Chapter 16
Lucan
My dragon sang.
There was no other word for it. The rumble that started the moment her fingers pressed against my scales hadn’t stopped when I shifted back.
She had touched me. She'd walked across that clearing on her own, tears streaming down her face, hands shaking, and she had chosen to reach for me.
I would live off that moment for the rest of my life if she never gave me another one.
Liz sat on the ground with her knees pulled up and her arms wrapped around them. She stared at the tree line as if the pines owed her an explanation, and her breathing came in shallow, uneven pulls that told me her body was still catching up to what her mind had already accepted.
I lowered myself to the ground about four feet from her, one arm draped over a bent knee, keeping my posture open.
Every instinct I had screamed to close the gap, to pull her against my chest and wrap myself around her until the trembling stopped. My dragon pushed hard and made my body ache with the effort of staying still.
She needed space more than she needed comfort right now, and I’d cut off my arm before I crowded her into something she wasn’t ready for.
The clearing settled around us, and birds cautiously resumed their noise in the canopy.
Liz spoke first, her voice coming out rough. “There’s something in my chest.”
My heart kicked. “I know.”
She turned her head to look at me. Her brown eyes were red-rimmed and glassy, her cheeks blotchy from crying, and she was still the most stunning woman I had ever seen in my life.
She pressed her fist against her sternum. “Like a hook behind my sternum. It gets louder when you’re close. What is it?”
I chose my words carefully. “It’s a tether. A bond between a dragon and his mate.” I braced for a flinch that never came. “My dragon recognized you the moment I caught your scent in the forest. That pull you’re feeling is the connection trying to form.”
Her jaw worked, and she looked away. “You’re telling me some magical leash has been installed in my chest without my consent.”
The word “leash” landed like a fist to my sternum. I didn’t know the details of what brought her here, and I didn’t need them yet. The evidence was in every guarded look, every flinch away from kindness, every wall she’d built from bricks of self-reliance.
“It’s a map that tells me where you are and if you’re hurting. It pulls me toward you because my dragon’s entire purpose is to protect what matters most to him.” I paused. “It is never a leash.”
She looked at me again, searching for more.
“My dragon knows you’re mine.” The words rumbled out of me, weighted with the truth my whole body confirmed. “But I know you belong to yourself.”
Her chin trembled. She bit down on her lower lip, hard, the way people do when they refuse to cry a second time.
“What if I don’t want it?”
The question carved through me. My dragon recoiled, a hot flare of anguish that seared my insides. I breathed through it.
“Then I’ll still be here.” I held her gaze. “The bond doesn’t override your choices, Liz. It’s just a thread attempting to pull us together, but it doesn’t compel anything beyond what you're open to.”
She stared at me for a long time. The wind shifted her short hair across her forehead. “You’re serious?”
“Yes. There are three parts of a bond: the physical connection, the emotional acceptance, and the acceptance from the quad.” I knew this information might overwhelm her, but if I even wanted a chance, she needed to know. “The bonding can go as fast or as slow as you want it to.”
“The quad? Kade, Atlas, and…” She cringed. “Please tell me that serial-killer face isn’t a dragon too.”
“Zarek had his flame snuffed and is still recovering.” I didn’t add that he’d been dealing with his dragon’s bitterness for almost a decade. “He is very loyal once you worm your way through his dragon’s defenses.”
She nodded, and her posture relaxed, her fingers threading through the grass next to her and making it stand again. “What’s the physical component?”
There was no point in sugarcoating it. “Sex.”
Her mouth twitched. The tiniest, most reluctant flicker at the corner of her lips. She squashed it immediately, pressing her face into her knees.
My dragon purred so loudly I felt it vibrate my teeth. That twitch was worth more than every piece of gold in our hoard.
After a few moments, Liz lifted her face from her knees and studied me with unguarded curiosity, stripped of the suspicion that had colored every interaction we’d had since I’d told her I was the man in the woods.
“Why did you really leave the knife in my tent?”
My dragon preened. His rumble deepened into a rolling, self-satisfied vibration that heated my chest from the inside out. He had been waiting for her to ask this question since the moment he’d pressed that blade into the canvas beside her sleeping bag.
“Our hoard.” The words came easily because every part of me had accepted her as my mate, so the protectiveness over it was gone. “Gold, weapons, gemstones, anything rare or valuable. We collect and we guard, and we are ferociously possessive about what belongs to us.”
She tilted her head. “Ferociously possessive. Wonderful.”
“I caught your scent at another campsite, and my dragon basically claimed you right then and there. When we went to our hoard, I grabbed the knife for you.” I rubbed my jaw, remembering how I’d felt an urgency to find her the perfect gift even though I hadn’t laid eyes on her.
“I searched for you every night until the night your fire’s smoke gave me the signal. ”
I cringed at the memory of the chaos of those first seconds after I’d shifted. Her scream. The bear spray. The absolute wreckage of my dignity.
“I let my dragon take over a little too much that night. But after you ran, I put the knife in your tent. I’d been carrying it in a little pouch every time I was on patrol in case I spotted you.”
“That’s the most unhinged romantic gesture I’ve ever heard,” she said, a hint of disbelief in her tone.
“Zarek nearly had an aneurysm when he found out about it.” I let the corner of my mouth pull up. “I really can’t wait to see what the first thing he gives his mate is.”
She snorted. “The golden stick up his ass?”
My head fell back as I laughed, and she joined in. She was going to fit in with my quad just fine.
My laughter faded into the stillness of the clearing, and I realized how long we’d been sitting on the ground. The sun had climbed higher, warming the grass and pulling the scent of wild clover into the air.
I stood and brushed off the back of my shorts, then extended my hand to Liz.
She looked at it. Her gaze traveled from my open palm to my face and back again, calculating the cost of the gesture the way she seemed to calculate everything. Then her fingers slid into mine.
Her hand was small and warm, her grip firm. I closed my fingers around hers and pulled her to her feet. She rose easily, and for a second, we stood there, her hand still wrapped in mine. Her pulse tapped against my palm, quick and steady.
Neither of us let go.
My dragon hummed, low and content, savoring the simple pressure of her skin against mine. I memorized the exact weight of her hand, the way her thumb rested along the side of my index finger, the heat that bloomed where our palms pressed together.
Then she released me, and I let her go without resistance.
We walked toward Reese’s truck. The tall grass swished against our legs, and I shortened my stride to match hers. She tucked her hands into the pockets of her sweater.
“So...” She kept her eyes on the truck. “What now?”
“That’s up to you.”
She glanced at me sideways. “That’s a non-answer.”
I shrugged. “I can leave you be and give you time to think. I can take you on a date. We can just be friends. Whatever you want, Liz.”
My dragon practically clawed at my ribs. He wanted me to drop to my knees in the grass and beg her for the date. I kept my face neutral and my stride easy, though my pulse hammered in my ears.
She stopped walking. I stopped too, turning to face her.
Her shoulders dropped on a long exhale. “It’s hard for me to even imagine dating or a relationship at this point.”
A searing ache ripped through my chest, and I clenched my jaw against it. Every cell in my body wanted to reach for her, to promise her I was different, to swear on the hoard and the sky and every star I’d ever flown beneath that I would never cause her that kind of pain.
I nodded once.
Her eyes narrowed, watching for a crack in my composure. I refused to give her one.
“I’d be willing to do something like kayaking on the lake, though.” She paused. “If dragons even like water.”
A scoff tore out of me before I could stop it. “Dragons love the water. Zarek is literally a hydrologist. The man’s entire career revolves around water systems.”
Her eyebrow lifted. “He studies water for a living?”
“Obsessively.” I grinned. “When do you have a day off?”
“Today and tomorrow.” She started walking toward the truck again. “You work, though.”
“I basically set my own schedule.”
She shot me a look loaded with skepticism. “You were doing so well with your honesty.”
I reached the passenger door and opened it for her. “Tomorrow afternoon? I’ll get some kayaks from Atlas Adventures.”
She climbed into the truck and settled into the seat. Her hand lingered on the door frame, fingers tapping once against the metal. “Fine. Tomorrow afternoon.” She pulled the door from my grip and swung it shut.
Tomorrow afternoon. I had a date that wasn’t a date with my mate who wasn’t ready to be my mate.
I’d take it.