Chapter 10 Pax
TEN
PAX
I got Dray inside and pointed him toward the bathroom while I dug through my boxes for dry clothes. His clothes were wet and yet there was steam rising from his jacket.
“Here.” I shoved sweatpants and a hoodie through the door. “They might be a tad small, but they’re dry.”
I made coffee and heated up soup. When he emerged, his hair was damp, but it was no longer dripping. The pants were too short, but they made him look younger and more vulnerable.
I pushed a bowl toward him, and we didn’t speak as he devoured the soup. When he was done, some of the color had returned to his face.
“Thank you.”
“You sat in the rain. Soup is the least I could do.”
“I just wanted a chance to talk to you and explain all the plot holes in my story.”
I'd spent three days in the turret convincing myself this was bonkers. That I should pack up and leave before Dray bamboozled me into believing people could change into dragons.
And yet I’d witnessed it. But my very human brain refused to believe it.
Watching Dray suffer the past few days while refusing to give up had stirred something deep inside me. The same whatever it was that’d had me drooling over the guy since we met.
“I need to understand everything about us being connected.”
Dray set down his spoon. “Having a person on the earth be the one we get to spend our lives with ignores that we all have a choice.”
Exactly, and I was none too keen on having my power removed.
“You used the word decree, but the tattoo is just a nudge toward one another.” He explained that the tattoo was the universe’s sign that we were supposed to be together.
He cleared his throat. “But after or, ummm, if we are, you know, intimate, I’ll give you a bonding mark.” He added that two shifters would experience the connection immediately and mate by marking one another. Mate? I’d never even considered marriage. But mating?
“For you and me, we get to decide if we want to act on our connection.”
He made it sound very clinical, and judging by him taking up residence in my garden for three days, it wasn’t that.
And I was ignoring my own emotions. I thought about the years I'd felt adrift when I never fit in anywhere. Having a mate, someone I was bonded to, was comforting, but that was clinical and ignored love and desire.
“Tell me about the marking.”
“I bite you or scratch you in human form but using my beast’s talons or fangs.” He touched the side of his neck. “The scar tells other shifters you’re claimed.”
I didn’t like that last word. I was me, and I didn’t belong to anyone. If I was in a relationship, I expected to be an equal partner.
“It’s another name for bonded.” He added that in the past, alphas had claimed their mate without permission and expected obedience. I gasped, and he rushed on, saying that was then. “We haven’t known one another long, but have I exhibited any sign that I want you to obey me?”
He hadn’t. He’d looked after me and helped me, even in the middle of the night.
“What would change for me?”
“Nothing. We’ll both experience a sense of belonging. I’ll be me and you’ll be you.”
“I don't want to lose myself in this, Dray. I just found a life I might actually want.”
“I’m not asking you to give up anything.”
I studied his face, looking for any sign he was lying or trying to manipulate me. But all I saw was exhaustion and hope and something that looked like love, even though we barely knew each other.
Except we did know each other. In the weeks since I'd arrived, he'd been there. He helped with the house, brought me coffee, fixed things I didn't ask him to fix, and sat me at the diner in the middle of the night.
And he’d made me laugh. Was that love? I didn’t want to bring up the L word yet. Eventually if we kept talking, I’d have to, because all of this—the tattoo, the dragon, me coming to town—was meaningless unless we loved one another.
“Tell me why I didn’t remember getting the tattoo.” That was magic or a miracle.
“I don’t know exactly, but I think it’s because you’re human and you weren’t ready to accept what it meant.” He explained that was the universe’s way of protecting me. “Does that make sense?”
It did, though two days ago, I wouldn’t have accepted that explanation.
But I needed to see something.
“Can I see your dragon again?”
He glanced up. “What?”
“I want to see him, but not like last time. I was afraid, angry, and running away.”
I didn’t want to go back to the clearing. Maybe there was somewhere else he could shift without creating a national emergency for the human residents of earth.
“Okay. At midnight I’ll arrange something special.”
He could have stayed and talked more, but he yawned and tried to hide it. I suggested he go home and catch up on sleep because I needed to be alone, and I tramped up to the turret after he left.
I spent the rest of the day trying not to watch the clock and dragged a small mattress up to the turret. Lying on it, I thought back to Aunt June who’d suggested getting my tattoo and the lost years when I was surrounded by friends and family but I was so alone. Had she known something?
At eleven-thirty, I gave up and went outside. The night was clear and cold, and I wrapped a blanket around my shoulders and sat on the porch steps. My tattoo was warm under my shirt, but now it felt different. I couldn’t explain how exactly, but it was no longer itchy and more like a pleasant hum.
At midnight, there was a beating of wings overhead. He was silhouetted against the moon, and his wings caught the light as he circled overhead. I tilted my head and watched him fly.
He was beautiful, and that surprised me because in the clearing I’d seen what I thought was a monster. But now I witnessed how graceful he was and how his wings powered him through the air.
When he landed in the yard, I expected the ground to shake and the neighbors to wake, but his deft touchdown only ruffled the leaves. I scented burning wood as I stumbled over the grass to the large beast.
We stared at each other. His eyes were the same green as Dray’s. This wasn't just an animal, it was Dray.
"Hi," I whispered.
The dragon lowered his head and huffed. Smoke curled from his nostrils. I held out a shaking hand. His greeny-blue scales were warmer than I expected. But he pulled away and the scales disappeared, and Dray appeared naked.
Oh. I wanted to glance away, but the seconds ticked by and I was still looking. My brain was frazzled, but I had to tell him something important. I just needed to recall what that was.
“I do feel connected to you, and I wasn’t sure what that was. Maybe an infatuation, but everything in my being is telling me it’s love which is kinda bonkers. And yet it isn’t.”
I couldn’t do this with me avoiding staring at his huge cock. “Wait.” I pulled off the blanket, and he wrapped it around his hips.
“I’ve been fighting the idea that eight years ago the universe said you were my mate.” I inspected a torn fingernail. “But I’d been lost for so long, and coming to town wasn’t just making this place my home.” I patted his bare chest. “It was coming home to you.”
He gripped the blanket with one hand while the other cupped my chin.
“Seeing your dragon up close and touching him cemented what I already suspected. I love you.” Now that I’d said it and the words hung in the space between us, I needed him to snatch them and hold them tight.
There were tears in his eyes as he said, “I love you too, and if it’s okay, I’d like to kiss you.”
I yanked him close, and his lips pressed against mine. I savored his taste and breath and how his hands gripped me. He moaned, and I shivered as the vibrations rippled through me. But I couldn’t get enough of him. I wanted his tongue in me, his fingers and his cock.
“Stay with me tonight,” I whispered against his lips.
“Are you sure?”
I kissed him again. “Oh yeah.”
He grinned against my mouth. “I should probably put pants on first.”
I laughed, and the sound echoed across the garden. “Yeah.”
But neither of us moved.