siobhan made her way to Emma’s side, she slid her reading glasses from her head to the bridge of her nose, while calling over her shoulder, “Son, please put those books on the table at the back of the room.”
    Thoroughly hugging Emma and then holding her at arm’s length to look her over from head to toe, Siobhan smiled that motherly expression the younger woman had come to depend on after so many years in the lair. When she spoke, Emma could feel waves of love and comfort rolling over her. “How are you, my dear? Really?”
    “I’m good…really.”
    “Then I have to ask what are you doing here?” Siobhan asked with a suspicious tone.
    “Well, let’s see: he was my mate, I never met him in person, I shared the most intense pain of both our lives with him, I felt him die, and…Oh, yeah! Sydney says she can hear him talking and I feel like he’s just this far,” she held her thumb and forefinger about an inch from one another and put it right in front of the Elder Healer’s face to make sure she saw it before continuing, “from me every second of every day. I came here to see you and happened upon a conversation I was obviously not supposed to hear. After bullying Devon,” she winked over her shoulder, “he explained the whole ‘poof into oblivion thing’ that was supposed to happen with Andrew’s body but didn’t, and then brought me here to see for myself.”
    Emma took a breath and stood staring at Siobhan, daring her to say another word. She knew her actions were out of character, but her ‘family’ had been keeping things from her and were trying to baby her, and those were two things that she could not have if she was going to get the answers she wanted…needed…deserved. 
    “I see,” was all Siobhan said before turning to examine the symbol.
    “Devon said he thought it meant the balance between two opposing forces. What do you think?”
    “Devon is correct,” she answered without looking up. “I can also feel power running through it. Just another anomaly of his death.” Straightening up, Siobhan looked down at Andrew and then reached forward and moved a wayward stand of hair from his forehead. Emma saw the same sadness she felt reflected in the Healer’s face, and felt bad for the way she’d spoken to her. But that quickly evaporated.
    The words, “It is too late to worry with a man that was just not good enough for you. He is gone now.