Chapter 20 Go Ahead and Mate My Day
Flint
I’m fucking exhausted. Like ass-dragging-on-the-ground, body-hurting, joints-aching exhausted in a way I never have been before.
Then again, it’s not every day a guy—or a dragon—gets stung by hundreds of giant bees, fights the Chamber at the Aethereum for a second time, and helps bring down the Shadow Realm.
I thought the last time I fought the Chamber was hard, when I had to relive what I’d done to Grace over and over again. But this time… This time was so much worse. Because all I could see was Jaxon and all the ways I’d failed him.
I’ve spent so much time recently thinking about all the ways he failed me that I totally ignored what I’ve done to him. The Chamber made me face that in full, living color. And it made me realize what life without Jaxon would really be like for me.
Empty. Agonizing. Lonely.
Through everything, through all the ups and downs and all the anger and pain, I’ve never been lonely before. Because Jaxon has always been there. Even when I wasn’t talking to him, even when he’d mated someone else, he was still there. Still around.
But those hours I spent in the Chamber—hours that felt like decades—showed me what my life will be like if I keep pushing Jaxon away. If I keep hurting him because I’m terrified of him destroying me…and it wasn’t pretty.
That’s the real reason I’m exhausted. The real reason everything aches. Because I’m tired of fighting him. Tired of fighting myself. Tired of fighting the whole goddamned world.
After everything that’s happened, everything we’ve done—to and for each other—all I want is the man I love and a little bit of peace.
Is that really too much to fucking ask for?
Especially when I followed Jaxon straight back into the hell that is the Shadow Realm and helped free Mekhi from the poison once and for all.
The fact that he mated with one of the Shadow Queen’s daughters is another story altogether, one I have no interest or intention of rehashing tonight. Or anytime soon.
I sit up in bed, letting the sheet fall to my hips just to see if Jaxon is paying attention. He’s across the room, sitting in the gold wingback chair next to the window and scrolling through his phone, so I don’t actually expect him to notice.
Only he does, his dark obsidian eyes finding mine from across the room. Our gazes lock for several long seconds before his drops to my bare chest and abs. “You’ve still got a lot of bruising going on,” he says, his voice devoid of the sexual interest I was hoping to hear in it.
I tell myself it’s a good thing, that it means Jaxon and I can finally close this nightmare of a loop we’ve been stuck in for what feels like forever.
But it doesn’t feel like a good thing. It feels like shit and makes me feel the same way.
I didn’t throw myself across that field and try to save him because I expected anything from him—I did it because I love him and can’t imagine ever standing by and watching him get hurt if there’s a way I can stop it—but now that we both survived, is a little gratitude so much to ask?
A little interest in the person who risked his life to save Jaxon’s ungrateful one?
Apparently so.
“You probably still have some bruising, too,” I tell him with a grimace, looking away.
“I don’t,” he replies. The asshole. He probably doesn’t feel scorched, either, like the burns haven’t fully faded from the inside out. If I didn’t love the damn vampire so much, I’d probably hate him.
Still, the Chamber and those moments when he nearly died at the Bittersweet Tree haunt me. And I know I can’t just walk away from him, from us, without trying once more to reach him.
So I do the only thing I can think of. I use his own words against him. “I call bullshit,” I tell him.
One dark, imperious brow lifts, and I swear he’s doing it because he knows it makes me wild when he does. “You can call anything you want,” he answers blandly. “Doesn’t make it true.”
“And you can tell any lie you want,” I shoot right back. “Doesn’t make it true, either.”
Jaxon’s eyes narrow, and he gives a long-suffering sigh, both of which might be enough to convince me that he doesn’t want to play. That he’s no longer interested.
But I see the flash of a fang against his bottom lip, feel the way the room trembles just a little around us. Both are telltale signs that I’ve managed to insinuate myself fully under Jaxon’s oh-so-thin vampire skin.
It’s just the encouragement I need. Even before he reaches for the hem of his shirt and tugs it straight over his head, revealing a whole eyeful of delicious, light-brown skin and long, lean muscles. Not to mention a welt or three in various spots on his torso.
“No bruises, hmm?” I ask, my eyes lingering on the welts to make sure they really are healing.
“No bruises,” he repeats. “Welts are something else entirely.”
I roll my eyes. “Either way, it looks like the superhuman Jaxon Vega isn’t nearly as impermeable as he wants people to believe.”
“You aren’t people,” he retorts.
“No, I’m not. So why are you still trying to front so hard?”
“Why are you?” he tosses right back to me.
But his phone is back in his pocket where it fucking belongs, and in the space between one breath and the next, he’s faded so that he’s standing only a few inches from the king bed I’m currently half-lying on.
“I’m not,” I answer, pushing the covers back so he can see me as I am, with my prosthetic removed and my boxers revealing my missing lower leg.
It’s not the first time he’s seen me like this—we practically lived together for months at the Dragon Court. But it’s the first time I’ve let him see me like this when I’m feeling vulnerable, unsure. When I don’t have a clue how this is going to end, or even how I want it to end.
Except with us together. Partners. Our connection unbreakable even if we don’t have the damn mating bond.
But after everything that’s happened, everything we’ve seen and everything we’ve been through, I’m smart enough to know we’re never going to get there if we keep fronting. Keep trying to protect ourselves and each other instead of just opening up and being honest. About everything.
It’s with that thought in mind that I do what was, until five short minutes ago, completely unthinkable. “Will you hand me my leg?”
Jaxon’s eyes widen even as they dart from me to the prosthetic that is in easy reach, just like it always is when I take it off. But this isn’t only about needing help. It’s about wanting Jaxon and being unafraid to let him know just how much I want him.
“You never let me—” he starts, but I cut him off.
“I know I’ve asked you in the past to not help me unless I ask, but I’m asking now.”
His mouth slams shut so hard and fast I swear I can hear his teeth knock together. But he doesn’t say anything, a fact I can interpret both optimistically and exceptionally pessimistically, depending on how I choose to think about it.
He does, however, cross the last few feet between us and hand me my prosthetic.
I keep my gaze locked to his as I reach down and slide the prosthetic into place.
“What are you doing?” he asks me once it’s done and I’m standing by the bed. But his eyes are hungry as they slide down my bare chest and abs to the pair of red boxer briefs I’m wearing. “What are you trying to prove here?”
“I’m not trying to prove anything,” I answer. “I’m trying to show you—” My voice breaks.
“What?” I didn’t think it was possible, but somehow his eyes grow even more intense. He leans forward like he’s dying to catch whatever sound—whatever word—comes out of my mouth. But also like he just wants to catch me.
The thought has my breath stumbling in my chest. As does the realization that we’ve been here before—a thousand times before. Caught up in the moment and each other while a range of possibilities fills up the air between us, pushing us further and further apart.
“Who I am. Away from the Dragon Court, away from the throne, away from the million expectations you and everyone else want to heap on me. I just want you to see who I am.”
“You think I don’t see you?” he asks in a voice that cuts like broken glass.
“If you did, you wouldn’t keep pushing me away.”
“It’s because I see you that I keep pushing you away,” he whispers.
“You love iced coffee on a cold morning and hot chocolate when it’s ninety degrees out.
You’ve never met a stranger you didn’t like.
You’re obsessed with shiny things and the color black.
You give so much of yourself that you forget to hold any back, and when you’re empty you like to crawl into bed and watch anime for hours—especially the ones that have dragons in them.
You love eating your pasta cold and always, always leave crumbs in the sheets from the black-and-white cookies you think I don’t know you hide under the bed. ”
He walks toward me, his voice growing stronger, bolder, with each word that he speaks.
I feel every single syllable like arrows aimed straight at my heart—pinpricks of love and fear and pain and joy, all of which strike true. As he gets closer, it takes every ounce of self-control I have not to reach for him. Not to pull him against me and beg him not to leave.
But if I do that, I’ll never hear everything he has to say. And I’ll never know—really know—if he’s staying because he wants to or just because he doesn’t want to hurt me anymore.
So, even though it nearly kills me, I bite my lip and bide my time as I wait to see if Jaxon Vega has finally—finally—gotten with the program.
He doesn’t stop until he’s right in front of me, so close that I can smell the oranges and fresh water scent of him.
So close I can hear the breath trapped in his lungs as he continues.
“You smile the brightest when you’re hurting the most. And, second son or not, you were born to rule the Dragon Court.
No one could ever do it better than you because no one, not even Nuri, loves your people the way that you love them. ”
“Jaxon—”
“No.” He holds up a hand. “Let me finish. I didn’t want to leave because the vampire throne means something to me. I wanted to leave because I didn’t ever want to make you choose between me and the crown you were born to wear. The people you were born to lead.”
He reaches up then, runs a hand over my hair and down the back of my head. He cups my neck, lets his fingers dance across the top of my spine before he pulls me closer, closer, closer. So close that our bodies are pressed together. So close that our lips are barely a hairsbreadth apart.
“But if watching those bees sting you into unconsciousness taught me anything, it’s that I don’t care what other people think. And I sure as shit don’t care what they say. I lived through the Chamber, lived through what it feels like to lose you—really lose you—forever.”
His voice is harsh, but his hands are so, so gentle as he continues. “Fuck the dragon clans. Fuck the Circle. Fuck anyone and anything that tries to stand between us. Because you’re mine and I’ll be yours, forever, if you’ll let me.”
The last words are as much question as they are statement.
And I hate that after everything we’ve been through, we can still be so unsure of each other.
“I’ve loved you since I was twelve years old,” I tell him as I slide my arms around his waist and pull him even closer.
“I’ve loved you through friendship and through fights.
Through brotherhood and betrayal. Through death and war, through a thousand walls and even more excuses.
And now we’re here, and there’s nothing left between us but this one moment and the truth. ”
“What is the truth?” he whispers against my lips.
“I love you, Jaxon Vega. I love you, and I would choose you a million times if I had to. Wherever you want to go, I want to go, too. Whatever you want to be, I want to be, too. Mating bond, no mating bond. Dragon throne, vampire throne, or no throne at all. I don’t need any of it. I just need you. But—”
“I need it,” he tells me fiercely. “I need the dragon throne for you and for your people.”
“I know,” I answer. “And that makes me love you even more. Because I would choose you every time, but I’m so, so grateful that you love me enough not to ask me to.”
“I do,” he tells me, his fingers creeping into my hair and pulling me closer even as he tilts my head back just enough to expose my throat to him. “I love you more than anything, and I always will.”
“Then take me,” I whisper, leaning back even farther so he has a perfect shot at my jugular.
And that’s when it happens. That rush of heat between us, that quiet shudder in my bones. The connection. The instant knowing.
The bond doesn’t slam into place like I’ve always heard—it melts. Warm and slow and sure, like it was there all along, just waiting for us to finally be ready.
For me to finally let him in.
For him to finally stay.