Chapter 15
fifteen
AVERY
Eventually, we went back to the other side of the lake and said our goodbyes. None of my sisters’ mates tried to hug me, which seemed like a good call considering the way Talon was looking at me.
Stella had a handful of scales tucked against her bare abdomen as she padded across the sand to join us, leaving Evan on the lake’s beach. He stared at the water, not looking back.
I assumed the scales were Talon’s, and eyed them. Usually, I felt my odd possessiveness over them as soon as I saw them. Though it wasn’t truly odd, if there was magic in them that could heal me and whatnot.
No possessiveness hit.
I didn’t feel a thing.
“I thought you were done losing scales,” I murmured to Talon.
“I am.” His voice was low. Gritty. A little angry.
“Then what are…” I trailed off, watching Stella glance over her shoulder at Evan. There was something like longing in her eyes when she turned back. “Fuck.”
He clenched his jaw.
I wanted to ask what happened, but I knew she would tell me when we got back.
Talon eased his hoodie over my head, covering my body and the bikini I had on. There was a large suitcase full of warm clothes waiting nearby, and my sisters had packed it full for me. I’d go through them when we were back home.
Err, back to the castle.
Stella had a loose bag with a long loop that she’d carried her bikini in while they flew. I watched her slip her scales into it—and a moment later, watched as they cut through the fabric and fell to the sand.
She stared down at them. There were tears in her eyes, and I could tell she was fighting fiercely not to let them fall.
I slipped away from Talon and met Stella a few feet away. Everyone was watching us, but I ignored them. No one knew her except Talon and I. And apparently Evan.
I picked up the scales for her, knowing exactly how to avoid the sharp edges as I held them.
“Did you tell him?” I asked softly.
“Yeah. He doesn’t want them.”
The pain in her voice was evident, and I knew what she was really saying.
He doesn’t want me.
“It’s a lot to wrap your mind around. He’ll need time,” I said quietly. “Let me talk to him.”
Talon’s chest rumbled in warning.
Something told me he hadn’t forgotten that I said Evan was gorgeous earlier.
He was just going to have to get over it, though.
She bit her lip, but after a moment, finally jerked her head in a nod.
I crossed the sand, holding the scales carefully. They weren’t mine, but Evan was likely going to be just as attached to them as I was to Talon’s. He just didn’t know it yet.
I heard the sound of wings flapping, and a pink gleam caught my eye as Stella took to the sky. She disappeared quickly into the clouds, and I noticed Evan’s attention follow her up before he forced it back to the lake.
He wanted her.
He just didn’t want to.
I knew the feeling well.
I sat down next to him, and I’d barely held the scales out when he snatched them from my hands. The smell of his blood hit my nose sharply, but I didn’t comment on it. He’d learn that the edges were sharp on his own, if the cuts he’d just gotten hadn’t already proven it.
“The possessiveness you feel toward them is only going to get worse,” I said. “They’re yours. They always will be. It might not be ideal, but it’s the truth.”
And it applied to far more than the scales.
Whether we liked it or not, we were both fated to dragons. They belonged to us, body and soul.
“She deserves better than me,” Evan said quietly.
I knew his story.
He’d dated Kim on and off for a long, long time. She got jealous of the time he spent working with Porter after he and Izzy took over the pack, and joined her brother and a few others to threaten Izzy’s life
It hadn’t worked, and Kim had been killed along with the rest of the group for poisoning and abducting Izzy.
I nodded slowly. “Given what she’s been through, I don’t have to ask her to know that she feels exactly the same about you.”
His attention snapped toward me. “What happened?”
“It’s her story to tell.”
“Whatever it is, she’s better off without me.” He refocused on the lake.
“It doesn’t matter. You’re fated. There’s no one else for her now.”
He didn’t say anything else.
I sat with him for a minute before standing. “When you want her number, ask Porter to text Talon. She’ll be losing a lot of scales over the next few weeks, and they’re yours whether you want them or not.”
He gripped the ones I’d given him to his chest.
He did want them.
I slipped away, and found Talon waiting close by. Listening to our conversation, clearly.
I called out another goodbye to my sisters, and they echoed it as I set my hand on the dragon king’s shoulder. He shifted forms and took off quickly, and my lips stretched in a smile as the wind blew against my face.
I might not be sold on the mate thing, but man, I loved flying.
We landed on the balcony that led into Talon’s room. When I told him I was going to unpack my things and headed for his closet, he stared after me. I heard the door shut a few minutes later, when he left me.
I didn’t know where he was going.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, either.
I unpacked my things in the empty half of his closet. He’d obviously cleared it out for me. Just like he’d obviously installed a canopy for me, knowing I would eventually be sleeping in his room.
There was no way around it. Not for him.
Maybe not for me, either.
When I was done unpacking, I changed into a pair of the new clothes my sisters had bought, and sighed.
It felt good to wear things that were mine. That fit me, but were still warm enough that I wouldn’t freeze. The thick, black sweater I had on was officially my new favorite. It was soft, but crazy warm, and the thick leggings I’d paired with it looked as good as they felt.
I slipped into the kitchen and checked the cabinets and fridge, looking to see what food Talon had. Everything was basically empty. There were only a few staples, and there wasn’t a lot of anything.
Since he hadn’t been sleeping, he hadn’t been cooking for himself either. I wondered if cooking was something he did often, but wasn’t sure.
He hadn’t really told me anything about his hobbies.
Almost everything had been about me.
And that was his fault… but maybe it was a little bit mine, too.
I didn’t like the idea, but that didn’t make it any less true.
Talon stepped back into the apartment with all of my other clothes packed into the first suitcase I’d brought. Over his shoulder, there was a large black garbage bag.
I followed him into the bathroom, watching as he carefully dumped an assload of blood-coated scales into our bathtub.
My stomach clenched.
I’d lost so much blood.
He started the tub, and left again.
I followed him that time, helping him pack another load of bloody scales.
We filled two and a half more garbage bags before we were done, then finally made it back to the apartment for good. The two full bags were waiting in the bathroom for their turn to soak, when I collapsed on Talon’s bed.
Exhaustion had finally set in.
I didn’t think it was late enough to say that it was night time, but I didn’t really care. After all the healing, I was exhausted.
We had shit to talk about… but it could wait until the morning. When our minds were clearer, and I could decide what I was really going to do about the mate situation.
“Can we just pretend nothing is fucked up between us for tonight?” Talon asked, his voice low. He hadn’t dropped into bed with me. I was pretty sure he was trying to be respectful by giving me space.
“Please,” I agreed.
He made a sound of relief, and sprawled out on the bed next to me. When he pulled me to his chest, my eyes stung a little.
It felt so good.
He felt so good.
Fate must’ve been the reason for it, but that didn’t make the feeling any less real.
I pulled away long enough to strip out of my new sweater, bra, and leggings, leaving my panties on as I slipped beneath the blankets again.
Sleeping in clothes would’ve been better, but I was selfish. I wanted his body against mine.
Talon was still naked after shifting, but neither of us mentioned that. It wasn’t like the nudity was new for us.
He held me securely against his chest, and I fell asleep almost instantly.
When I woke up, there was a big, hot palm moving over my bare back.
I managed to stifle my moan, but not silence it.
“That feel good?” Talon murmured.
My sound of agreement was basically another moan.
I stayed where I was as he continued rubbing my back. It wasn’t sexual, or even that intimate. It just felt nice.
Eventually, I forced myself to get off of him. Though I still felt a little sluggish, my pain was gone.
“Have you talked to Stella?” I asked, slipping out from beneath the sheets and grabbing yesterday’s clothes off the floor.
“A little. Porter texted me to get her number for Evan last night. I didn’t want to give it to him, but when I asked her, she said yes. She didn’t want to talk to him, but couldn’t exactly ignore him.”
I stepped into the bathroom, used the facilities, and got dressed again in the clothes from the night before. They were comfortable, and there was no point in washing them after only wearing them for a few minutes.
“Evan went through a lot this last year,” I said, when I stepped out of the bathroom. I found Talon buttoning a pair of jeans. My eyes slid over his abdomen slowly.
Hot damn.
“You know more about him than you should.” Talon’s voice wasn’t threatening, but it wasn’t happy.
“The woman he was engaged to poisoned Izzy in an attempt to help Evan become Alpha, which he didn’t want. Porter killed her for it.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. Apparently they’d been having issues for a long time, but it hit hard anyway. They’d been together on and off, for ages.”
“And you two were never together?”
“Of course not. He was mourning, and I was basically in hiding. We only met a few times, at family parties for holidays.”
Talon let out a rough breath. “That’s good.”
“You said you didn’t care about my past,” I reminded him.
“I’d have a hard time convincing myself not to care if your past was our brother-in-law.”
He made a good point.
Even if he’d thrown in an “our” that didn’t quite apply. We weren’t a thing. Not officially.
I sat down on the edge of his mattress. “I barely know him, so there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Nothing?” He lifted an eyebrow.
“Nothing related to him. He’s going to come around. Probably fast, too. Stella is too lovable for him not to.”
Talon jerked his head in a nod, and stared at me.
His pants were buttoned, but his hands were still at the waistband, like he wasn’t sure where else to put them.
Was he nervous?
“We need to talk about us,” I said. “Unless you want to eat first.”
He let out a harsh breath. “Let’s talk now.”
I patted the bed, and he slowly crossed the room before taking a seat next to me. There wasn’t a lot of space between us, but it felt like a chasm. Things had been so simple and easy before.
“I know you had to make a difficult decision when we met,” I said. “I get it. I would’ve hated you if you had told me the truth from the beginning. But that doesn’t solve the problems here and now. I thought I could trust you, and now I feel like I can’t.”
The look in his eyes was intense. “We can get back there.”
“Can we?”
“Of course we can. I didn’t lie about anything. Yes, I let you think we weren’t fated, but everything else was genuine.”
“How am I supposed to believe that? You’ve ignored what you wanted as it applied to us from the very beginning. You didn’t tell me you couldn’t sleep without me—you just tried to sleep in the hallway. You?—”
He leaned toward me, and I cut myself off when we were only a breath away from each other.
“Everything I did is exactly what I would’ve done if you knew what we were to each other. If you knew we were fated and said you wanted casual, I wouldn’t have pushed for more. I would’ve slept in the hallway. I would’ve settled for whatever you were willing to give me.”
“The other kings forced my sisters to share rooms with them,” I whispered.
“I’m not a fucking king. And I’m not them.” He slipped a hand into my hair and tilted my head back. I tilted with him, looking into those gorgeous, dark eyes. “I am exactly who I was before you knew that we were mates, Avery. I have never pretended to be anything else. You’re still mine. I’m still yours. It’s just more permanent than you wanted.”
“I wanted it to be permanent,” I whispered, my eyes stinging a little. “While we were lying in bed, I wanted to be more than casual.”
His eyes blazed, but he didn’t say another word.
He just leaned in.
And kissed me.
His lips were soft, but demanding. Brutal, but gentle.
I buried my fingers in his hair, and he lifted me onto his lap, kissing me harder.
Deeper.
More passionately.
His hands slid beneath my sweater, gripping my bare waist as he pulled me against him a little harder. I knew I should stop him, but I didn’t want to.
So I didn’t.
He released me long enough to tug my sweater over my head, then recaptured my mouth. I’d only just gotten dressed, but I would be more than happy to do so again.
After I had him.
He unbuckled my bra and tugged it free, palming my breasts. I moaned into his mouth, and he pushed my leggings down. When I tilted his head to pull his lips harder against mine, he tugged my pants off entirely, and filled me with his fingers.
I gasped, rocking on his hand. His thumb worked my clit until I came hard, crying out into his mouth and clenching around his thick fingers.
His chest rumbled with satisfaction, and he pulled his mouth from mine slowly. His thumb was still teasing me, his fingers still buried inside me as I came down from the high.
He was obviously planning on stopping the way he had the first few times we were together. He was trying to give me space, or some bullshit like that.
“We’re not done,” I panted, unbuttoning his jeans myself.
He growled as I pulled his cock free—and had me flat on my back on the couch a moment later. His knees were on the floor, his mouth on my core, making me cry out in pleasure as he dragged me back to the edge.
I came again before I pulled his hair weakly, panting once more.
“You don’t get to put distance between us like this anymore,” I said. “Take me, now.”
He growled against my core, dragging his teeth over my clit in a way that made my hips buck.
His eyes met mine, and he ran his tongue over me slowly.
My toes curled.
My body heated.
“I’ll fuck you when I’m good and ready, Ave. Right now, I need you on my mouth.”
He licked me again, slower.
I used my grip on his hair to pull him closer. So much closer.
The sounds of my pleasure grew louder and louder as he brought me back to the edge again—then pushed me over.
“I want you,” I moaned, lost to the way I felt.
“If I fuck you right now, you’re going to be wearing my mark on that pretty little throat.” His voice was gravelly, and he nipped my clit again after speaking.
My hips arched.
A mate bond wouldn’t really change anything. Would it?
I’d wanted permanent.
Apparently, telling him that I did made him want it even more.
“Fine,” I panted. “Do it.”
His eyes blazed as he straightened over me, his cock still free after I’d pulled it out earlier. He settled over me, his massive body pressing against mine.
It should’ve made me feel trapped.
Panicked.
Threatened.
But I’d spent so much time with him, all I felt was heat.
One of his hands lifted to my throat. “You sure about this, A?” His voice was low.
If I turned him down, he would walk away.
And I should’ve. I knew I should’ve.
But I didn’t want to.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure I could. Not when I wanted him as badly as I did, and felt so many things for him.
“Yes,” I breathed.
“You are mine,” he said.
Power rolled through the room, and through me. My hips arched, and he finally drove into me as the magic blazed in my veins. My body felt alive with energy, my throat stinging with the mark he put on my skin.
It would be beautiful.
I knew it, without asking.
And as Talon fucked me, driving into me again and again, he proved one thing loud and clear:
My body belonged fully to him.
And despite everything, maybe my heart did too.