Chapter 19 #2
Zan’s eyes glow, and his jaw clenches like he has to fight with himself just to say, “Because just because I don’t have choices doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.”
Oh his instincts do not like that, do they?
How noble of him, but mine don’t either.
“You’re very much close enough to punch,” I tell him tightly.
“You don’t understand. Yes, I know, let me— I’ve never had to explain this before,” he says in frustration.
Well, at least we’re both pissed off?
I abruptly turn and tug him toward the couch.
He doesn’t pull away but follows me, and I hold onto that tiny hope.
This should have been incredible news for both of us, and I can’t help feeling a little hurt that we’re fighting about it instead.
But I sit down and pull him down next to me.
“I’ll wait,” I say simply.
After all, he waited for me for five hundred years.
Zan takes a moment to gather his thoughts.
“A mate bond is... a lot,” he finally says.
“It’s intense. Our magic will be entwined at our core.
I’ll be able to be inside your head. We won’t share abilities, but we will share strength—which means I can pull it from you any time.
There won’t... there won’t be many boundaries between us. ”
“I genuinely don’t know what makes you think I want boundaries between us.” I practically invited the man to watch me naked.
“Because you barely know who you want to be, and I don’t want to limit that,” Zan says. “For you to find out later you want to change and can’t without killing me. I don’t want to trap you—do you understand?”
Okay, maybe I do. He doesn’t want to limit the shape of my future like the Order did.
But it’s not the same if I’m choosing to let him shape my future.
He’s the one who pointed out that there are boundaries, and there are boundaries.
“You keep talking about the hazards for me,” I say. “But I notice you haven’t talked about the benefits. Or the dragon in the kitchen.”
“The—? Oh. Children?”
“Children,” I agree. “I’ve never even thought about having them, but—”
“If you don’t want them, then you don’t,” says Zan simply.
“We can have children together—my human form is compatible with yours in that way—but whether they will be dragons I don’t know.
A mate bond with a human is literally unheard of.
I can tell you that the dragons would still want to steal them from you. ”
“Yeah good fucking luck to them.”
Zan snorts.
But I notice he didn’t answer whether he does want children—at all, or with me.
Or what the benefits of the mate bond are.
He’s trying so, so hard not to bias me in any way, and I both love that about him and also want to strangle him.
“Is that why you turned away, the first time we saw each other?” I ask instead. “Because I was human?”
Zan leans back with a grimace. “Not in the way you mean, I think. I thought it would be too hard to connect to someone like I thought you were—someone enmeshed in the Order’s bigotry.
I thought it would be too much for you, to disentangle yourself from their teachings, to be able to deal with the prospect of a dragon, let alone the reality of one.
I felt the potential between us, but I didn’t see far enough beneath the surface. So I wasn’t there when you detonated.”
And we’re back to old history after all. “Zan, my survival depended on no one seeing beneath the surface. You can’t blame yourself for believing what I showed the world on purpose.”
“I can blame myself for my assumptions,” he says sharply. “I can blame myself for not trying.”
My ire rises again. “And yet here we are, with you ready to turn away from me based on more assumptions. And you lied to me—”
“Not on purpose,” Zan grits out. “Experiencing a fledgling mate bond is new for me—”
“You still knew you had a safe way to replenish your energy and didn’t tell me that I could help, meanwhile you kept spending all your power on helping me—”
“I can’t make you choose a mate bond, Yora! That’s when those big boosts were happening, and until after our trip up the mountain I didn’t realize it wasn’t constant, it was because—”
“Yes, I worked that out, no thanks to you,” I snap. “But then you realized and still didn’t tell me.”
“I didn’t want you to worry about me at the expense of yourself.”
“And you don’t get to decide what I worry about!”
“And if I had told you, would you have felt pressured, knowing that you’re my only option for a mate? Would it have been fair to put that on you when you finally have a chance to find your way? My ability to mate is not your problem—”
“Excuse me?” I interrupt dangerously.
“Whatever my feelings, they shouldn’t determine yours,” Zan says firmly.
“Bold of you to think that they do,” I say. “Tell me, among dragons, does one mate make decisions for the other? If they share power, how can they not be partners?”
Zan scowls. “You don’t know all the factors—”
“Yes, and whose fault is that? You could tell me!”
“And you’d just have to take my word for it because there’s no other way for you to know, and you barely know me,” he bites out.
I still. “Don’t I?”
Zan opens his mouth, and I cover it with my hand.
“Do I know that you like eggs, and terrible puns, and colors in jewel tones? Do I know that even though your power is born to fire, you crave the chill of ice? Do I know that you will help people even when you don’t think they deserve it, that when you commit you won’t be swayed even if you falter, that your sense of justice is stronger than the centuries? ”
I remove my hand from his mouth.
His eyes are blazing.
“I do know you, Zan,” I tell him. “You are the only person I know like this, and the only person I have ever wanted to know like this. And there’s nothing wrong with my brain. Never has been.”
“I didn’t say that,” he says hoarsely.
“You were the one who helped me realize I could trust my gut, myself. Either I can trust my judgment or I can’t; you can’t have it both ways,” I tell him.
And I slide over him onto his lap.
He wants to be beneath me, rather than pressing me down?
I can get behind that.
With my hands on his shoulders, I give in and shake him gently.
“So when I tell you that I want you, as deep as I can have you,” I say, “I mean it.”
Zan’s eyes go black.
Ohhh hang on—
“It’s honestly incredible how you keep saying things like that accidentally,” Zan says tightly.
“I mean, I did mean that, but—”
His lips quirk. “I know, Yora. And I’m sorry. It is... difficult for me to believe, after so long, that someone might in fact choose me.”
“You’re going to have to start getting used to it,” I inform him.
His hands drop down to my hips. “So I see.”
I can feel him beginning to swell beneath me, and my core warms with it.