Chapter 19
Lucas
Lucas wasn’t sure what to expect when they returned to Crystafalls. He was pleased to learn that things felt much lighter.
The chambers he shared with Sia had not changed but things between them had shifted. The air was no longer brittle with tension. Instead, it hummed with a constant awareness that followed him like heat beneath his skin.
They moved around each other differently now. They shared kisses but hadn’t gone any further. He didn’t want to push it and ruin the progress they had made.
When Sia crossed in front of him to reach the wardrobe, her hip brushed his thigh. She didn’t flinch and he didn’t step back. When he reached past her for a book, his forearm grazed her shoulder, and she simply glanced up at him with that steady, searching look that made his chest tighten.
His dragon stirred at every touch.
Mine.
The word came not as a thought but as an unyielding certainty. Lucas clenched his jaw and focused on the words in front of him.
His dragon growled. One mate for life but we’ve been given two. Yet there has been no claim.
Not yet was the only answer he had.
He distracted himself with a project. The art room took days to prepare.
He enlisted the girls who were far too delighted to have a secret, and quietly cleared out one of the tower rooms. He had the old tapestries removed, the dirty glass panes completely cleaned to let in the mountain light.
Shelves were installed and tables were brought in.
All sizes of canvases were stacked carefully along the wall.
Paints were the hardest to find. Crystafalls was limited on what he could find, but Lucas sent couriers all over for pigments, brushes, watercolors, and oils.
Anything he thought she might need. He remembered the way Sia’s eyes softened whenever she sketched and how the world seemed to narrow and expand all at once around her.
He wanted her to have something that was hers strictly for joy. The girls nearly burst with excitement when they led her up the stairs for the big reveal. They had waited for the perfect time of day so the lighting was just right as it came in through the windows.
Lucas hung back with his arms crossed and attempted to keep a neutral expression. His dragon paced inside him, restless and smug.
She’ll love it.
Sia looked suspicious the entire walk.
“What are you plotting?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Nothing,” Lucas replied, which made the girls giggle.
They reached the door. Luna flung it open with theatrical flair. “Ta da!”
Sia stepped inside. The late afternoon sun spilled across rows of blank canvases, over jars of brushes, across neatly arranged paints gleaming like gemstones. A wide wooden table stood near the window already set with paper and charcoal.
For a long moment, she didn’t move. Lucas suddenly felt extremely nervous. Then she turned to him. Her eyes were bright. Not quite tears, but close.
“You did this?” she asked softly.
He shrugged. “It seemed… necessary.”
Necessary. As if that word could contain what he’d felt while building it.
“Papa wanted you to be happy,” Celeste added.
“Can we paint with you, Mama Sia?” Stella and Luna chimed in.
She hugged each one of them. “Of course you can. We’ll get you each your own easel so you can paint your own masterpieces.”
Lucas nodded toward a closet. “There are child size easels in there. I figured that would happen.”
Celeste gasped. “You surprised even us.” She wrapped her arms around his legs. “I love you, Papa.”
Her sisters joined in to a group hug. His heart exploded as he caught Sia’s eyes and mouthed a thank you to her. All the positive emotion in the room was because of her.
He watched as she crossed the room slowly, her fingertips grazing the edge of a canvas, then a brush. Reverent. As if she were afraid it would vanish.
The girls followed her around as they chatted and explained how they’d helped, how Lucas had barked orders and refused to let anyone sit around.
Sia laughed and blew him a kiss.
It struck him like a blow.
Mine.
His dragon’s voice was no longer patient. It pulsed through his veins like a molten flame. When she walked back to him, he opened his arms and she didn’t hesitate. She threw her arms around him.
Lucas stiffened for half a second out of pure instinct before he wrapped his arms around her in return. She fit against him so well.
Her cheek pressed against his chest. He could feel the warmth of her breath through his shirt. His hands hovered at first, unsure where to settle, then came to rest at her waist. He glanced at the girls to make sure they weren’t upset at the embrace.
They had their hands over their mouths to stifle giggles before they tactfully vanished. Sia pulled back just enough to look up at him.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He could not say what he felt. The word mate burned behind his teeth, heavy and dangerous. So he did the only thing he could. He touched his forehead to hers.
“You deserve a space where you are truly happy,” he said quietly.
Her fingers tightened in his shirt as she leaned up and gave him a butterfly kiss before she turned back to her new sanctuary.
His dragon exhaled in satisfaction.
That night, sleep did not come easily.
Lucas lay on his back as he often did and stared into the dark. The mountain winds rattled the panes and while the chamber was cool, heat pooled beneath his skin.
He could feel her beside him. He had sworn to himself that he would move carefully. That he would not let desire dictate his actions. That he would honor the traditions that had shaped him since birth.
His dragon did not care for hesitation.
She is ours.
Lucas turned onto his side to face away from her and tried to quiet the restless energy that coiled in his chest. At some point in the night, he woke up.
He didn’t know what roused him, but Sia was curled against him.
One arm was tucked between them. Her knee was bent and reste lightly against his thigh. Her face nestled between his shoulder blades as though she had sought him in her sleep.
Lucas went completely still. The line between propriety and desire had already blurred. But she made a small, contented sound and pressed closer.
His dragon surged, fierce and triumphant.
Mate.
The word was no longer a whisper. It was a claim.
Lucas closed his eyes. Slowly and carefully, he shifted and turned toward her instead of away. He slid an arm around her waist and drew her fully against him. She sighed, soft and warm against his chest, and instinctively tucked her face beneath his chin.
He didn’t know if she was fully asleep. He didn’t ask because he didn’t care. His hand rested at the small of her back, and he had never felt so divided.
Half of him wanted to hold her and never let go, but the other half still feared, to some extent, the permanency of that.
Lucas lay awake for a long time as he breathed in the faint scent of her hair and memorized the feeling of her in his arms. When sleep finally claimed him, he did not loosen his hold.
The next evening, Sia returned to the bedroom from the art room flushed with color with joy lighting her face. She spoke animatedly about light and shadow and how the mountains changed tone at dusk.
Lucas watched her and suddenly it was crystal clear. He had known in pieces before. In glances. In the way his dragon quieted only when she was near. But watching her now, alive in a way he always wanted to see, something inside him settled.
She was not a passing desire or temptation. She was the one his heart reached for when he wasn’t holding up the walls.
She stepped closer as she spoke, unaware of the tension coiling through him.
“Lucas?”
He realized she had asked him a question.
“What?” His voice was rough.
Her gaze sharpened. “You’re somewhere else.”
No. He was exactly where he was supposed to be. He reached for her before he could overthink it and cupped her jaw. He felt her breath hitch.
“Sia,” he said, and her name felt like a vow.
His dragon rose, powerful and certain.
Mate.
She searched his face. “You don’t have to hold back with me,” she whispered.
It was trust. The last of his restraint snapped in surrender and he kissed her. Slow at first until she leaned into him without hesitation.
The kiss deepened and heat flared between them, fierce and undeniable. His hands slid into her hair and hers fisted in his shirt. The world narrowed to just the two of them as he lifted her without breaking the kiss.
She wrapped her legs around his waist. The dragon roared in triumph when he carried her to the bed as though she were something sacred. When he lowered her onto the sheets, he paused.
“Are you certain?” he asked, voice unsteady for the first time in years.
Her answer was a kiss that held no fear, only fire. She left no room for any doubt that she had made her choice.
Lucas exhaled and let himself fall.