Anna giggled, blushing deep. “I like feeling wanted.”
“You’re going to feel wanted for a long, long time,” I growled in her ear, drawing forth a contented sigh as I dropped to kiss her neck.
I wanted her for eternity. Something that, incredibly, was now within our grasp. We had broken the physical barrier. Our mate marks were coming in strong as our dragons laid claim to one another.
All that was left was the bite to finalize the bond and link us to the other person forever in a true connection unlike anything else. I eagerly anticipated it. Being able to feel her all the time on a mental level was the honey, and I was the bear.
Storm clouds loomed dark and angry on the horizon of forever though, dampening my mood. Being that close, knowing it could happen at any time if she chose, meant I needed to come clean.
Confess to her the sin of my past, so she couldjudge if I was still worthy of her.
“Caz?” Anna stirred, moving away from me and turning over to watch me. “What’s wrong?”
I hadn’t moved. Did she feel my mood shift?
“Anna …” I began but then faltered.
Anger surged. Not at her, but at myself. At my inability to put it all out there for her. I should have done this sooner,waysooner, before she’d had a chance to grow attached to us. Now I was going to hurt her, something I had sworn never to do.
“I’m right here, Caz,” she said, taking my hand but keeping her distance.
She was always smart. She knows that after I tell her, she’ll never want to be close with me again.
I sought out the right words, the proper phrasing, so when I told her what she needed to know, I would have a chance, a hope, of convincing her to stay. I wasn’t evil, but search though I tried, nothing came to me.
“What are you thinking about?” she whispered, giving my hand a squeeze.
“You, mostly,” I said without hesitation. “How I never want to let go of you. That when you were pressed against me, when we’re together, you make me feel more alive than I’ve ever been. You give my life a meaning, more than just happiness. You give me a reason to live. To keep fighting the fight.”
Anna’s cheeks pinked, but her eyes never looked away. “So why do you look distraught?”
“Being with you has awoken something I thought I would never have,” I told her. “You make me want a woman, something I had denied myself all my life, but more than that.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I want a family. With you.”
Anna’s jaw worked back and forth. “O-oh. Um. And that’s a bad thing?”
“It is when you’re me,” I told her. “And you can’t have it.”
She sighed. “Is this where you’re going to tell me you’re a monster? I thought we went over that, Caz. I told you that you aren’t.”
“You didn’t know everything when you said that.” There was no going back now. The ball had started rolling down the cliff.
She pulled away. My dragon protested at the sudden severing of our touch. It ordered me to reach out and grab her. Caress her cheek and run a hand down her body. Distract her with a good time.
No. She needs to know.
“Then tell me,” she said, hushed and solemn, waiting for me to lay it all out.
I marshaled my thoughts. It was important that I be clear and not omit anything. She deserved the full, unedited truth.
“Fourteen years ago, I reached the age of maturity,” I told her. Fifty years was not a long time to dragons. Many of the older ones argued the age should be even higher. “My father had me young. He had just crossed the century mark. I was staring down the wing of centuries more of his rule.”
Anna was silent, her mouth pressed into a thin line, but her eyes were alert and focused. I stared right back, committing to memory every swirl and line of those mystical purple irises.
“The windows in the citadel had been covered over. Hallways painted black. The only light we were allowed was fire. Torches ran down the corridors and in the rooms. We skulked, Anna. Dragons moving through this place, from shadow to shadow, just to get to a meal safely. It was insanity.”
