Asset #3
The control in his voice was load-bearing.
“If you choose the bond, then choose the bond. Choose me. Choose Dominic. Choose both of us because you want us, not because the legal structure is useful and the timing is terrible.”
“Rhain.”
“Let me finish.”
I let him.
“I can survive losing Norway,” he said. “I can’t survive becoming the man you resent.”
The words hit hard.
He continued anyway. “If you accept a public claim as a defensive maneuver against my father, you’ll have shaped the rest of your life around someone else’s politics. You’ll hate me for it inside a year, even if you’re too disciplined to call it hate.”
His hands stayed flat on the table.
“I have been preparing to lose my father for thirty years. I can take that. I can’t take you choosing me because Dominic told you it was the only way to keep me within reach.”
“So what are you offering?”
“Patience.”
I waited.
“I won’t push for the public claim,” he said. “I won’t even ask for it. I’ll wait until you have considered every option, weighed everything on your own terms, and decided what you want for reasons that don’t belong to my father.”
My throat tightened.
“If you choose this, if you choose me, Dominic, both of us, because it’s yours to choose, then I’ll stand in the chamber the day you make it public. I’ll say whatever part the council requires of me. I’ll sign whatever must be signed. I’ll take the consequence.”
His gaze didn’t move from mine. “But I won’t let fear make the decision and call it consent.”
I understood what he was offering then.
Time. Time he might not have.
“If Martin pulls you first,” I said, “you go back to Norway.”
“Yes.”
“And we do what?”
His mouth curved faintly, without humor. “Wait for my father to die.”
“That could be years.”
“Yes.”
“Decades.”
“He’s very stubborn.”
“Rhain.”
“Yes,” he said. “It could be decades.”
If Martin moved first, Rhain would go back to Norway. Not dead. Not gone in a clean, useful way. Worse. Alive. Obedient on paper. Kept behind his father’s authority until Martin died or power shifted enough to let him return.
A bond stretched across borders and councils and all the rooms neither of us would be allowed to enter.
“That’s a stupid thing to offer,” I said.
“I’m aware.”
The silence held.
He had given me the principled version. The version where he stepped back, respected my choice, and made himself bearable by refusing to ask for more than I could freely give.
But there was another part under it. I could see it in the stillness of his hands.
“You’re angry,” I said.
“Yes.”
“With me?”
“No.” His voice dropped. “With Graves.”
“Why?”
“Because he should’ve told you about the legal-center before he bit you, not after.
He should’ve explained that the private claim left you politically exposed.
He should’ve asked you to make the choice before the bond settled, not handed you the consequences in the morning when you could no longer unmake the decision your body had already made. ”
“He didn’t know about Martin then.”
“He knew the law,” Rhain said. “He knew what a private claim does and doesn’t protect. He has had years to learn the risk. He chose dragon biology over your political safety in the room where you needed both.”
“That isn’t entirely fair.”
“I know.” He stayed very still. “I know it isn’t fair. I’m still angry.”
“And jealous.”
“Yes.”
No defense.
“Of the private claim?”
“Of every claim made without me in the room.”
“Even though I returned it.”
His mouth tightened. “The returned bite makes the bond mutual. It doesn’t rewrite the beginning. It doesn’t put me beside you when Dominic asked with his teeth instead of his words.”
My breath changed.
“I’ll spend the rest of our lives knowing the first dragon you said yes to wasn’t me.”
“Rhain.”
“I’m not asking you to fix that,” he said. “I’m not blaming you for it. I’m telling you the truth before it comes out uglier later.”
He hadn’t handed me his jealousy as a debt. He had put it where I could see it, without asking me to carry it.
“And the protection issue,” I said.
“If your agency comes for you now, Ashenmere hasn’t sealed your status. The private claim binds you to Dominic, but it doesn’t fully place you under clan protection. You’re between protections.”
The phrase landed badly.
“The law that buried my mother did its best work on women who were between protections,” he said. “Dominic shouldn’t have left you sitting in that gap.”
“He has been watching for it.”
“I’m sure he has.” His jaw tightened. “That isn’t the same as closing it.”
The possessiveness in his voice sent heat pouring through me.
Rhain wasn’t touching me. He sat across the table, hands still, explaining legal exposure in the tone he would use to discuss where to put his body between mine and a knife.
My pulse had no respect for context.
A breath moved through him.
“I would’ve done it differently.”
“I know.”
“I would’ve explained the law first. I would’ve asked you to choose the public claim with full information before anything irreversible happened. I would’ve made certain the claim protected you before it touched you.”
My breath caught. The word came back. Protected. Not claimed. Not owned. Protected.
The word worked on me with embarrassing efficiency.
“And then the bite would’ve come afterward,” I said. My voice was steadier than it deserved to be.
“Yes,” he said. “Afterward. With witnesses. With seal. As law first. As protection first.” He held the look. “Then as everything else.”
Heat slipped under my skin.
I should’ve been thinking about treaty exposure, agency extraction, and whether Davis already had a clean path to put me on a plane.
Instead, I was thinking about Rhain’s mouth saying everything else and the fact that he hadn’t moved his hands because he knew exactly what would happen if he did.
My eyes dropped to his mouth, then moved back up. His pupils had gone vertical.
I swallowed.
I leaned my hip against the table and watched his gaze follow the movement.