“Yes. That is the one,” Geordie replied, his head turning toward Miles and Shadrie. I opened my mouth to question him, but he held up a finger to silence me and moved toward my friends. “Hello, mate,” he purred, taking Miles’ hand in his and pressing it to his lips. Miles flushed, his mouth opening instunned silence.
“Oh, you lucky asshole,” Shadrie laughed, slapping Miles on the back.
Geordie turned to her, and she narrowed her eyes at him. “You have done well protecting and helping my sister, ice mage. Before you give me your brilliant speech about being good to Miles, I have one more request. I must ask that you look after my heart now, too. I won’t be able to do it myself for some time, and I trust that you can keep him safe. You must pretend he is yours. Promise me, mage.”
“Well, damn. I guess I don’t need to give the speech now.” Shadrie gaped. “I promise. Miles can be my fake mate as long as you need him to be.”
“Excuse me!” I snapped. “I’m not done getting answers from you, Geordie. You owe me explanations.”
Geordie moved to stand in front of me again and let out a heavy sigh. “I can’t give you the answers you want. Not yet, at least. The only thing I can tell you now is that you’re still moving too slow. You should have claimed your third mate by now.”
My eyebrows shot to my hairline. “Excuse me? My what?”
Geordie ignored my outburst, tapping one finger on his chin. “Hmm, I don’t think that one is quite ready. Perhaps it’s for the best you claim your dragon next.”
“My… my dragon!” I shrieked.
“Yes, the professor. Very broody that one, but he’s been sending you all those little gifts all year. It won’t take much to sway him into giving up his fight against the bond.”
Clarity crashed over me. The strange pull I felt toward Thrackborne, the way his behavior toward me seemed to run hot and cold, his sudden disappearance and cessation of our tutoring sessions after the incident with the succubus allure. “That bastard,” I hissed.
“Indeed,” Geordie chuckled. “I must be going now, but you should go ahead and tell the dragon exactly what you think about him hiding from your bond.”
I snarled at Geordie, causing him to laugh before he turned on his heel and vanished into the crowd. My feet moved of their own accord, and before I knew what I was doing, I was stomping toward Thrackborne’s office, friends and mates following in my wake. I didn’t bother knocking when I reached it. The heavy oak door slammed against the stone wall as I shoved it open. Thrackborne straightened where he sat behind his desk and shot me an unamused look.
“Ms. Knight,” he drawled, his voice deceptively calm. “To what do I owe this—”
I stomped to the opposite side of his desk, the others filing in the room behind me. “Don’t you dare,” I snapped, cutting him off. “You’ve been lying to me this whole time! Mates. We’re mates and you thought you could hide that from me?”
Zypher chuckled, the sound filled with mischief. Thrackborne’s composure cracked for the first time since I’d met him in the parking lot of Sinful Seduction. Scales rippled along his exposed forearms, and I felt Gabriel tense beside me as Zypher laughed harder.
“Everything I have done has been to protect you,” Thrackborne snapped, surging to his feet. “If I had acknowledged our bond, one of us would have been forced from the academy! Neither of those things is an option, not when there are forces at play you can’t comprehend. Dangers that will rip you to shreds!”
“Fuck you,” I gritted out. “You’re what, thirty-something, and rather than tell me that like a fucking adult, you chose to hide what you are to me? How fucking childish!”
“Two-hundred-thirty-five, actually,” he replied, the calm in his voice betrayed by the smoke curling from his nostrils.
“What?” I demanded.
“I’m not thirty. I am two-hundred-thirty-five, though the lifespan of my kind would put that on par with a human in their thirties.”
“Jesus Christ! I thought Shadrie was joking when she said you were two-hundred-something.” I snapped, throwing myhands in the air and whirling on the others. “Anyone else want to drop an age bomb on me, now’s the time.”
“I’m only twenty-two,” Gabriel shrugged.
“I told you my age when we met,” Shadrie added.
“I’m nineteen,” Miles said meekly.
“I am twenty-four, Dilectus,” Zypher said before grinning at the professor. “I knew you were a bond brother.”
“Are you serious right now?” I demanded, causing Zypher’s smile to drop. “You knew and you didn’t tell me either?”
“After what my mother experienced with Adam, I refused to risk putting you through that, Dilectus.” Zypher’s tone was soft enough to temper my anger.
My shoulders slumped forward as I turned to face the dragon again. I leaned forward, my hands curling into fists on the edge of his desk.
“You could have told me,” I said, quieter in the wake of Zypher’s admission. “You could have trusted me enough to tell me the truth. Instead, you sent me gifts in secret and lied to me. This whole time, I’ve been drawn to you, thinking something must be very wrong with me to be attracted to another male when I already have two mates. It was all I could do to keep the guilt from consuming my thoughts.” My voice cracked. “You could have told me the truth at any time, and I wouldn’t have had to spend all this time thinking I was a horrible mate to them.”
