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A Dragon's Heart – Chapter 15

Mikan was nothing like her cousin Sumire; she had absolutely no skill in flirting. One would think that a reasonably attractive woman of nineteen years would have some understanding of how to attract the opposite sex but they would learn differently if they had met her. She may be a dragon, but she didn't have anywhere near the boldness or sexual self-confidence of her grandmother, aunts, or cousins.

Sumire could stride into a nightclub full of strangers and have ten guys on her in seconds. Fifteen minutes later she would have weeded those men out (and any others that followed) to her choice of the night and be pressed tightly against him on the dance floor. Every second from the moment she walked in straight down to whether or not she left with the man later were completely in her control. Mikan was like the antithesis of that, she always felt out of control and awkward around men.

It wasn't that men had not tried to pick her up before. That was hardly the problem. In school there were several boys that had made efforts to get closer to her, but she had never been able to feel comfortable around human boys. She had made a few feeble attempts at dating when she was younger, but most times she would play ignorant to their advances. Sooner or later most would all get the hint and they would pursue someone else. Her luck was even worse with mystical creatures.

Her first and only crush was a young mage named Kaname who also happened to be Tsubasa's best friend while he was in school. Mikan could still clearly remember following the pair of them around everywhere until Tsubasa was ready to pull his hair out. As a mage, Kaname must have been bothered by Mikan's nullification problem, but he never once made her feel like a freak. He was always kind and sweet to her.

Gods, she didn't know if she should laugh or cringe whenever she remembered her first attempt at confessing to him. It was during her twelfth birthday party and she was getting ready to blow out the candles on her cake. Her grandmother told her to make her wish, at which point she bluntly told everyone at the table that her wish was to spend all day eating her favorite candy howalon with Kaname. How embarrassing.

Her experience with dragons, especially air dragons was the worst. When she was little all they wanted was to be as far away from her as possible, but when she started to develop as a woman things changed. Their interest in her was something out of a nightmare. They would both want her while hating her at the same time. Hate combined with dragon lust would quickly evolve into something monstrous. Their desire to bed her was not only a physical need. It was a means to establish their supreme dominance over her and put her in her place. It was a way for them to show they were stronger than her and not the least bit cowed by her nullification power. She had come frighteningly close to being raped more than once in her early stages of puberty.

Thankfully, her uncles and grandfather quickly picked up on the signs and started keeping closer tabs on her. They took it upon themselves to scare away unwanted pests.

Tsubasa was surely going to kill her when he saw her next. He was the one who had been elected to keep an eye on her during summer break while everyone went to visit Loch Ness in Scotland. Poor Tsubasa, it was a bit unfair of Mikan to use Tsubasa's current situation with Misaki against him. He was trying so hard to court the woman that it was too easy for Mikan to take advantage of his distraction. He was going to strangle her for sure when he saw her.

It also did not help that her family told her in no uncertain terms that she was absolutely not to go to Japan. They were well aware of the unsteady supernatural political atmosphere and refused to go or let her go anywhere near it.

Well, she wasn't a child anymore. She could take care of herself and she had to do this.

She just did not expect someone like Natsume to be here.

He was full of contradictions. He was extremely strong, but she could feel his vulnerability underneath that strength. He was confident while still being so unsure of himself. There were times when he was rude and abrasive while being gentle and sweet at the same time.

There were certainly no contradictions about how attractive he was. Normally men like him were not her type. She preferred fairer men, the handsome, storybook, prince charming type. The kind that was as pretty, if not more pretty, than she was. The dark, brooding, bad-boy stereotype was never really something that interested her, but still she could not deny that he had an effect on her.

And she had an effect on him. She could feel his interest as surely as if he had spoken it out loud and it was getting more and more distracting.

She came to Japan to find out what had happened to the sea dragon families here. More specifically, to find out what had happened to her mother's family. Dozens of sea dragons don't just disappear into nothing and it was only a matter of time before someone from her family showed up to drag her back home. She didn't really have the spare time to be going all starry-eyed over a guy no matter how good-looking he was.

Not that it seemed to be stopping her from doing so. Denying her attraction to him was like trying to deny gravity. She could fight and resist all she wanted, but she was still being pulled in.

And then he went and said he wasn't afraid of her. Gods, that one little statement almost undid her. She had never realized that she had been waiting to hear those words until she heard them and her whole world felt like it tilted on her. Just one little sentence said with complete honesty and she was caught.

It still did not make what she was doing in Japan any less important, but maybe, just for today, maybe she could pretend that she was just a normal girl on a normal date and just enjoy herself.

The pair of them had left the café and had started walking the streets of the festival once again. Mikan had finally given into the urge she had been having all day to loop her arms around one of his and she could tell he liked the contact even if he did not show it.

It was an annoying truth that she lacked any talent for flirting and playing coy so she didn't even try. She probably would not have any other dating opportunities so the last thing she needed was to ruin it by advertising her limited experience with men. By her way of thinking, she might as well relax and just be herself. She might still make a fool of herself, but she was damn well not going to do it while acting like something she was not which she knew would be a sure way to disaster.

Up ahead she spotted Luka and Aoi with Youichi looking every inch the happy family. Mikan was not sure if it was a trick of the early evening light, but there seemed to be a tension between the young lovers. The tension thrummed in discordant harmony to the obviously loving aura around them.

"Natsume?" she called, breaking the moment of comfortable silence between them.

"Hmm?"

"Is there some sort of problem with your brother and sister?" she asked. She was so busy looking at the young couple trying to pin down the odd feeling from them, that she did not even consider if her question was inappropriately nosy or not.

Her date stopped moving and turned to look at her. When she did not return his look, he followed the line of her vision. Natsume said nothing, but she could feel the sadness in him when he looked at the pair.

"Luka is a draman." He said quietly as if that could explain everything. Which it did.

It took Mikan only a moment to process this information. She was well versed in dragon prejudice having experienced it firsthand. "I see." She said sympathetically.

They were a pair of star crossed lovers if she ever saw one. If they wanted to be together they would have to leave Natsume and the clan. Mikan gave Natsume a look and could tell he knew it as well and was suffering for it. If he wanted the couple to be happy he would have to eventually let them go. "Do you want to talk about it?" she asked quietly.

She felt the painful ache and loneliness from him and an ear and a shoulder to cry on were the only things she could think to offer him. Sometimes a wound needed to bleed freely in order to heal better.

The red dragon let out a quiet sigh and began walking in a direction away from most of the crowds.

"My mother was the king's only red offspring. His mate had died shortly after childbirth, and when he took a black dragon as a mistress, she bore him my uncle Serio who is black as well. My grandfather was very proud of our strong lineage, so it was a bit of an insult to only have a red female as his only potential heir."

Mikan nodded to show she was listening, but did not say anything for fear that he would not be able to say what he needed to say.

"The big problem with my mother was that her true mate was a bronze with a kind nature and no political ambitions. Kaitou Hyuuga was everything the king did not want in a son-in-law. So naturally, he had to interfere. He had set up a dragon equivalent to an arranged marriage. Our biological father was a gold dragon from Europe that the king had frequent business dealings with. It was a mating that my mother had no intentions of going through with. One night, she had planned to meet up with Hyuuga and convince him to run away with her when something happened to cause her to black out."

Mikan could feel the ominous foreboding in him and had the feeling that he had his suspicions as to how his mother blacked out that night. She figured if he ever had any proof to support those suspicions, he would be instantly challenging the king. She also noticed that he never mentioned the name of the dragon that sired him.

"She woke up the next morning naked and in bed with the gold." He spat out bitterly and Mikan winced in sympathy. It took a moment for Natsume to continue and when he did, it was with a laugh that had no humor in it.

"According to the rumors, my mother went completely bat-shit crazy when she woke up that morning. She transformed right there in the room, totally demolishing the walls and roof of the house and killing the gold while he was still half asleep in his human form. I, of course came along nine months later." The words were said with such blandness that a normal person might think he didn't care either way about his birth. Because Mikan could feel his energy and emotions stinging her like nettles all over her skin, she knew how much he resented being conceived in such a way.

"About a year after I was born, Luka's mother showed up with Luka in tow looking for him and for some reason, they chose to stay even after they found out he was dead." At this point, Natsume gave her a small, but genuine smile. She wondered if his siblings ever knew how much he loved them.

"Luka and I were almost inseparable from the moment we met. We got into everything together. The only thing that ever came between us was Aoi." At this point his tiny smile turned rueful. "Luka adored her from the moment she was born. He was always trying to include her in whatever we did, while I, being a typical big brother, did not want her anywhere near us to slow us down. We got into a few fights over her until he hit about thirteen when he started to act differently around her."

Yeah, Mikan could just guess what happened. It sounded very much like the way she was with Tsubasa and Kaname. She could just imagine a thirteen year old Luka looking at a young Aoi and being confused about his feelings.

"At the time I was distracted, because our mother had passed away the year before, so I did not notice his awkwardness around her at first. In fact I don't think I really clued in to his feelings until I had my first concubine visit at sixteen." He said more to himself than to her.

Ugh… sixteen huh? I could have lived without knowing that little nugget of information. She thought testily to herself. It was irrational for her to be annoyed with some faceless woman for having slept with him, but it annoyed her nonetheless. Natsume must have felt something from her because he paused in his gait to look at her. The look he gave her was quite amused, with one eyebrow raised and she couldn't help feeling a little ridiculous and looked away in embarrassment.

"Anyway," he said, and continued walking. "That is the story of Luka and Aoi. They are true mates and have been since we were babies, but as things stand they can't be together."

A true mate. The one you were born to love and would continue to love not only in this life, but past death into the afterlife on the forever plains. It wasn't a myth, she had seen the proof of it herself whenever she looked at her grandparents. According to them, her parents also had that kind of bond as well. What would it be like to wake up next to someone and feel complete and whole? To find the one thing you didn't know was missing in your life?

She flicked a glance at Natsume and looked quickly away. No Mikan, no. Way wrong time. Way wrong place. A gorgeous hunk of man does not mean true love no matter what Sumire says.

Natsume and Mikan had been walking aimlessly for a while now and it had gotten dark. She was just about to suggest that they find the others to leave when the night sky lit up. Bright blossoms popped and zinged across the sky causing her to stop where she was and watch with glee.

She had always liked fireworks. There was something about them that always made her happy. They lived such a brief life, but they affected her long after they died. She watched in amazement as sparkles of purple and green mixed with red and gold. She let out a carefree laugh and turned to her date to see what he thought. She was surprised to find he wasn't looking at the light show. He was looking at her and his eyes were filled with a heat that rippled right through her energy causing her to shiver.

Natsume cupped her face with his palms and leaned in to her. His movements were extremely slow, giving her plenty of time to bolt if she wanted to, but at the moment, she was not inclined to leave. The corner of his mouth hitched up a bit when he acknowledged that she wasn't going to run off. She felt a small flare of anticipation from him before his lips pressed against hers.

Oh gods, she had almost been hoping that she had imagined how good a kisser he was. Not that she had anything good to compare it to. There were a few clumsy attempts from human boys but nothing special. Natsume however, was every bit and better than she remembered. It was almost like its own firecracker the way it sent shivering heat down her spine and then blossomed out to the tips of her fingers and toes.

Throwing caution and her mission in Japan to the wind, she looped her arms around his neck and parted her lips in invitation. She tunneled the fingers of one hand through his soft black hair, while the other one hung on to his broad shoulders for support since her knees did not want to work properly.

Natsume felt her enthusiastic response and let out a deep hungry growl into her mouth. His magical energy was mingling with hers causing his lust to invade her senses making her head spin faster. She was completely oblivious to the crowds or the city around her. Her only reality was him and what he was doing to her.

Eventually, Natsume pulled back from her. "Spend the night with me." He whispered. His voice was raspy with lust and Mikan could not tell if he was ordering her or pleading with her.

"I… can't." she told him reluctantly. It was the first time in her life she felt misgivings about rejecting a man. Instantly she felt Natsume's energy pull back from hers and she wanted to protest at the sudden loss, but she didn't.

Natsume leaned his forehead against hers. "You want me. I know you do. And you know I want you, why are you fighting what we both want?" he grated out a bit too harshly. She could almost taste his frustration.

The last thing Mikan wanted to do right then was leave the warmth of his body but she did it anyways. If she didn't, she knew she most likely would have made a very stupid mistake. "I have my reasons." She told him while pulling away. She felt terribly cold away from him, despite the warm summer night.

Before Natsume let her go, he gave her a warning. "This isn't over between us." He told her in a tone heavy with promises and Mikan had a bad feeling he was very right.

tbc

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Whew! Their date is finally done! It is quite late at night and I hope there aren't too many errors. If there are I am very sorry. The chapter is also bit short and for that I am also sorry. The next chapter will feature Natsume and Mikan in dragon form so I wanted to separate it from their date. I hope it will be a fun change of pace for everyone.