“I need—” She stops. Starts again. “I need to think. Without you standing this close, making my brain short-circuit.”
“Understandable.”
“And I need coffee. Real coffee. Not the terrible instant stuff I’ve been drinking for a week.”
Despite everything, I almost smile. “Also understandable.”
“So I’m going to go. Find the cafeteria or commissary or whatever this place has. Drink something that doesn’t taste like confusion. And figure out what the hell I want.”
“And I will be here. When you’re ready to talk.”
She moves toward the door. Pauses with her hand on the handle.
“K?”
“Yes?”
“This… mate bond. If I say yes—if I let it form—you say it’s… it’s permanent?”
“Yes. Irrevocable. Forever.”
“That’s a really big decision to make about someone I’ve known for eight days.”
“It is.”
“And you’re okay with that? With me taking time to decide if I want to be magically bonded to you for the rest of my life?”
“I would rather you choose freely, knowing what you’d be getting into.”
She nods. Opens the door. Then looks back one more time.
“For what it’s worth? When the healing bond broke, and I thought I might not feel anything anymore?” Her voice drops. “I was terrified. Because I didn’t want to stop feeling this. Whatever this is.”
Then she’s gone.
I’m alone with the absence of the healing bond and the presence of something new. Something that pulses quietly where the old connection used to scream.
A mate bond. Beginning to form. Tentative. Patient.
Waiting for her to decide if she wants it.
Waiting for me to accept this could be real.
I turn to the window and stare out at the mountains beyond. Peaks and crags that feel familiar, even though this is a part of the world that is foreign to me. Time trickles by as I try to get to grips with the impossibility of my life right now.
There is so much at stake. I should be fighting for this.
I should find her. Should explain better. Should—
The floor shifts beneath my feet.
Not literally. But the sensation is unmistakable. Like standing on unstable ground. Like the mountain itself is—
My dragon surges. Responding to a threat I can’t see but definitely feel.
Something is wrong.
I’m moving before conscious thought forms. Out the door. Down the hallway. Following instinct that tells me—
