15. Aeron
Aeron
Mate.
That word had haunted me since the night of the ward breach. Three days had passed since then, and I still heard it echoing in the back of my head all day long, whether I was asleep or awake. And while I liked the way I felt when I thought of Quill in that way, logically I was spiraling.
Dragons only had one mate. Ever. While they could live for millennia and beyond, only one creature would come along during that time that would truly be their mate.
And it was almost always another dragon.
My grandfather, nearly one thousand years old, had never come across his true mate as far as I knew, though he had managed to procreate.
My parents had found one another in their five hundreds, a relatively young age as far as dragons were concerned.
But I was only eighty-five, practically a toddler. And my mate, by some cruel twist of fate, was a witch that wouldn’t, even with all the magic in the world, live past one hundred and ten.
The math made my head hurt. A hundred and ten years if he was lucky, if nothing happened to him, if he didn’t get caught in another ward breach or attacked by the Purity Front or any of the thousand other ways a human could die before their time.
Against my own lifespan, which would stretch on for centuries, possibly millennia, it was nothing.
A blink of an eye. A single breath in an eternity.
I’d spent the last three days trying not to think about it.
Trying to focus on classes, on the assignment with Quill that we still hadn’t actually made any real progress on, on pretending that everything was normal when absolutely nothing was.
But the word kept surfacing, kept dragging me back to the same uncomfortable truth.
Mate.
Which meant that what I’d been feeling wasn’t just attraction or possession or the simple desire to claim something beautiful that had caught my attention.
It meant that on some fundamental, biological level, Quill was meant for me.
That somewhere in the magic that made me what I was, his name was written into my very being.
It also meant that he probably would hate me even more if I told him. What was I supposed to say? “Hey Red, funny story, but you’re my one true mate and you’re going to age and die while I’m still basically a teenager, so buckle up for an emotional roller coaster?” Yeah, that would go over great.
I was sitting in Magical Theory when Quill walked in, and my entire body reacted immediately.
My scales prickled, my heart rate spiked, and my cock stirred in my jeans like it had a mind of its own.
He didn’t even look at me as he took his seat three rows over, keeping deliberately distant.
But I could smell him anyway. There was nothing else in the world that smelled like him, like my mate.
Professor Blackwood began her lecture, something about binding spells and their applications, but I couldn’t focus on a word she was saying.
My attention was entirely fixed on the back of Quill’s head, on the way he took notes with careful precision, on the occasional strand of red hair that stuck out of place.
Three days. Three days since I’d held him in my arms and realized what he was to me. Three days of torture, knowing that I couldn’t just tell him, that I had to somehow navigate this without scaring him off completely. And three days of me not noticing a single other person on campus besides him.
The problem was, I’d never been good at patience.
I’d never been good at waiting for anything.
My entire life, I’d taken what I wanted when I wanted it.
And now I wanted Quill more than I’d ever wanted anything, but I couldn’t just take him.
I couldn’t just claim him the way every instinct in my dragon nature was screaming at me to do.
After class ended, I watched him gather his things and head for the door.
I let him get a head start before I followed, keeping my distance as he made his way across campus.
He was heading toward the library, which was our usual meeting place for the assignment we weren’t doing.
Part of me wanted to leave him alone, to give him space, to let him figure out whatever was going on in that brilliant red-haired head of his.
But the other part of me, the part that was roaring with the need to be near him, overruled the sensible part.
I caught up to him just as he was pushing through the library doors, falling into step beside him like I’d been there the whole time. He shot me an annoyed glance but didn’t tell me to leave. Progress, maybe?
“So,” I said, keeping my voice casual despite the way my heart was hammering. “We should probably actually work on this assignment at some point.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, his tone carefully neutral. “We should.”
We made our way to our usual corner on the third floor, and I noticed the way he kept his distance from me.
And the way he was avoiding looking at me.
I wondered what he was thinking, whether he was replaying that night over and over in his head the way I was, or if he was trying desperately to forget it had ever happened.
“About the other night,” I started, unable to help myself.
“Don’t,” he cut me off sharply, pulling out his textbook with more force than necessary. “We’re not talking about that.”
“Why not?” I leaned back in my chair, studying him. “We had a good time, Red. You can’t just pretend we didn’t.”
“I can try,” he muttered, not meeting my eyes.
“Yeah, well, that’s not how this works,” I said, my voice rougher than I intended. “You can’t just blow me and then act like nothing happened.”
He flinched at my words, and I immediately regretted them. That wasn’t how I wanted this to go. But the frustration was building inside me, a pressure that needed release. For three days I’d been holding this in, pretending everything was fine when it wasn’t fine at all.
“Look,” Quill said, finally meeting my eyes, and I could see the conflict written all over his face. “That was... it was a crazy situation. We were scared. We weren’t thinking clearly.”
“I was thinking clearly,” I said quietly. “I knew exactly what I was doing.”
He looked away, his jaw clenching. “Well, I wasn’t. And I’d appreciate it if we could just move past it. Focus on the assignment. Keep things professional.”
Professional? He wanted professional? What the fuck? Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew he was trying to protect himself. Trying to maintain some kind of distance that would make it easier when the time came to walk away.
But I couldn’t let him do that.
“That’s not going to work for me,” I said, leaning forward. “You can’t just pretend I don’t exist, Red. You can’t pretend that what happened between us didn’t mean anything.”
“It didn’t,” he said flatly, but his hands were shaking as he gripped his textbook. “It was a mistake. A moment of weakness.”
“You’re a terrible liar,” I said, and it was true. His heart was racing, his scent had shifted to something full of anxiety and desire mixed together. He wanted me. He just didn’t want to want me.
“I’m not lying,” he insisted, but his voice wavered. “I just... I can’t do this, Aeron. I can’t be whatever it is you want me to be.”
“What do I want you to be?” I asked, genuinely curious about how he saw this situation.
“Yours,” he said bitterly. “I can’t be yours. I have too much going on. My family, my studies, my future. I don’t have room in my life for a possessive dragon who can’t take no for an answer.”
The words stung more than they should have. But underneath the sting was a deeper truth. He was scared. Not of me, but of what being with me would mean. Of losing control. Of becoming dependent on someone.
“What if I don’t want you to be mine?” I said slowly, testing the words even as I said them. “What if I just want you to be with me? There’s a difference, you know. I don’t have to own you.”
He looked at me then, and I could see the uncertainty in his eyes. “Is there though? Because from where I’m sitting, you’ve been pretty clear about what you want.”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “I have. But I’m willing to slow down if that’s what you need.”
It was a lie, or at least a half-truth. The mate bond was already pulling at me, demanding that I claim him in every way possible. But I could control that. I could be patient. I could give him time to catch up to what I already knew with absolute certainty.
“I don’t know,” he said finally, and the vulnerability in those three words made my chest ache. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Then don’t,” I said, surprising myself. “Don’t do anything. Just... let me in. Let me spend time with you. No expectations, no claims, no possessiveness. Just us, figuring this out.” I paused for a long moment before adding, “Please.”
He studied my face, looking for a lie. But there was nothing to be found because I was telling the truth. As much as my dragon nature was screaming at me to throw him over my shoulder and take him back to my dorm, I meant every word. If it meant having him in my life at all, I could compromise.
“One week,” he said finally. “We try this your way for one week. If it doesn’t work, we go our separate ways, and you don’t bother me anymore. Got it?”
It wasn’t everything I wanted, but it was something. A foothold. A chance.
“Deal,” I said, extending my hand across the table.
He looked at my hand like it might bite him, then slowly reached out and shook it. The moment our skin touched, I felt that electric spark again, that recognition that ran bone-deep. His eyes widened slightly, like he’d felt it too.
“What was that?” he whispered.
“Chemistry,” I said, not entirely lying. “The really good kind.”
He pulled his hand back like I’d burned him, but he was smiling despite himself. It was small and uncertain, but it was there.
“We should work on the assignment,” he said, redirecting his attention to his textbook.
“Yeah,” I agreed, settling into my seat. “We probably should.”
But as I pulled out my own materials, I wasn’t thinking about the assignment at all.
I was thinking about that one week. Seven days to prove to Quill that what we had was worth fighting for.
Seven days to make him see that this wasn’t just possession or attraction or a dragon’s territorial instinct.
Seven days to make him understand that he was my mate, whether he was ready to accept it or not.
And the truth was, I had to figure out how to accept it myself still. And how to explain it to my grandfather once I was ready.
I spent the rest of the study session stealing glances at Quill when he wasn’t looking, trying to commit every detail to memory.
The way he bit his lower lip when he was concentrating.
The little furrow that appeared between his eyebrows when he was working through a difficult concept.
The way his fingers moved across the page as he took notes with meticulous care.
One week. I had to make it count.
By the time we finished up at the library, it was getting late. The sun had already dipped below the horizon, casting the campus in twilight. Quill packed up his things methodically, and I did the same, waiting to see what he’d do next.
“I should get back to my dorm,” he said, not quite meeting my eyes. “Lysander will be wondering where I am.”
“I’ll walk you,” I offered, keeping my tone casual even though every fiber of my being wanted to insist on it.
He hesitated, clearly weighing whether to argue, then nodded. “Okay. But just to the dorm. That’s it.”
“That’s it,” I agreed, even though we both knew it was a lie. I had no intention of letting him out of my sight for any longer than absolutely necessary, especially if I only had a week.
We walked across campus in relative silence, the cool autumn air carrying the scent of approaching winter. I could feel the tension radiating off him in waves, could practically taste his uncertainty in the air between us. He wanted this. He wanted me. He just didn’t want to admit it.
When we reached his dorm, he stopped at the entrance and turned to face me. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “For... understanding. About needing time.”
“Always,” I said, and I meant it. For him, I would wait as long as it took. “Can I ask you one favor, though?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “What?”
“Can I…” I paused. “Can I kiss you?”
Just one kiss. That was all I was asking for. After three days of torture, of watching him pretend like nothing had happened between us, I needed that small confirmation that he felt it too. That this wasn’t just me spiraling into some mate-induced delusion.
He stared at me for what felt like an eternity, his red hair catching the last rays of fading twilight. I could see the war playing out behind his eyes. Part of him that wanted this, and it was battling against the part that was terrified of it.
“One kiss,” he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper. “That’s all.”
I closed the distance between us before he could change his mind, cupping his face gently in my hands.
I kept it soft, kept it careful, letting him set the pace despite every instinct screaming at me to devour him right there on the steps of his dorm.
His lips were warm and tasted faintly of the coffee he’d been drinking all afternoon.
When he opened his mouth slightly, I deepened the kiss just enough to feel the warmth of him before pulling back.
One kiss. That was what he’d asked for. But as I looked at him, at the dazed expression on his face and the way his fingers had unconsciously gripped the front of my shirt, I knew one kiss would never be enough.
“Good night, Red,” I murmured against his lips.
He pulled back, his breathing a little ragged, his eyes still closed for a moment before they fluttered open.
“G-Goodnight, Aeron,” he replied.
He started to turn away. But he barely made it two steps before he turned back to me, his face flushed.
“I… I don’t want to go back to my dorm,” he said quickly, his voice shaking.
“Do you want to come with me?” I heard myself ask before a thought could get in its way.
“I’m not asking for sex,” he replied. “I just…” He sighed. “Can we just spend time together?”
“We just spent all afternoon in the library together.”
“You’re right,” he said, shaking his head. “It was stupid. I didn’t—”
I grabbed his chin, forcing him to look up at me. “And I’d love to spend more time with you,” I said gently. “If that’s what you want.”
He stared at me for a long moment before nodding. “Y-Yeah. I… I think I do.”
“Well?” I took a step back and held out an arm. “Let’s go then.”
With tentative fingers, Quill hooked his arm through mine, the contact causing another spark between us. I smiled, pulling him away from his dorm building and toward my own. My body was buzzing with so much joy that I thought I might lift off the pavement right there.
Spending the night with my mate was exactly what I needed.