Chapter 6
SIX
AERO
Delos arrived at sunset.
The door burst open without a knock—typical Delos—and a lanky figure with golden-brown skin and an easy grin stepped inside.
“Honey, I’m home.” Delos dropped his bags in the doorway and surveyed the cabin with obvious amusement. “Place looks… cozy. Very serial-killer chic. I like what you’ve done with the murder board.”
“It’s a research board.”
“Sure it is.” Delos stepped over a stack of printouts and made himself comfortable in the cabin’s single armchair.
For a fire dragon, he had an unusual tolerance for cold—probably because he generated his own heat—but he still reached for the blanket draped over the arm and wrapped it around his shoulders.
“So. How’s Haven Shores? Surge as intense as the reports suggested? ”
“More so.” Aero kept his attention on the data in front of him. “The ambient magical energy exceeds anything in our previous documentation. The ward system is particularly interesting—multiple species contributing to a unified defense matrix.”
“Uh-huh.” Delos’s voice carried an undertone that made Aero’s shoulders tense. “And the local talent? Elder Tidewell mentioned she was assigning you an assistant. Weather witch, right?”
“She’s adequate.”
“Adequate.” A pause. “Aero. Look at me.”
He didn’t want to. He knew what Delos would see. The younger dragon had worked with him for years, had learned to read the micro-expressions that no one else could detect. Had made it his personal mission to crack through Aero’s walls, one observation at a time.
But refusing to look would only confirm that something was wrong. So Aero raised his head and met his assistant’s gaze with all the composure he could muster.
Delos stared at him for a long moment. Then his amber eyes went wide.
“Holy shit.”
“What?”
“You look weird.” Delos sat forward, the blanket forgotten, his entire attention fixed on Aero’s face. “You’re never weird. I have never seen you look weird. What happened?”
“Nothing happened.”
“Bullshit.” Delos stood, crossing the room in three long strides, stopping directly in front of Aero’s chair.
He leaned down, studying Aero’s face with an intensity that would have been uncomfortable from anyone else.
“Your pupils are dilated. Your jaw is doing that thing. And you smell different—there’s something under your usual scent, something…
” His nose wrinkled. “Ozone? And salt. And something sweet, like—”
He stopped. His eyes went impossibly wider.
“No.”
“Delos—”
“No way.” A grin was spreading across his face, bright and delighted and absolutely insufferable. “The weather witch. The adequate weather witch. She—you—”
“I’m experiencing some anomalous symptoms,” Aero said stiffly. “Most likely surge-related. I’ve been documenting them for analysis.”
Delos laughed.
Not a polite chuckle. A full-body laugh that bent him double, his hands bracing on his knees, his shoulders shaking with the force of it. He laughed until tears streamed down his cheeks, until he had to stagger back to the armchair and collapse into it, still gasping.
“Anomalous symptoms,” he wheezed. “Documenting them. For analysis.” Another burst of laughter. “Oh, gods. Oh, this is perfect.”
“I fail to see what’s amusing.”
“Of course, you do.” Delos wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, still grinning. “Because you’ve spent centuries convincing yourself you don’t have feelings, and now your brain is short-circuiting because you finally met your mate.”
The word landed between them. Mate.
“That’s not—” Aero started.
“It’s exactly what’s happening.” Delos leaned forward, all traces of laughter fading into something more serious.
“Aero. I’ve watched you walk through life like a ghost, never touching anything, never letting anything touch you.
And now you’re sitting here smelling like a storm witch, with your dragon clearly losing its mind under your skin, trying to tell me it’s a surge effect. ”
“You don’t know—”
“I know exactly what mate recognition looks like. I’ve seen it. Hell, I’ve studied it, working on this research with you.” Delos’s voice softened, losing its teasing edge. “Your dragon woke up, didn’t it? For the first time in… how long?”
Aero didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
“That’s what I thought.” Delos shook his head slowly. “Longer than anyone can remember, and it’s a storm witch in a tiny coastal town who finally makes you feel something. The universe has a twisted sense of humor.”
“I don’t—” Aero’s voice caught. He forced it steady. “I can’t afford this. She’s mortal. Unstable. We have no future that doesn’t end in—”
“In loss?” Delos’s expression gentled. “Aero. Everyone loses eventually. That’s not a reason to never have anything in the first place.”
“Easy for you to say.” The bitterness surprised him. He hadn’t realized it was there. “You’re young. You don’t know what it’s like to watch everyone you’ve ever cared about—”
He stopped. Breathed.
“I’m not discussing this.”
“Fine.” Delos held up his hands in surrender. “We don’t have to discuss it. But you can’t ignore it either. Your dragon won’t let you. And from what I’m sensing—” He tapped his nose. “—her magic is just as interested in you as your dragon is in her.”
Aero said nothing. Outside, the wind had picked up—faint, restless, carrying the ozone scent of weather that wasn’t his.
“There’s research to do.” His voice came out flat. “That’s why we’re here. Not to—” He gestured vaguely.
“Fall in love with a beautiful, powerful witch who makes your dragon lose its mind?” Delos grinned again. “Too late for that, boss. Way, way too late.”
He stood, stretching, and moved toward the door to collect his abandoned bags.
“I’m going to crash. Long drive. But tomorrow?
” He glanced over his shoulder, eyes glinting with something that was either amusement or genuine affection.
Probably both. “Tomorrow, I want to meet her. This weather witch who finally got through to you.”
“There’s nothing to meet. She’s a research partner.”
“Sure she is.” Delos disappeared into the spare room, his voice floating back through the doorway. “Oh, this is going to be amazing to watch.”
The door clicked shut.
Aero sat in the silence of the main room, surrounded by his careful data and his logical analyses, and tried to convince himself that Delos was wrong.
His dragon laughed at him.
Outside, the wind picked up. Clouds gathered on the horizon, thick and dark and heavy with coming rain. Not natural clouds—he could feel the magical signature even from here. Ozone and sea salt. Storm magic.
Somewhere across town, Cassia Gale was having feelings about something.
Aero wondered what.
Then he caught himself wondering and cursed under his breath, gathering the scattered printouts with hands that weren’t entirely steady.
He didn’t do this. Didn’t feel things. Didn’t wonder about other people’s emotional states. Didn’t lie awake imagining storm-colored eyes and sharp smiles and the way static crackled between them whenever they got too close.
He’d survived by staying detached. By keeping every potential loss at arm’s length. By never, ever letting anyone close enough to matter.
He’d survived.
But as the storm built outside his window, his dragon restless and hungry beneath his skin, Aero wondered for the first time if surviving was the same thing as living.
He didn’t have an answer.
He wasn’t sure he wanted one.