But instead of letting me pull him in the direction of the gilded path, he moves his hand to stroke down the base of my ribbons. “Let your wings out, Goldfinch.”
I blink in surprise, but I give in to his words. Glancing over my shoulder, I make my ribbons change. They ripple as they fuse together one by one, the end of the layers forming into feathers until two wings bracket my spine. I stretch them out with a smile, letting them fluff in the air.
Slade looks at me, eyes taking in every inch. “You are stunning.”
My stomach dips, heart spilling over. Every time this male looks at me like this, every time he purrs out these words of adoration, it makes me melt all over again.
“Close your eyes,” he says quietly. I tilt my head in question, and he smirks. “Go on.”
With a smile, I let my eyes flutter closed.
I hear him move forward, and then his hand grasps mine. He lifts it to his chest. I feel his scale beneath my palm, feel his steady heartbeat thrumming.
“Our pair bond fixed me,” he murmurs as I feel his warm breath skim along my cheek. “Youfixed me, Auren.”
My heart starts thumping harder. I don’t know where he’s going with this, but I can feel something stirring. My skin prickles in response.
“Every day the sun rises, it rises for you,” he says quietly as he brushes a finger gently down my brow, over my cheek, before settling his hand against my own heart. “Every day I wake, I wake for you.”
A tear slides from the corner of my closed lid, and he leans down and kisses it like he’s accepting an offering. My fingers tighten over his heart, my touch warming through.
“And every time my heart beats, it beats with yours.”
I suck in a breath.
“Open your eyes, baby.”
His hands drop as he steps away, and I blink in the dark, refocusing on him as he stands in front of me, watching. Waiting.
My brows lower in question, but then my eyes widen as I watch shadows pull out of his aura, out of his body, swirling beside him.
“What is that?” I whisper raggedly.
He doesn’t answer, but I stand in shock as those shadows fuse and form.
My hand flies to my mouth, and my eyes fly to his. “Slade. Yourdragon.”
He nods, looking over at the creature with a smile that reaches his eyes. With wonderment that beats through his soul.
The dragon isn’t solid, it’s made up of that shadowy vapor, and it’s much, much smaller than before.
But it’s here.
“Look, Auren,” Slade says.
I glance down to the wings at its back. Wings that are now edged with a ribbon of gold.
“I don’t know how,” he says with a shake of his head as he looks back at me. “But somehow…I think you brought my dragon back to life.”
A sob chokes out of me as I stumble forward. The creature is only as tall as me, but it’s unmistakably the same one. Spikes down its back and above its brows, golden scales upon its chest.
It looks at me with a knowing gleam. With a familiar pull of its mouth.
“Shadows,” I whisper as I graze my hand over its vaporous body.
“I don’t know if it will ever get bigger or if I can even manifest anything but a splintered form, but it doesn’t matter. That hollow part of me where the dragon was missing? It’s filled again,” Slade says with a smile as he takes my hands in his. “Thank you.”
My head shakes. “I don’t know that I actually had anything to do with this,” I tell him. “Maybe you just needed time to heal.”
