Gideon walks away, just like that. I suppose some things have changed. In this moment, I’m actually pleased Axel can’t recall what happened between all of us. A pulse of rage so strong it almost consumes me shoots through my entire body when I think about how Gideon tricked me, how he used our friendship to convince me to come down from Azar’s back, and then used our bond to kill both of us.
And now he’s here, just hanging out for the holidays.
I know in my brain that Gideon thought he was helping me. Or at least, he told himself that he was helping me. I can’t decide whether he believed it, or whether he just wanted to believe it, because the alternative was that I chose a dragon over him.
But Azar, unlike Gideon, has always accepted my oddities, my declarations, and my peculiar insistences, like keeping my siblings safe. He sheltered Gideon along with the kids, because I insisted that Gideon was like family. And now, again, he’s welcoming my parents and Gideon in with no assurance they won’t betray us again.
Axel’s more than I deserve.
And in this moment, he’s sitting down again, his face scrunched, trying his best to wrap a bottle of perfume for Jade.
“That’s a strange shape,” I say. “It’s one of the hardest things to wrap.”
“Well, then if I can get this, I’ll be able to wrap something that’s a shape similar to this.”
“Actually, for that, I’d just use a bag.”
“What now?” Axel drops the bottle.
I cringe a little, but thankfully it doesn’t break. “Okay, look.” I pull out a small gift bag and some tissue paper and show him how he can put the perfume into the gift bag.
He beams. “What a great idea.”
I chuckle. “You’re welcome to borrow one.”
“What about ten?”
Now it’s my turn to be confused. “Why would you need ten?”
“You’re right.” Axel stands up. “Taking all twelve is a better idea.” He takes every single one of my bags and hands the perfume back to me. “You can wrap this one, right?”
And then he disappears without giving me time to object.
I pull on the bond, and Axel’s laughing voice floats back at me. I’m masking, Liz. Take a hint.
I hate that he can do that when I haven’t been able to figure it out yet. He’s gone for a solid forty-five minutes. I’m done wrapping, even the awkward things I wanted to put in bags, and I’m already in our makeshift kitchen-family room making hot chocolate with Sammy when he returns.
“You’re dirty,” Sammy says. “Were you digging in the mud?”
Axel’s smile is gorgeous. It’s probably prettier than anything I’ve ever seen. “You could say that, but I’m done now. I’ll just go clean up.” He frowns. “What are you doing? Is that dirt water?”
“Sniff the air, man,” I say. “It’s chocolate.”
“What’s chocolate?”
“You’ve been too busy lighting things on fire,” Coral says as she joins us. “You’re finally going to see what life is all about.”
“He’s weird,” Dad says as he walks in just behind Coral, “but I think I can see why you like him. He has an almost boyish charm when he’s in his human form.”
I’m not going to stand here talking to them about my dragon boyfriend. I’m really not. But when Mom walks in and asks how Axel picks out his outfits, I find that I am talking to them about just that.
“His outfit the first time we met,” Jade says. “I still laugh when I think about it.”
“They watched movies before coming here,” I say. “I think he saw that one?—”
“Actually, I got the idea for that clothing from a poster,” Axel says as he rejoins us, clean and smelling less like dirt.
“I know where he was,” Sammy says.
