Affection made his chest feel too tight. Being near Hele, feeling her hands on his chest, it was almost too much for him to bear. His joy was immense. Could he hold it all? Vael wasn’t sure. He hadn’t felt so content in his adult life, and a part of him didn’t know what to do with it.
Burying his face in her silky hair, he whispered,“Youare perfect. I need you to see how in awe I am of you — in everything I do. When I give you something, it has to be worthy of you.”
She was quiet for a moment and then, in a small voice, she said, “I think you are the only person in the world who believes I’m perfect.”
“I’m your mate,” he replied, hoping she understood everything he struggled to articulate.
Hele sucked in a breath. “You are. I do not think I am perfect. Sometimes I wish I was born differently. It would be easier to be a dragon. But… I do not want to be different if it means I could not be your mate.”
His tail curled around her thigh and squeezed. Vael wished he could gut every person who had ever made his Hele feel like an outsider, like she wasn’t the wonderful, multifaceted gem that she was. But he couldn’t. All he could do was love her and hope that she never regretted Choosing a damaged dragon like him to spend her life with.
Vael’s voice was a deep, gravelly rumble when he said, “Never. I wouldneverwish you were different. I want you as you are — sparks and all.”
“I want you as you are, too — scars and all.”
It turns out hecouldn’thold in all his joy. Vael felt it bubbling out of him, running in a current through his trembling limbs, until it found purchase in his twitchy wings. They arched high, quivering with tension, as he held onto the pounding need to embrace her by the thinnest thread.
She had forbidden him from embracing her, but he was desperate. Heneededto feel her tucked inside the folds of his sensitive wings.And we are mates now,he thought, breathing hard.Isn’t that what she said? Only her mate could embrace her?
Words tumbled out of him in a rush. “Can I embrace you, my mate?Please.”
She nodded twice in quick succession.
Finally.Vael’s wings closed around them both, sealing them in a cocoon of flesh and bone, where he could keep her safe from the dangers of the world. The millions of fine nerves in his wings hummed when they brushed her delicate form, each one attuned to every one of her breaths, the beat of her heart, the smallest of involuntary movements. They were as vital to his caring for her as his hands or his eyes, and should there ever be a threat, they would be a barrier between her and danger.
Relief washed through him as his instincts settled. He let out a shuddering breath.
Thiswas right.Thiswas where she belonged. It was the slowest, cruelest form of torture to have her so near for so long and yet outside of his reach. One of his vital senses had been starved of her for two years. It was done intentionally and not without significant struggle.
But if he had held her before, if he closed his wings around her lithe frame in a dragon’s embrace, he knew that he never would have let her go. His will would have turned to dust.
Now,though, he could hold her as much as he liked. And for that privilege, he would sacrifice anything.
Cradling her cheeks, he gently tilted her head back until she met his eyes in the semi-dark.“T?ht…I love you. I would follow you anywhere.” His throat tightened, making his next words husky with feeling. “Even out of the ‘Riik, if that’s what you want.”
Hele blinked. Brow furrowing, she slowly repeated, “Out of the ‘Riik?”
“Alex told me that you were thinking of going to school in the Collective,” he explained. “I don’t want you to think that because we are mates you can’t do that, Hele. I’d rather die than clip your wings.”
He watched her lips part. Astonishment slackened her expression for several heartbeats before confusion crept in. “But… you are part of the Wing. You can’t leave.”
Vael breathed deep, filling his lungs with the scent of her, and then exhaled slowly. He did not answer her right away.
Being in the Isand’s Wing was the highest honor a dragon could achieve, but for Vael it was more than a position, more than a military honor. It was the fulfillment of a promise he’d made to himself that day in the rubble, when a bloody purple hand had broken through the stone to save an orphan.
He had dedicated himself to Taevas, the man who had sacrificed so much for his people, for theworld.Being in the Wing was just a formality. What truly mattered was that he was always there, watching Taevas’s back, protecting him,returning the favor.
But that was before Hele.
He’d dedicated over a hundred years to Taevas and the ‘Riik. Was it time to consider the debt paid? Or did he owe himmorenow that he had a mate — a woman he never would have met if not for his Isand’s interference?
Vael couldn’t begin to untangle that knot, but what he did know was that his mate came first. His pride, his honor, his loyalty — all of it belonged to her now. So if she needed to go find herself outside of the ‘Riik and he could not be without her, then the point was moot. Taevas would find another to fill his position, and no matter how much pain that caused him, he would never regret putting Hele first.
Tracing her cheekbones with the tips of his claws, he finally told her, “For you, I’d step aside.”
Hele stared at him with wide eyes. “You can’t do that. Youlovebeing in the Wing.”
“I love you more.”
