Chapter 19
Nineteen
Ella
We landed on the roof of the tallest tower of a huge citadel inside the walls of the biggest city I’d ever seen.
“Everything’s so big,” I said, peeling myself off of Dirk’s scales as he touched down moments after Anna and Caz had cleared the area.
“I forget you’ve never been here.”
“Coming to Kylma as a Clippy isn’t high up on the list of smart things to do,” I admitted, tugging my shirt back into place as I scrambled down.
“From the lookout here, you can see everything.” Dirk shifted the instant my feet touched the stone. “When we’re not so busy, I’ll bring you back. During the day, the view is amazing.”
I could already tell, but any response was stifled as Dirk put his arm around me and hustled me toward the waiting stairway into the tower. The others were still descending behind us, and we didn’t want to hold them up.
The issue was, in his hurry, he was still naked from the shift. After hours of having every inch of skin I could manage pressed to his scales during our flight, the sudden contact with his very warm, very bare body was a fresh reminder of the way things had left off in the mountains.
Me, sliding down on top of him, his hands caressing my face, our mouths joined. I swallowed hard. It had been good. Everything about it had been good.
We hurried down the stairs. I tried my hardest to only look at where I was placing my feet and not his … and not at Dirk’s body. I mostly succeeded.
The stairway emptied out into what had to be a private study. Rows of thick, black-spined books lined one entire wall while the middle of the room was occupied by an absolutely gargantuan desk. On top of it were piles of clothes.
Dirk’s arm slipped away from my shoulders as he went to get dressed.
I resolutely did not allow myself to miss the warmth and closeness we had shared for the past few hours.
Even in dragon form, the eroticism of so much of my skin pressed against him had burned slowly somewhere deep within me.
Now, to be fully apart from him, I was left with hollow emptiness and more longing than I was comfortable with.
I found myself staring at the desk itself, the floor, and anywhere but at Dirk as he pulled on sweatpants and a matching black shirt. This analysis of something other than his muscular limbs showed me the skid marks on the floor.
The desk was out of place. I walked over to it and ran a finger along its edge, noting where it should be and where it was. Something like eight inches askew.
Someone coughed.
I looked up to see Anna staring at me, her cheeks flushed. That was odd. What did she have to embarrassed by? The desk?
Caz’s desk.
I looked around the room once more. Caz’s desk. In Caz’s private study. My eyes found Anna. Her cheeks were even more red now.
Busted.
“Huh,” I said, casually sidling up to my best friend. “This is a really big desk.”
“Is it? I never noticed,” she muttered with false innocence, looking away.
“Probably weighs a lot.”
“Probably.” Anna glared at me.
I only smiled wider. “Must have taken quite a bit of force to move it like that.”
“Shut up, okay?” Anna whispered, begging for me to drop the subject.
“Everything okay?” Caz grunted in our direction, looking up from where he had been talking in low tones to Dirk.
I smiled at him. “It sounds like everything is fine. I was just …”
Anna laughed and put a hand over my mouth. “She was just stirring things up is what she was going to say.”
Caz stood up straight, his forehead creasing as he looked back and forth between us. When we didn’t offer anything more, he shrugged at Dirk and shook his head. The exasperated “women” went unspoken, but it was clear nonetheless.
Anna and I laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Milly said, coming down the stairs now, escorted by Durion.
“Nothing,” Anna said.
“I was just admiring the big, heavy desk in Caz’s private study,” I replied innocently. “And how it happens to be out of position.”
Milly frowned and looked down at the desk, then up at me, and then to Ella. A handful of seconds later her face lit up. “Yeah. It seems everything is big around here.”
I giggled again, trying to stifle it with a hand, but Milly joined in, and even Anna was forced to laugh about it.
Does Dirk have a study?
My laughter disappeared all at once at the image of Dirk, very naked Dirk, and me … moving a desk like this. Saliva disappeared, leaving my mouth, at least, very dry.
“Good, you’re here,” Caz said as Kolar trotted down the stairs, the last of our flight to arrive. “Kolar, go find Florian. Have him meet me in the throne room.”
“On it,” Kolar said, hurrying off in a blur of braided black hair and matching eyes.
“Dirk, you and Durion please get the women settled in quarters. Private wing, you know the deal. When you’re done, Dirk, join me in the throne room. We’ve got planning to do.”
Everyone started to move, but I clutched on to Anna’s arm. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“Same,” Milly said.
Anna smiled, patting my hand. “I have to go be all political with Caz. Ice Tyrantess. I can’t avoid that.”
“Oh. Right.” I let her go.
“They’ll put you in rooms very close, though. I won’t be busy all the time. We’ll go find the library tomorrow. Okay?”
Milly and I both brightened at the idea of spending a day in the library, trying to research what was going on with us and whether it could be applied to the other Clippys out there.
I walked beside Dirk, trying not to gape too hard at the trappings of the citadel, but it was a challenge. From the huge, arched hallways covered in fine carpets and the magnificent paintings, tapestries, and statues that lined them to the liberal use of stained glass, it was beautiful.
“My brother has worked hard to transform it since our father died,” Dirk explained as Durion and Milly stopped at her door. “It used to be dark, with only torches at intersections, and often even then they were extinguished. Now it is lit all the time, everywhere. A brighter future starts here.”
Despite the richness of it all, I still wasn’t prepared when Dirk opened the next door. “And these will be your quarters.”
I stared through the opening. “Dirk, you could fit houses in here.”
“This is just the foyer. You have two bedrooms, each with their own shower and bathroom. There’s also a sitting room if you have the girls over and a study. I’ll have some blank journals sent over, in case you want to write.”
“Uh-huh. Okay,” I said dreamily, still trying to grasp the size of the suite. It felt like half the chalet could fit inside, and my room there had been massive. This was just on another level.
“Is it adequate?”
I couldn’t help it. I giggled. He was just so earnest about it. As if this opulence could somehow not be enough.
“Dirk,” I said, patting his arm. “It was a very short time ago that I was living in the wilds, scrounging for every meal, using the two spare items of clothing I possessed as a pillow. This is more than adequate. It’s a lot.”
“Is it too much?” he asked, something flickering in those damnably blue eyes of his.
I’d thought he wore himself on his sleeve, but the more I talked to Dirk, the more I wondered if the side he presented was an act. Because the way he’d asked that question, the tone of his voice, spoke to someone who knew what I meant. Who understood.
“It’s the beds,” he said in response to my look. “Isn’t it?”
I nodded.
“They’re too soft.”
“It feels wrong sometimes. Unsafe, as if I’ll sleep too deeply,” I said in a whisper.
He nodded.
“How do you know?” I asked, curious how someone who grew up among such ostentatiousness could understand the feeling of a bed being too soft.
Dirk was silent, looking over my shoulder at something only he could see. “Another time, maybe,” he said with a shake of his head.
“Okay.” What else could I say? I had my own secrets. I couldn’t get angry at him for keeping something to himself when I was no open book.
He nodded but didn’t leave.
“Is there something else you need from me?” I asked.
“Need?” He shook his head firmly, tossing the long strands of silver-blond hair from side to side. “Want? Yes.”
“Oh?” I licked my lips, certain he wanted to talk about the kiss we had shared and just as certain that I had no interest in going back there at the moment.
“I was wondering if … if maybe I could see my mate marks.” His shoulders lifted in a jerky, uneasy motion. “I know I have no right to ask since I put them there without asking you, but I’d like to see them when I’m not falling toward potential doom.”
His mate marks? I hesitated, the question catching me completely off guard.
Dirk immediately shook his head, his lips compressing into a line. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have asked anyway.”
He started to go.
“Dirk.”
I met his eyes, wondering if I was crazy for what I was about to say. Was I making a mistake, or was this the right way forward? Or maybe I was still worked up about being pressed against him, sharing the energy of our bond for hours on end.
That in itself seemed to point the way. The mate marks were there, a marker of truth that I couldn’t object to, unless I wanted to go on just denying fate and Dirk.
Could I give him a chance? Anna was happy with Caz. Could I find the same?
Maybe I’m not as broken as I think, if fate is pushing me toward him.
“You can tell me when you’re ready, Ella,” Dirk said as the silence between us grew heavier.
I made up my mind.
Steeling myself, I nodded at him. “I know. But I want to say it now. Because you need to know.”
“Know what?”
“That I,” I faltered and tried again. “That I can’t deny that fate has linked us.”
Dirk stiffened, visibly bracing himself, likely preparing for the worst. I couldn’t blame him. That was all I’d given him. Until now.
“But I can’t just … do this,” I said, still searching for the right set of words.
“I understand,” he said stonily.
“No,” I said gently. “I don’t think you do.”
He smiled. It was empty of anything but a moving of muscles on his face. “You don’t want me, Ella. I get it, and I don’t blame you. You shouldn’t.”
“What I was going to say,” I explained, ignoring him, “is that I can’t do it the way it’s supposed to go when two dragons are fated.”
“Huh?” He didn’t bother hiding his confusion.
“Fate has pushed us together. Marked me. That’s obvious, and I think, I think I’m done pretending that things between us are different. It’s too much work. But I’m not, I can’t, just jump into your arms.”
“What do you want then?” Dirk asked, the blue in his eyes shining brighter than before, buoyed by the hope I was feeding him.
I just hoped I wasn’t making a mistake.
“If we try moving forward, if this is going to work, you’re going to have to do things, um,” I stumbled, searching for the word I wanted.
“Proper?”
I nodded. “Yes. Proper. I need time. There are things you don’t know about me.”
Dirk’s head whipped from side to side with unhinged vehemence. “I don’t care. Whatever it is, none of it matters to me, Ella. I swear it.”
“Shhh,” I said, putting a finger to his lips as I moved inside his personal space. “It should, Dirk. Because it matters to me.”
“Oh.” He calmed. “That kind of stuff.”
I could only smile at the abrupt male directness. It was kind of endearing, in a way. Cute, almost.
“If we try this, Dirk, it needs to be slow. I need to know you as a person. Trust you on the deepest, most instinctual level there is. No matter what, I have to believe—not be told but believe—that you aren’t like the other Elites.
And I can’t do it just because I have these.
” I lifted my shirt slightly, watching his eyes widen as he stared at the marks on my side.
His marks.
“I don’t trust easily or quickly. I’m sorry that you have to deal with that.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” he told me. “At all.”
“Actually, I do.” Now came the hard part. “Because I’m not sure that, even going slow, I’ll be able to do this. There is a large chance this is all just me leading you on. It’s just …”
“Go on,” he urged.
I shook my head. I couldn’t. It was too deep, too personal, and I wasn’t ready for that yet with him.
He stared at me, his eyes flitting here and there across my face. I wasn’t sure what he saw, but it must have been enough.
“Right,” he said at last. “You need to be courted. Wooed. I can do that.”
There was no stopping the smile that spread across my face at the absolute eagerness radiating off him. He was a man, who had been given a problem to solve and a path to the solution. He was ready to get to work.
“Yeah. I can definitely do that,” he said, clapping his hands together before pointing at me. “Just you wait, Ella. You are going to get the best wooing. You’ve never been wooed like this before. It’s gonna be so wooful you’re gonna be, uh, um …”
“Wooed?” I suggested when his brain caught up with the rest of him and he stopped talking.
“Yeah. Exactly.” His face stilled, and he brushed a finger against my cheek, turning serious once more. “I’m going to make this right between us, Ella. Somehow I will fix it. I promise.”
I smiled. It was all I could do.
That, and hope I wasn’t broken beyond repair.