Read Bloodrunner Dragon (Harper's Mountains Book 1) for Free Online Page B

wasn’t. I should’ve used a condom every time, but I would lose my head around you. I couldn’t afford to do that. Not when every damned female dragon dies to bear young! My young.” Wyatt’s face fell, and his eyes rimmed with moisture. “She was mine, and she was going to kill you. Janey was mine, and she was the reason you were going to die.”
    Harper ran the collar of her shirt over her wet cheeks and let off a pitiful sob. “She was beautiful.”
    “Stop.”
    “You should’ve looked at her! You should’ve been in Saratoga, visiting her grave with me, but you left me alone with all that hurt. I wanted her, Wyatt. I wanted her more than anything.”
    “You were eighteen, and you were going to die for a baby.”
    “Not just a baby. Our baby. Janey was ours .” Harper rested her back against the closet door and sighed. “I might have lived. Damon picked my birth grandmother carefully, and my mom had a twenty-five-percent chance of surviving. She said my chances were better. Fifty-percent maybe.”
    Wyatt hooked his hands on his hips and shook his head, stared out the window. His jaw clenched so hard his muscles jumped there. “Fifty percent chance that I would lose you forever.”
    Harper wiped her eyes again. “No, Wyatt. A fifty percent chance that I could’ve given you everything. I keep thinking what if I’d been able to keep her. I imagine us sometimes. Up in Saratoga with Janey, happy, a family. You would be logging with one of the crews, and I would have my law practice in town, and Janey would be growing up with the other kids in Damon’s mountains. The Unrest isn’t your fault, Wyatt. It’s mine for not being able to get her to air. You gave me my treasure when I was eighteen, and I couldn’t take care of it. Couldn’t protect it. I failed us. You reacted. I forgive you for everything. I just wanted to say that before I go. I forgive you.”
    Wyatt was to her in an instant, hugging her so tight it was hard to breathe, and she didn’t even care about the discomfort. This right here, this moment, was the first thing that had felt real since the day he’d left.
    “It wasn’t your fault. You did everything right. She just wasn’t meant to be ours, Harper. God needed her more.”
    A pained keening sound wrenched up her throat as she clutched onto his shirt and dampened the fabric with her tears. “That’s all I needed to hear. That’s all. This whole time, that’s all I needed to hear from you.”
    Hugging her tighter, Wyatt’s shoulders shook, and his breath hitched. His unshaven jaw rasped roughly against her cheek as he gave her the affection she’d pined for. The affection bear shifters gave better than any other shifter. He switched sides and ran his cheek across her other one.
    Wyatt gripped the back of her head and pulled her face against his strong chest. And when he lowered his lips to her ear, he whispered salvation. “We’ve both punished ourselves for long enough. It’s through.”
    It’s through. Harper wrapped her arms around his neck and allowed him to pull her up off the ground. His words had blasted apart the big red ball of ache in her middle. She huffed a thick laugh at how relieved she felt. This…this was like flying. It was like cinder blocks being cut from her ankles and breaking the surface of the water. It was breathing again.
    She closed her eyes tightly and stroked the back of his head as her dragon let off a long, relieved rattle. One day with him, and she was practically purring. Did her forgiveness make her weak? She didn’t know. All she knew is that she’d bonded with Wyatt when she was young, and the tension of that bond had never gone away. She used to hate her dragon for holding onto him so tightly, but now Harper had to trust her. She had to. For whatever time she had left, she wanted to be happy.
    And no person on the planet had ever, or would ever, make her happier than Wyatt.

Chapter Six
     
    Wyatt slammed the ax down on another log and