Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
Casimir
“I’m glad you’ve begun to accept that this is real.” I ran one finger idly along her body, tracing the fresh additions to the emerald lines on her skin.
My marks. On my mate. The thought threatened to bring me to my knees, and might have, if I wasn’t already lying down with Anna’s warm body pressed against my chest and legs. A not-so-subtle reminder of that fact.
I had a mate.
My dragon trumpeted its agreement, the world tinging silver as we caressed her soft skin once more, feeling every swell, hump, curve, and bump with infinite repetitiveness. Eternity would not be enough to sate the hunger for her that drove me forward. But it was worth a try.
“It’s kind of hard not to,” Anna murmured, her body twisting slightly with a tiny, pleased shiver. “My dragon is going bonkers right now. It wants you.”
She wanted me? Again? I stirred, moving to slide her onto her back and press her down in the comforters. Anything for her.
“My body, however, is exhausted from the past three days. I need a break.”
I relaxed instantly. I wasn’t going to try forcing myself on her.
“For now,” she added with a mischievous wink, reaching down to stroke my swelling dick. “You’re insatiable.”
“I could never get enough of you.”
Anna giggled, blushing deep. “I like feeling wanted.”
“You’re going to feel wanted for a long, long time,” I growled in her ear, drawing forth a contented sigh as I dropped to kiss her neck.
I wanted her for eternity. Something that, incredibly, was now within our grasp. We had broken the physical barrier. Our mate marks were coming in strong as our dragons laid claim to one another.
All that was left was the bite to finalize the bond and link us to the other person forever in a true connection unlike anything else. I eagerly anticipated it. Being able to feel her all the time on a mental level was the honey, and I was the bear.
Storm clouds loomed dark and angry on the horizon of forever though, dampening my mood. Being that close, knowing it could happen at any time if she chose, meant I needed to come clean.
Confess to her the sin of my past, so she could judge if I was still worthy of her.
“Caz?” Anna stirred, moving away from me and turning over to watch me. “What’s wrong?”
I hadn’t moved. Did she feel my mood shift?
“Anna …” I began but then faltered.
Anger surged. Not at her, but at myself. At my inability to put it all out there for her. I should have done this sooner, way sooner, before she’d had a chance to grow attached to us. Now I was going to hurt her, something I had sworn never to do.
“I’m right here, Caz,” she said, taking my hand but keeping her distance.
She was always smart. She knows that after I tell her, she’ll never want to be close with me again.
I sought out the right words, the proper phrasing, so when I told her what she needed to know, I would have a chance, a hope, of convincing her to stay. I wasn’t evil, but search though I tried, nothing came to me.
“What are you thinking about?” she whispered, giving my hand a squeeze.
“You, mostly,” I said without hesitation. “How I never want to let go of you. That when you were pressed against me, when we’re together, you make me feel more alive than I’ve ever been. You give my life a meaning, more than just happiness. You give me a reason to live. To keep fighting the fight.”
Anna’s cheeks pinked, but her eyes never looked away. “So why do you look distraught?”
“Being with you has awoken something I thought I would never have,” I told her. “You make me want a woman, something I had denied myself all my life, but more than that.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I want a family. With you.”
Anna’s jaw worked back and forth. “O-oh. Um. And that’s a bad thing?”
“It is when you’re me,” I told her. “And you can’t have it.”
She sighed. “Is this where you’re going to tell me you’re a monster? I thought we went over that, Caz. I told you that you aren’t.”
“You didn’t know everything when you said that.” There was no going back now. The ball had started rolling down the cliff.
She pulled away. My dragon protested at the sudden severing of our touch. It ordered me to reach out and grab her. Caress her cheek and run a hand down her body. Distract her with a good time.
No. She needs to know.
“Then tell me,” she said, hushed and solemn, waiting for me to lay it all out.
I marshaled my thoughts. It was important that I be clear and not omit anything. She deserved the full, unedited truth.
“Fourteen years ago, I reached the age of maturity,” I told her. Fifty years was not a long time to dragons. Many of the older ones argued the age should be even higher. “My father had me young. He had just crossed the century mark. I was staring down the wing of centuries more of his rule.”
Anna was silent, her mouth pressed into a thin line, but her eyes were alert and focused. I stared right back, committing to memory every swirl and line of those mystical purple irises.
“The windows in the citadel had been covered over. Hallways painted black. The only light we were allowed was fire. Torches ran down the corridors and in the rooms. We skulked, Anna. Dragons moving through this place, from shadow to shadow, just to get to a meal safely. It was insanity.”
“It sounds horrible.”
“It was.” I licked my lips before continuing.
“I’d had enough. I told my father we couldn’t go on this way.
The Red King was pushing hard at us. This was weeks before the start of the war.
If things didn’t change, if we didn’t change, the Fire Kingdom would have taken our entire northern territories. ”
“What did you do?” she asked breathlessly.
“I did what any child does. I rebelled. I opened a window, and I turned on the lights.” I closed my eyes, recalling that day vividly.
“What do you think you’re doing?” The snarling figure of my father burst into my room, his hair clacking wildly as the beads twisted into his many braids whacked one another.
Reaching out, he shut off the lights and stormed across my room to the window. His fur coat trailed out behind him, courtesy of a pair of pelts from bear shifters that had wronged him.
“You know the rules! This is no way for a future tyrant to behave. Fall in line.” He turned to look me full on, his blue eyes filling with silvery light. “Or do I need to get the whip? Perhaps you’ve forgotten what it means to be an ice dragon, boy? Do you need a reminder?”
Something inside me broke that day. I’d had enough. I was tired. Tired of it all, of all the games, all the brutality and beast-like nature we were forced to live in because of him.
“I’m not the one who has forgotten their way,” I said, moving to stand between my father and the window. “I’m not the one who is afraid to see the light, to look at themselves in a mirror. I’m not the one who feels the need to rule by fear, Father.”
He snarled, thrusting a hand at my feet. I countered his ice with my own, simply standing my ground. When he couldn’t freeze me to the spot, he decided he would try the old-fashioned way. With the back of his hand.
“What did you do?” Anna’s lips had parted slightly as she listened to my story, hanging on every word.
I hung my head. I couldn’t bear to see her thoughts of me shatter against the truth of what I was.
How could she love someone who killed their own father?
“I broke his hand,” I said bluntly. “And then I broke his neck.”
“Caz …” she whispered, horrified.
“I know. I’m a monster. I told you.”
I waited for her to get up and leave. To walk out of the room and out of my life. It was what I deserved. A fitting punishment. A man who killed his father denied the opportunity to become one.
“You’re no monster.” Soft, feminine fingers stroked my cheek and pushed my hair back over my shoulder.
I tried not to shudder under her touch. I didn’t deserve it. To rid myself of the worst thing to ever happen to me, I now had to sacrifice the best. I knew that. The scales had to be balanced somehow. Anna was too good for me. She deserved better.
“You know what I’ve done. How can you say that?”
“Because.” Her voice was hard as steel and cut as cold as ice. “I’ve seen what he’s done. I’ve seen what he did to you, and I’ve seen what he did to those like me. That man was a monster, and all of Hollow Earth is better off because of what you did, Caz.”
My eyebrows shot up.
That didn’t sound like rejection, like fear and disgust, or any of the things I’d expected to hear.
“I only wish I could have been there to help you through it,” she said, moving in closer. “That must have been impossibly difficult. Dealing with what happened, even if he deserved it. The fallout. The war with the Red King right after. All with just you and Dirk.”
“Dirk doesn’t know,” I said flatly. “And he must not know.”
Anna’s eyes widened.
“I made it look like someone else had done it. Not that anyone cared. They all saw me as far easier to manipulate anyway. But I didn’t tell Dirk. I couldn’t. I love him too much. He would never understand. Not truly.”
“So you’ve kept this entirely to yourself? Told no one else?”
I shook my head.
“Caz, I’m so sorry.” She leaned in and kissed my cheek.
This time, I did tremble. I didn’t deserve it. Didn’t deserve her, yet here she was. Not only was Anna not running away, but she was trying to comfort me—the man who had killed his own father. She felt bad for me.
“I don’t deserve you,” I whispered. “But I want you nonetheless.”
“You don’t have any idea what you deserve,” she said, sliding right up against me, breasts pressing into my chest. “But I’m going to show you, Caz. I’m going to show you that you are a strong man, who is trying his best to make the kingdom a better place. A man who is so incredibly strong.”
Her hand slid between us.
“Anna …”
“And you’re going to shut up and let me. Got it?”
Her alpha command tickled my spine pleasantly this time, a lover’s caress against my mind.
Then she pushed me onto my back so she could straddle me, her body displayed like the blazing glory of the sun for me to stare at its perfection.
“Yes, my mate,” I growled as she reached back to guide me in to her warm embrace once more.
Honesty really was the best policy after all.