Breath of Flame and Shadow Read Online Free Page B

some pretty eager humans down there if you know where to look. Just be careful because those resorts are a favorite spot for unmated dragons to visit, too.”
    “If you two were free, is that where you would go?”
    Zak and Darius shared a look. With a slow smile, Darius shook his head. “If we were truly free, there’s a female dragon we’d mate. She’s a lot like you, as a matter of fact. She visits here sometimes.”
    “Why is it so wrong for two dragons to be together out there? You two are together here, aren’t you?”
    Zak replied, “We’re males, and forbidden to mate or breed unless the Council sanctions it. They do use us as breeding stock if it suits them, but the law is the way it is to prevent inbreeding. Except we both know there’s a growing population of hidden purebreds like yourself who are clearly not inbred. Which just proves that we are capable of policing ourselves, keeping our bloodlines varied enough to prevent mutations. No, in here we just use each other for sex.”
    Rowan decided she liked the easy honesty of the two men, and regretted her own conflict over helping them. She decided that once she replenished she would fly back to San Diego and find Kol and offer to help. She’d have to face her issues with Rafe at some point anyway.
    “The female you love, she isn’t a purebred, I take it?”
    “No, if she were she’d be in here with us.”
    “Jesus. ‘In here’ makes it sound like a prison. This place is beautiful.”
    “A gilded cage. At least we get conjugal visits.”
    “Does she visit often?” Rowan suddenly had a slew of questions she’d never even considered that popped into her head all at once. When the men both burst out into uncontrollable laughter she stared at them. “What is it?”
    “We can hear your thoughts clear as day. Who was the fool who released your binding?”
    “He was a…a dragon named Rafe.” Darius’s brows drew together and Zak grunted, but Rowan plowed on. She needed this. She needed to let go of these awful feelings if she intended to go back and actually try to help them. “He was sweet, really. But he lied to me. That’s really all there is to it.”
    “He’s a Shadow. Their MO is subterfuge. I doubt he kept the details from you to hurt you.”
    “Then why? Why can he be so perfect one minute and then lie? I mean, we broke his bed. Two dragons screwing are too much for a piece of furniture that old. And he didn’t care. He just…” She couldn’t help but smile at the memory. “He just made love to me again.”
    “You’re a dragon.” The pair of them said it in unison, like it was supposed to clear everything up.
    “So what?” she yelled back. “I fell in love with the bastard. I don’t fall in love . And then he…said he only wanted me because I’m pure. Because he wants to breed with me.”
    The worst part, that she couldn’t even bring herself to say out loud, was the stark denial that had erupted from Rafe’s mouth when Kol asked him, point blank, if he was in love with her. He’d said no. There she’d been in the dark, listening, after two days of falling in love for the first time in her life and on the verge of telling him as much. But when confronted with the question, he had said no .
    She didn’t mean to cry, and it was entirely unlike her. The overwhelming flood of emotions was just too strong to hold back. She abstractly wished she’d spent more time crying when she was younger. She’d at least have been prepared for this. But her childhood hadn’t had room for crying. She collapsed even further into a blubbering mess at that thought, unable to contain it after all the running she’d done from precisely this reaction, and not just her reaction to Rafe, but her reaction to her entire fucked up life. Oh, God, it was all the same, wasn’t it? He was her life. He represented every little rejection she’d ever felt, every endeavor she’d tried and been shot down from. She’d risen stronger from all of