Chapter 17 #2
Tanner sank onto the couch and set the note aside.
The silence of the cabin mocked him. In his desire to protect her, to wrap her in the safety of his home and his town, he had smothered the very thing that made her Avelunne.
She needed the sky. And worse, the damn moonwing curse had convinced her that she was defective, that the profound connection between them was one-sided.
He wanted to shift, to find a storm and rumble the world with his pain.
She was leaving because she loved him enough to want him to have a “true” mate.
He stood and paced the length of the room, his hands clenching and unclenching. He cursed the moonwing curse and the years she spent as a captive in hell. Anger flayed him for not finding the words to bridge the gap her curse created. Shame sneered at him for failing her.
He stopped at the window, staring out at the snow-covered valley.
Slowly, the fires of rage and hurt turned to ash as his discipline reasserted itself.
Allowing himself to feel emotions was cleansing.
Wallowing in them was pointless. He needed to think.
He needed to be the man who saw details others missed.
He crossed to the couch and picked up the note to read it again, this time trying to get a sense of the meaning behind what she’d written.
Words he’d blown past before stopped him now.
Past moonset. She’d assumed he would work the full shift, like he always did, and wouldn’t find her note until after midnight.
She much preferred to fly at night. Leaving while the moon was visible gave her dragon the best advantage. Which meant she hadn’t left yet.
Hope, jagged and desperate, bubbled up, galvanizing him. She might still leave, but he wasn’t going to let her go without a fight. Not to control her, but to show her the truth. He pulled out his phone.
The bitter, brittle air made the open field behind the Transition Center seem barren, but Tanner barely noticed. His attention was anchored entirely on the dragon standing in the snow. Her scales shimmered, silhouetting her elegant form against the shadows of the mountains.
A heavy canvas harness crisscrossed her chest, securing the bag of art supplies he’d given her to her back. He’d known she was leaving, but the tangible reality of it hurt.
He spoke quietly, knowing she’d hear it. “I’d like to talk to you before you go,”
“I can’t stay,” her voice whispered in his mind, the telepathic connection sounding clear but distant. “I love you, but I can’t stay.”
“I know. I’m not asking you to,” Tanner replied. With a silent prayer to the wind god, he formed the words. “I would like to go with you. Please talk to me.”
He sensed her astonishment through their connection before she shielded. She remained motionless for a long moment, then sank into a crouch. For a heart-stopping moment, he thought she was about to launch, but instead, she shifted.
She stepped out of the pile of harness straps and the bag, fully dressed in layers of flannel and denim, and her pink coat. Even from several paces away, he could feel the residual heat of her dragon magic keeping her warm.
She walked closer but stopped well out of arm’s reach. Her hands slide into her pockets. “You don’t want to go where I’m going. This is your home, your nest. Your sanctuary. They need you. You need them.”
“Yes, all that is true. But it’s not everything.” He made himself stay where he was instead of moving closer like his feet wanted. “I can take a vacation.”
Avelunne frowned, giving him a skeptical look. “You haven’t ever, not in anyone’s memory. I asked. You don’t know how to take a vacation.”
“Also true.” Tanner nodded. “But I’m hoping you can teach me.
I built a department that doesn’t need me every second.
I trained Shiloh because he needed a place to grow, but also in case something happened to me.
” He let the silence stretch for a heartbeat, ensuring she heard the weight of his next words.
“Something did happen to me. You. You beguiled me before I even saw you.”
She looked down at her boots. “We aren’t… I can’t mate with you. I’m blind.”
Tanner gathered his words, tense with the fear that he only had this one shot.
“We, that is, thunderbirds, don’t need the mate bond.
” He needed her to understand this, to know she wasn’t a consolation prize.
“I had a long talk with my cousins. They reminded me about our clan’s traditional teaching tales.
The wind god asked our avian clan to take up shield and spear against the Ahklut and protect the Arctic peoples.
The god offered us the power of thunder.
Our clan was small, so we asked to be freed from the need for a mate-bond to bear viable young, and the god agreed.
” He waved a hand toward the sky. “Maybe that’s just a story we made up to make us feel better about the fact that we’re partly blind, too.
However it happened, the bottom line is that mate bonds are a bonus extra, not a biological imperative.
I won’t fall in love with someone else because they smell good.
My thunderbird instinctively wants to claim you, but we aren’t going to let magic tell us what to do.
We are in love with you and want to be with you. ”
She looked up, her eyes luminous but her expression closed. “I don’t want to come between you and your duty.”
“You won’t.”
She shook her head. “It’s not in you to walk away from an emergency. Am I wrong?”
He reconsidered his knee-jerk reply. Their telepathic connection meant she both saw his actions and knew the reasons behind them.
“Okay, you’re right. It will happen sometimes.
But it’s equally true that I might get between you and freedom, or you and your need to create.
We’ll negotiate. Duty and love can coexist. We can find a balance. ”
Avelunne studied his face, as if searching for weaknesses in his resolve. “How long can this vacation be?”
“Weeks. Months, even.” Tanner snorted ruefully. “Guivre not-so-subtly reminded me that I should be using my decades of earned time off, not hoarding it like a dragon.”
A small smile touched her lips in response, giving him a surge of hope.
“I have money,” he continued. “My accountant pointed out I hoard that, too. I doubt you’ll take any of it from me, but maybe you’ll let me spend it on us until you build your own hoard.
I propose we fly tonight and figure out where you’d like to go.
Or what you want to learn, or do.” He showed her the duffel bag slung over his shoulder. “I’m ready.”
She went silent, thinking. Her telepathic shield was impermeable, and doubts rose like demons and began to assail him. Maybe his offer felt like a trap. “Unless you’d rather go alone.” He took in a measured breath. “I’d worry, because I love you. But I’d look forward to your letters.”
“If I went alone, would you cancel your vacation and stay here?”
“I don’t know.” He pushed a mound of snow with the toe of his boot.
It would be embarrassing to undo all the hasty arrangements he’d made, but he’d survive it.
On the other hand, he needed to embrace change.
He’d become a creature of habit. And he wasn’t sure he could stand the lonely silence of his cabin.
“I’d take the vacation. I think I need it. ”
She took two small steps toward him. “Where would you go?”
Tanner gave her a crooked grin. “Someplace where they’ve never even heard of snow.” He thought about it seriously for a second, listening to his feelings. “A beach. A private island, maybe. I know a shifter who knows a shifter who has a private resort.”
Avelunne took another step, holding out her hand to him. “Could I come with you? I don’t want to go alone.”
Tanner closed the distance between them and pulled her into his arms. He meant the kiss he offered to be a grateful, reverential seal on their agreement.
But the moment their lips touched, the telepathic connection roared to life, incendiary and wild.
He couldn’t stop kissing her. She sent him waves of love and longing and white-hot desire that gave him an instant erection.
The connection went deeper than it ever had before, plunging past the surface thoughts into the core of who they were.
He felt her sense of wonder and her desperate need for new experiences to drown out the darker memories of captivity.
“You help me see things differently,” he projected, the thought flowing straight from his soul to hers.
She saw the darker, selfish feelings of envy that he’d buried beneath duty and dedication, and instead of judging him, she sent him an image of wrapping herself in the wings of his protectiveness. “You give me courage.”
He broke off the kiss to breathe, their mingled exhalations forming a dense cloud of vapor in the frigid air. “You have more courage than anyone I know. I just helped you focus it.”
He kissed her again to tell her he cherished her. The heat radiating from their bodies and magic enveloped them in a vapor halo. The moisture crystallized instantly, turning into tiny ice crystals that showered their faces.
“Are you doing that? Weaving threads of magic into a pattern?” Avelunne asked, her mental voice filled with awe.
“No, but I’m seeing stars—”
A sudden hurricane of power engulfed them.
It wasn’t wind; it was magic. The shower of ice crystals dusted the visible, twining threads of pure magic that formed a gossamer line between his heart and hers.
He sent every ounce of his love and magic to that line to strengthen it.
Her magic flared in response, and suddenly the line and his heart were coated with stars.
A simultaneous lightning bolt and thunderclap tore through the air above them, shaking the ground and echoing from the side of the building. The stunning mate bond snapped into place, solid, undeniable, and permanent.
After a long moment, Avelunne pulled back, eyes wide and shining. “Maybe the curse didn’t mean I would never have a mate. Just that I’d have to give someone my heart to discover it.”
Tanner had never felt so settled and yet so free in all his life. “I’m a romantic. I hope we broke the curse altogether. Your majesty’s moonwing subjects deserve a chance for happiness.”
Avelunne rested her head on his shoulder, her body relaxing against his. “Could we start flying south tonight? Our feet are going to get stuck in the ice if we stay here much longer.”
Tanner looked down. She was right — the hurricane of magic had melted the snow in a perfect circle around them, but the slush was freezing rapidly in the pervasive cold.
He kissed the top of her head. “Yes, my queen.” She was worth waiting for. Worth fighting for. Worth changing his life for.
He led her back to the spot where she’d left her harness and bag.
She shifted, the great dragon returning to fill the space, using her magic to settle the pack in place on her back.
He watched her launch, a greater flare of dragon magic adding lift to the powerful downstroke of her wings that kicked up a swirl of snow.
He knew he’d never get tired of seeing her in all her glory.
It only took a moment to shift, his bones and muscles stretching into place as the strap of his bespelled duffel bag settled into place around his neck.
Taking flight into the night sky wasn’t running away from home.
It would be there when he got back. He was following his heart, the one he’d given to the dragon soaring just above him.