Fingers curling into fists on his chest, she shot back, “I do not want you to do this. I will tell the witch that I won’t take her offer.”
His stomach dropped.“No,Hele,” he growled. “No. You can’t limit yourself because of me, okay? I won’t let you.”
He loved and hated it when her chin thrust forward like that. It meant she was ready to argue, but it was also when he wanted to kiss her most.
“You do not get to tell me what to do,” she challenged, black eyes glinting in the soft light that filtered through his wings. “No one does. If I say I will not go, then I will not go. I don’t even know if Iwantto go to the Collective. Maybe I want to do something else.”
Frustrated and helplessly in love with her, Vael pressed a hard kiss to the crown of her head. “Like what,t?ht?”
“I have not decided. All I know is what I wantnow.”
Vael ran the tip of his nose over the curve of her forehead and then down, until it touched the sharp point of hers. His whisper sounded overly loud in the warm darkness of his wings. “And what is that?”
Her cool fingers tickled the bare skin of his sides. A faint buzz lingered in their path, leaving a trail of sparking nerves wherever she deigned to stroke him. His wings twitched, arching reflexively as her hands neared their base. “I think rightnowI want to see your nest.”
“Ournest,” he hoarsely corrected her.
“Yes!”
She wiggled with excitement, her grin huge, and made his chest ache with a fierce sort of affection — and regret.I was such a fool to deny us this,he thought. How close had he come to missing out on a moment like that?
Hele nearly slipped from between his fingers. Even if he’d pulled his head out of his ass eventually, he felt a cold certainty that if he’d let her go, she never would have given him another chance. The near-miss was as viscerally upsetting as the idea of her being alone with a strange elf.
He could have lost everything, and this time it would have been his fault.
Do not dwell on what-ifs,he heard his papa say, as clear as if he stood beside him.Move forward.
I will,he silently replied.With her. Always with her.
Voice thick, Vael whispered, “C’mon,t?ht.Let me show you our nest.”
* * *
The look on Hele’s face was priceless — for all of five seconds.
Delight and awe disappeared. Vael watched her expression crumble into sadness with a sort of heaving dread he’d never felt before. Hurrying over to where she stood at the edge of the padded floor that was their wall-to-wall mattress, he rasped, “What’s wrong? Do you hate it?”
Her chin wobbled as she tightened her arms around her middle. Even her little toes curled inward, as if she felt the need to make herself smaller. “No.”
He couldn’t stand it. It gutted him to see her upset on a normal day, buttonight,in their nest… it struck something fundamental inside of him. The beginning of a mating was a vulnerable time, but knowing how close he’d come to losing her, Vael felt even more high-strung. Panic burned away that feeling of warm contentment.
Grasping her shoulders, he dragged her to his chest and begged, “Tell me what’s wrong. Explain it to me.”
Hele curled her arms around his waist and buried her face in his neck. “Embrace me again. I feel better when you do it.”
She didn’t have to ask him twice. Instantly, his quivering wings snapped around them both.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” he repeated, breathing the words into the crown of her head. Her hair was flat and lifeless against her back — a sure sign of her mood. He wracked his brain, desperate to pinpoint the reason for her sudden distress. “Do you hate the pillows? What? Is it something I did? Do the tapestries upset you?”
Dragons were partial to all crafts, but they had a particular fondness for clothing and fibercraft. High ceilings were a requirement when you could transform into a sixteen foot tall quadrupedal being, after all. That meant they had lots of wall space. Tapestries were not only handy for decorating plain walls, but helped insulate homes traditionally made out of stone.
In the modern age, they were more of a luxury than a practical necessity. Families gifted tapestries for births, deaths, matings, graduations…
Vael had painstakingly chosen the tapestries that decorated their nest. Some reminded him of his family. A few were simply aesthetically pleasing. He’d even commissioned one: A sweeping, handwoven piece that spanned the length of one wall, it depicted the moment of Hele’s embodiment — and the shadow of spread wings, ready to catch her.
Did the sight of it upset her? He knew that her creation was not necessarily pleasant, but he thought that perhaps the moment of their meeting might have inspired some joy.
“No, it islovely,”she answered, voice garbled. “I am upset because it’s a— I can’t imagine a more beautiful nest. I love it. But I’m sad because I won’t ever be able to sleep here. You’ve put so much thought into everything, and it iswastedon me.”
