17
Yelena's legs were trembling with every step she took. The servant didn't comment on her disheveled appearance as she walked in and placed the tray on the coffee table, just as she usually did.
Valentine had disappeared, which was probably a good thing, and Yelena thanked the servant and shut the door carefully behind them.
Yelena leaned back against the door, trying to catch her breath. Her hand was shaking as she fumbled to do up the laces of her pants. She couldn't believe that had just happened. Her pussy throbbed, and her dragon purred with satisfaction.
She blew a lock of hair out of her face. Dark gods, no one had ever made her come just with their fingers before. She needed to get herself together and not lose her head. It could have been a spur-of-the-moment thing.
Yelena chewed her lip. She didn't always know how to read social situations and cues properly. She thought of Valentine's eyesand the dominant burning desire in them. There was no mistaking that.
And Valentine would never do something he didn't want to do, that was for damn sure.
The bathroom door opened, and she pushed off the wall, determined to act as confidently as she could. Valentine looked calmer until she reached his eyes and saw he was still utterly feral. Fuck, he was a stunning beast.
Yelena tried and failed not to grin. She couldn't help it. "Are you okay?"
"No," he said. He moved where the servant had placed the tray and poured a goblet of wine. He downed it and refilled it. "Fuck I wish I had something stronger right now."
"Why? Are you embarrassed?" Yelena moved to the soft lounge by the table and sat, tucking her feet up underneath her.
Valentine let out a helpless little laugh and put a hand over his face to hide his smile. "No. I probably should be, considering I just grabbed you like that, but you wouldn't have been shy about telling me to stop if you didn't want me to manhandle you. Knowing you, you probably wouldn't have said stop. You would have just eviscerated me."
"Probably." Yelena laughed with him. "If my magic was working properly, I could have ripped your skin off your bones. Oh…um… I probably shouldn't say that."
"Why?" Valentine sat down in a chair opposite her. "You can say whatever you like to me. I'm not one of the lords you need to watch yourself with. If anyone touched you in a way you didn't want, I would rip their skin off if you didn't get there first." He poured her some wine and looked her over. "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course." She sipped her wine and grinned. "I feel very relaxed right now."
"Gods, I wish I did," he replied, which made her chuckle again. "The whole pale clothes, sweet girl thing you do, is it because of people like Afon?"
"You know Afon?" she asked, genuinely surprised.
Valentine snorted. "I ran into him before I came to rescue you. He accused Taranis of taking in another feral. I may have growled at him."
"I wish I could have seen that," Yelena replied, delighted at just the thought of it. "To answer your question, when Taranis took me in, it was a massive risk for him. I couldn't speak. I didn't know how to act. I don't even know how old I am. I noticed that when I dressed and acted in a certain way, people were less afraid of me. Only Taranis and the knights know there is another side of me. Even then, they…" She struggled to find the right word.
"They see what they want to see," Valentine guessed, and she nodded. "I understand that. I went with the opposite, becoming so unlikeable that people left me alone, but it was still the same thing. I know my family loves me. All of it, including the fae sides. I don't have to pretend so much with them, but they don't really understand me either."
Yelena put her goblet down. "My turn for a question. When did you first feel like you couldn't trust yourself and decide to bind your dragon? You did it for your family's safety, I assume."
Valentine blew out a breath. "Yes, I did. When I first heard the dragon, I thought it was some kind of personality trying to emerge. Everyone already thought I would be the one to go crazy in this Greatdrakes generation, and I was determined not to prove them right. Back then, we knew we had a dragon ancestor, but apart from being good at magic and knowing who our mates were, there was no real sign that we had a dormant dragon side."
He tilted his head, lost in thought for a moment. "I wonder ifthe Greatdrakes family members who went crazy could hear the dragon like I could."
Yelena hummed. "And you didn't trust that side at all? Didn't even try to?"
Valentine picked up a bread roll from the platter and started to tear it into bits, like he needed his hands to be doing something in order to talk. Yelena understood that. To make him feel more relaxed, she picked at some grapes.
"I'm not going to judge you either, Valentine," she said and chewed one slowly. "I'm only trying to understand so I can help you with your magic and your dragon. You can't keep it locked up anymore, but you need to be able to move past your hesitation and trust it and yourself. It's the only way forward."
Valentine ate some bread, but his eyes were somewhere far away. "I haven't told anyone this, but I saw… I had a vision of my mother's death. It was about a week after I first heard the voice, my dragon. It was trying to warn me, and I was so upset by it that I didn't tell anyone. I thought it was just anxiety. A bad dream. She died in the crash a week later, in exactly the way I had seen. After that, I was so angry and freaked out by it that I started working on the binding spell."
"You were still a child. I'm so sorry," Yelena said, wanting to comfort him and unsure of how to.
"I was, but I knew I couldn't let it stay free inside of me. My family had lost too much. Cosimo went insane for a while. My brothers and I did the best we could until he pulled himself out of it. Her death broke all of us in different ways," Valentine replied, leaning back in his chair. "I perfected the binding sigil year after year. Tried to make it stronger. Then the fae returned, followed by magic, and it began to unravel. It's in tatters now that I've shifted. Fuck knows how it can be fixed now. I don't know if I even want to fix it."
Yelena swallowed the lump in her throat. "You let the dragon out to rescue me. I won't ever forget that. Or what it cost you."
