Chapter Twenty-Two – Leo
She’s not here, Leo’s bear said as he ran down the trail to Estelle’s cottage.
No, she’s not, Leo replied.
There was no car in the driveway. No sign of movement. Only the faint scent of her lingered on the breeze.
We need to find her, his bear urged, but Leo stood frozen, staring at the empty space where her car should have been.
She had gone without a word.
The thought landed hard enough to hollow him out. After everything they had shared, after everything they had only just begun to build, she had still left.
No, his bear growled. She wouldn’t. Not like this.
But the cottage stood silent, no light in the windows, no sound from inside. Leo’s chest tightened until drawing a full breath hurt.
I gave her space, he thought bitterly. And she used it to leave.
Wait, his bear said suddenly. Something’s wrong.
Leo paced the gravel drive, fighting the urge to break down the door and search for anything she might have left behind.
“Estelle,” he said into the empty evening. “Why?”
But then he sensed it. Something stirred deep within him.
His bear went completely still. Dragon.
Our dragon. Leo turned sharply, searching the darkening sky. Then he saw it, a flash of midnight blue catching the last of the light as something vast banked between the peaks.
His breath caught.
She came back, his bear said, almost in disbelief.
Relief hit so hard Leo had to lock his knees to stay upright. He stood rooted as the dragon, Estelle, circled once above the clearing, then again, before angling downward in a slow, controlled descent behind the cottage.
Leo ran.
He cut through the trees, branches catching at his sleeves, his bear driving him on. He burst into the clearing just as she landed, the force of her wings bending the long grass around her.
For one still moment, they looked at each other across the clearing, Leo with his heart trying to pound out of his chest, Estelle in her dragon form, midnight blue and shimmering in the fading light.
Then came the familiar pop and crackle of static, and Estelle stood before him.
“You’re here,” he said, the words rough in his throat. “I thought...”
“I know what you thought,” she said softly. “And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
They moved at the same time.
Leo caught her face in both hands, as if he needed to make sure she was really there, really warm beneath his palms. Estelle clutched at his shirt, and then he was kissing her, hard, desperate, relieved enough that it almost hurt.
When they broke apart, both of them breathing unevenly, he kept his forehead pressed to hers.
“Tell me,” he said. “Where did you go?”
Estelle’s fingers curled tighter in his shirt. “I didn’t run,” she whispered, and there was something fierce in her voice. “I faced her, Leo. I faced Margaret.”
He pulled back enough to see her properly. “Margaret. What happened?”
“I showed her.” Estelle swallowed. “Everything.”
Leo stared at her. “You shifted in front of Margaret?”
She gave a small nod. “Words weren’t enough. She had to see it. Had to understand what Adara is, and why I’ve been so afraid.”
His mind tried to catch up with the courage of that, the risk of it. “And?”
Estelle let out a shaky breath. “And she listened. Not at first. Not easily. But once she saw...” She shook her head. “She understood what was really at stake. And she promised to keep the secret.”
“Do you believe her?”
“Yes,” Estelle said, and the certainty in her voice caught at him. “I do.”
Is it really over? his bear stirred uneasily.
Maybe not entirely, Leo thought. But something had changed. I can hear it in her. Feel it.
“And Adara?”
“With Fiona.” A faint, tired smile touched Estelle’s mouth. “She told me she’d keep her overnight.”
Leo blinked. “You trusted Fiona with her?”
“I did.” Estelle’s smile shifted, a little wry now. “She understands why I did what I did.”
“And you didn’t think that I would?” Leo asked, unable to hide the hurt.
“You would have tried to talk me out of it,” Estelle replied.
True, his bear said.
“It was such a risk,” Leo replied.
“Sometimes you have to risk it all to get the very thing you need most.” She smiled shyly at him.
She means us. She means a life here with us, his bear said, practically doing somersaults.
Relief washed through him again, quieter this time, but no less deep. He pulled Estelle close and held her there, burying his face in her hair for a moment.
“When I found the cottage empty...” His voice nearly failed him. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“It doesn’t matter,” he murmured. “You’re here now, and that is all that matters.”
She came back to us, his bear roared with triumph.
Estelle stepped back just enough to take his hand. “Come with me,” she said. “I want to show you something.”
Leo looked at her for half a second, then laced his fingers through hers. “Anything.”
She led him farther into the clearing, then stopped and looked up toward the mountains.
“I want to take you up there,” she said.
He followed her gaze, then looked back at her. “You want me to fly with you.”
Estelle nodded. “I’ve never done it before. Carried anyone, I mean.” She let out a small breath. “But I want to. I want you to feel what I feel when I fly.”
Leo understood, with a sudden and almost painful clarity, what she was giving him. Not just flight. But a part of herself that no one else had ever known.
“I’d be honored,” he said.
She stepped back, and a second later the air popped and crackled. Her dragon stood before him once more, scales gleaming as the last light slid over them.
She lowered herself and stretched one foreleg forward like a step.
Leo approached slowly, then climbed onto her back. Her scales were warm beneath his hands, smoother than he had imagined.
“I’m ready,” he said.
He felt the shiver that went through her before she launched.
Then they were airborne.
The ground dropped away beneath them, the clearing falling small, then smaller still. Wind rushed against his face as Estelle climbed, strong and sure. The mountains opened around them, emerald forests spilling down into mist-filled valleys, jagged peaks rising dark against the last of the light.
For a few breathless seconds he could do nothing but hold on as the world below fell away until there was only sky, stars, and the beat of her wings.
Then wonder took over.
Wind tore past him, cold and clean, and for the first time he understood that the sky was not something separate from her. It was part of her, as natural as breathing. As if the earth alone could never be enough for such a creature.
They flew over ridges painted gold and rose by the last of the light. Estelle banked wide, then higher, then down again, showing him the world from her height, her freedom.
When she finally descended into a high meadow tucked beneath the mountain, she landed with a gentleness that made him smile. She crouched so he could climb down, then shifted back, standing before him with wind in her hair and color in her cheeks.
For a moment neither of them spoke.
The meadow was quiet around them, all wildflowers and evening light, and the first cool touch of night coming on.
“Now you know,” Estelle said softly.
Leo stepped toward her and took both her hands. “Thank you,” he said. “For that. For coming back. For all of it.”
Her eyes shone as bright as any star. “I love you,” she said, plain and clear. “I have since that first moment I sensed you.”
“I love you too,” he said. “You. Adara. All of it.”
He kissed her then, slower this time, deeper. She had come back to him. Not because fate demanded it, but because she had chosen him. And somehow that meant even more.