Chapter 32
Mara
The cafeteria is surprisingly normal. Like, aggressively normal. Industrial kitchen. Long tables with bench seating. The faint smell of coffee and something that might be lasagna. Fluorescent lights that hum just slightly off-key.
If you ignore the fact that it’s built into a mountain and half the people here can turn into dragons, it could be any corporate break room in America.
I grab the largest mug I can find. Fill it with coffee that’s been sitting on the burner too long but still smells like heaven. Take a sip.
It tastes like burnt disappointment.
Perfect.
“That bad?” Elena slides into the seat across from me. She’s got her own mug—tea, because of course she does. Lila sits beside her, identical tea selection.
Rossewyn witches and their beverage choices, apparently.
“It’s fine,” I lie.
“Mara.” Elena’s voice has that particular quality. The one that says I know you’re full of shit and we both know I know.
“Okay, it’s terrible. But it’s caffeine, so I’m drinking it anyway.”
“There’s a French press in the back if you want actual coffee.”
I take another sip of the burnt sadness. “This is fine.”
Elena and Lila exchange glances. That mother-daughter telepathy thing they’ve apparently mastered in the couple of months since they reunited.
“How are you feeling?” Lila asks. Her voice is gentle. Careful. The tone you use with someone who might shatter.
“Physically? Great. Best I’ve felt in—” I stop. “Ever, actually. Turns out not having massive internal injuries is pretty cool.”
“And emotionally?”
“Also great. Totally fine. Living my best life.”
More glances. More telepathy.
“Mara,” Elena starts.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You need to—”
“What I need,” I interrupt, “is to drink this terrible coffee and pretend that I didn’t just have one magical bond ripped out of my chest so I could potentially sign up for another one that’s supposedly forming whether I want it or not.”
Silence falls.
Then Lila: “Another bond?”
Elena stares at me. “Holy shit.”
“Exactly.” I take another sip. Grimace. “K says his dragon recognizes me. Which is—” I gesture vaguely. “A thing, I guess.”
“It’s more than a thing,” Elena says quietly. “Mate bonds are—”
“Forever. Irrevocable. Permanent. Yeah, I got the lecture.” I set the mug down too hard. Coffee sloshes over the rim. “Sorry. I’m not… I’m processing. Badly.”
“You’re allowed to process badly.” Lila’s voice is still gentle. “You just had a very intense experience.”
“Intense is one word for it.”
“What would you call it?”
“Terrifying. Confusing. Like standing at the edge of a cliff and being told to jump because trust me, there’s definitely a net down there, you just can’t see it yet.”
Elena reaches across the table. Takes my hand. “Do you want there to be a net?”
The question lands.
Do I?
“I don’t know,” I admit. “The healing bond broke, and I thought… I thought I’d finally know. Thought without the magic forcing me toward him, I’d be able to see clearly. Figure out if what I feel is real or just trauma bonding with extra steps.”
“And?”
“And now there’s a different bond starting. A mate bond. Which is supposedly even more permanent. And I’m supposed to just… What? Trust that my dragon-loving instincts know better than my actual brain?”
“That’s not how mate bonds work,” Lila says.
“Then how do they work?”
She considers this. “They begin when compatible souls recognize each other. Magic calls to magic. But they don’t complete without mutual acceptance. Without…” She pauses. “Without both parties choosing to seal the bond.”
“Seal it how?”
“Intimately.” Lila’s voice is matter-of-fact. Clinical. “The bond forms gradually, but it completes through physical connection. When both parties are ready. When the choice is made freely.”
Oh.
“So I have time,” I say slowly. “To figure out if I actually want this.”
“You have time,” Elena confirms. “The bond can hover at the edge—forming but not complete—until you decide.”
“And if I decide no?”
“That would be… bad,” says Elena.
Oh geez. Great. Just great.
“But it fades. Eventually,” Lila adds quickly. “For some.”
Yeah. I’m screwed.
“But Mara,” she goes on, “if you’re feeling the bond beginning, that means your soul already recognizes his. The question isn’t whether you’re compatible. It’s whether you’re brave enough to accept it.”
Brave enough.
Sure.
Because bravery has been my strong suit lately.
Actually, it has.
“What if I choose wrong?”
“There’s no wrong choice,” Lila says. “Only honest ones.”
“That’s very zen. Very unhelpful.”
Despite everything, Elena almost smiles. “What does your gut say?”
My gut.
Right.
Because my gut has been so reliable lately. Leading me into helicopter crashes and magical kidnappings and falling for ancient dragon kings who call me by dead girlfriends’ names during sex.
“My gut says I’m an idiot,” I mutter.
“Why?”
“Because even without the bond—even when it was gone and I was standing there feeling empty and hollow and wrong—I still wanted him.” The admission costs me. “I still looked at him and thought, yes. This. Him. Which is either the mate bond talking or I’m just really committed to bad decisions.”
“Or,” Elena says carefully, “it’s real. And you know it. And that scares you.”
“Of course it scares me.” My voice cracks. “I’ve known him for eight days, Lennie. EIGHT. That’s not enough time to decide if I want to be magically bonded to someone forever.”
“How long would be enough?”
“I don’t know. A year? Five years? Never?”
“And if you had five years, would you feel more certain? Or would you just have five years of reasons to talk yourself out of it?”
I hate that she’s right.
Hate that she knows me well enough to know I’d overthink this into oblivion if given the chance.
“He said her name,” I whisper. “When we were together. In bed. He was inside me, and he said Lyria.”
Elena’s expression shifts. “Oh, Mara.”
“So yeah. Forgive me for being a little hesitant about the whole mate bond situation when he’s clearly still in love with a dead woman who was apparently perfect in every way and saved his entire clan and—”
“Stop.” Lila’s voice cuts through. Sharp. “You’re catastrophizing.”
“I’m being realistic.”
“You’re comparing yourself to a memory. To a person who’s been dead for four hundred years and has been idealized beyond recognition.
” She leans forward. “I knew grief like that. After the Syndicate took me. After I thought I’d never see Elena again.
I turned her into this perfect thing in my mind. This symbol of everything I’d lost.”
Elena goes very still beside her.
“And when I finally saw her again?” Lila continues.
“She was real. Flawed. Human. Not the perfect child I’d been mourning but an actual person with complications and agency and a whole life I hadn’t been part of.
” She pauses. “It was better. Harder, but better. Because real people are always better than perfect memories.”
“So you’re saying K needs to get over his memory of Lyria.”
“I’m saying he already is. By letting the mate bond begin with you. By asking you to consider accepting it.” Lila’s eyes are steady. “Do you think he’d do that lightly? Let a bond form if he wasn’t certain?”
“I think he’s centuries old and lonely and I happened to be convenient. Let’s face it, the guy’s never gonna learn how to use Tinder.”
“Mara.” Elena’s voice is firm now. “You are many things. Convenient is not one of them.”
Despite everything, I almost laugh. “Fair.”
“You’re brilliant. Manic. Loyal to a fault.
You hack government security systems for fun and live-stream alien landings at all hours of the night, and you literally refused to leave K with those Syndicate fuckers even when you were dying.
” She meets my eyes. “That’s not convenient.
That’s extraordinary. And if he can’t see that, he doesn’t deserve you. ”
My throat closes.
“But he does see it,” Elena continues quietly. “I watched him with you. The way he looks at you.” She shakes her head. “Caleb said he stopped the interrogation and ran up three flights of stairs because he felt the healing bond breaking. That’s not obligation, babe. That’s—”
Alarms blare.
Loud. Jarring. The kind of sound that means something is very wrong.
Red lights flash along the ceiling. People scramble. Chairs scraping. Voices shouting.
Elena’s on her feet immediately. “That’s the perimeter breach alarm.”
“Syndicate?” I’m standing too. Coffee forgotten.
“Has to be.” She’s already moving toward the door. Lila right behind her.
I follow. Because what else am I going to do? Hide in the cafeteria?
The hallways are a zoo. Dragons in various states of shifting—some fully transformed, some caught between. Weapons being distributed. Defensive positions forming.
Viktor’s voice cuts through via overhead speakers. “All non-combat personnel to safe rooms. Combat teams to defensive positions. This is not a drill.”
“Mara.” Elena grabs my arm. “You need to get to safety.”
“Where’s K?”
“Probably at the command center with Viktor and Caleb. He’s—”
“I need to see him.”
“Mara, there’s no time—”
“I NEED to see him.” The words come out desperate. Raw. Because something has taken hold, and now that I feel it, I can’t let go. “Please, Lennie. If the Syndicate is attacking, if something happens… I need to tell him.”
“Tell him what?”
This is it. This is your heart speaking.
“That I want the bond. That I’m not running. That I—” My voice breaks. “That I choose him. And if we’re about to get attacked by supernatural terrorists, I need him to know that.”
Elena stares at me silently, assessing.
Then she nods. “Come on. But stay close.”
We run.
Through corridors. Up stairs. Past guards taking defensive positions. The facility is a hive of activity, everyone moving with purpose, following protocols that have probably been drilled a thousand times.
The command center is on the third floor. Reinforced doors. Security checkpoint.
The guard sees Elena and waves us through.
Inside is organized pandemonium. Screens showing perimeter feeds. Maps with tactical overlays. Viktor at the center, barking orders. Caleb beside him. Dorian coordinating with someone via headset.
And K.
Standing near the main display. Arms crossed. Face set in those ancient lines that mean he’s gone full Dragon King mode.
He sees me.
Everything stops.
Just for a moment. Just long enough for something to pass between us. Recognition. Relief. Fear.
Then he’s moving. Crossing the room in three strides.
“You should be in a safe room.”
“Yeah, well. I needed to tell you something.”
“Now is not—”
“I want the bond.” The words tumble out. “The mate bond. I’m not running. I’m choosing this. You. And I needed you to know that before we potentially die out there.”
He goes very still.
Something flickers in his chest. Not physical. Not visible. But I feel it. Like an echo. Like recognition flowing both ways instead of one.
It’s that bond. The mate thing that I’m just never going to be able to hide from.
Not that I want to.
“Mara—”
“Also, your timing is terrible. Like, objectively the worst. We just broke one bond, and now there’s an attack and—”
He kisses me.
Right there. In the middle of the command center. With Viktor shouting orders and alarms still blaring, and half of the Aurora Collective watching.
He cups my face and kisses me like I’m the last drink of water in the desert, and he’s dying of thirst.
When he pulls back, his eyes are burning. “You choose me.”
“Yeah. Unfortunately. My taste in men is apparently terrible.”
“The mate bond—”
“Is starting. I feel it. Like—” I press my hand to my chest. “Like something waking up. Recognizing you.”
“Yes.” His hand covers mine. “I feel it too. But Mara—it won’t complete. Not until we—” He stops. Clears his throat. “Not until we seal it. When we’re ready. When you’re certain.”
“I’m certain now.”
“You’re terrified, and we’re under attack. That is not the time for permanent decisions.”
“Actually, I think it’s the perfect time for permanent decisions,” I disagree.
“Mara.” He smiles at me.
I huff out a breath. “So we wait.”
“We wait.” His thumb traces my cheekbone. “But know this: I want this bond. Want you. When this is over, when we have time to do this properly—”
“We’ll seal it.”
“Yes.”
Something warm blooms in my chest. And I recognize it. It’s hope. Certainty.
“KAEL.” Viktor’s voice cuts through. “We need you. NOW.”
Reality crashes back.
The attack. The Syndicate. The fact that we’re standing in a command center while enemies are literally at the gates.
K doesn’t let go of me, turns away. “Where?”
“Breach on the south side. They’re using some kind of magical battering ram. We need your fire to counter it.”
“Go,” I tell him. “They need you.”
“You stay safe.”
“That’s my line.”
“Mara—”
“GO. Beat up the bad guys. Save the day. Be all Dragon King-y. I’ll be here when you get back. And then—” I meet his eyes. “Then we finish this.”
He knows what I mean.
He kisses me again. Quick. Hard. Then he’s moving. Out the door. Gone.
Elena appears at my elbow. “That was—”
“Stupid? Impulsive? Possibly the worst timing ever?”
“I was going to say romantic. But yes. Also all those things.”
The bond hums in my chest. Different from the healing bond. This one doesn’t pull or demand or threaten.
It just… waits.
Patient. Certain. Ours to complete when we’re ready.
“Lennie?”
“Yeah?”
“I think I just did something nuts.”
“Yeah.” She squeezes my hand. “You did.”
“And if we survive this attack?”
“Then you and K get to seal a mate bond.” Her smile is small. Knowing. “Properly. Intimately. The way it’s supposed to happen.”
Heat floods my face. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.”
The alarms keep blaring.
“Shit,” says Elena. “I’d better get you to a safe room.”
I nod because that’s the sane thing to do.
Which is new for me.
The screens show Syndicate forces approaching.
And somewhere out there, my almost-mate is about to fight for our lives.