“Yes.” His voice slid out, all shadows and silk over broken glass. “You are.”
9
Maya
She had thrown herself off a cliff, not knowing if there was water or razor rocks waiting at the bottom. All those pieces of a puzzle she’d told herself weren’t part of anything, because the truth scared her too much.
“You are here,” he repeated. “The only treasure I have any interest in protecting. Because you are my mate.”
The world stopped spinning. It should have been the perfect moment. The realization of the suspicion that had built the moment she saw his reaction to the idea that another dragon might have sent treasure to her. So many things that suddenly made sense.
So many things that suddenlydidn’t.
And he’d admitted it, not in the unthinking heat of passion, but in the calm, dry voice she most associated with the man she’d longed for since the moment she first saw him.
It was at the retirement party for her first boss at Blackburn Enterprises. Corin’s grandfather. The company had put on a gala dinner to farewell the old guard and welcome the new. And she had met his replacement.
Time had stopped then, too. The room had fallen away. There was only him. And her, more aware of her body than she’d ever been before. Of her pulse quickening. Her breaths coming deeper. Her skin aglow with longing for a touch she’d never stopped wanting in all the years since.
It hadn’t been a perfect moment then, either. He’d looked at her for one timeless moment—and turned away, a muscle twitching in his jaw.
This time, he didn’t look away. The shadow-wings reappeared at his shoulders, outlining him in pure night.
“Fate has bound us together. A bond neither of us had any say in.”
Her mouth was dry. “We seem to have resisted it well enough so far.”
“We were both able to resist it for so long while we were in regular close proximity, but after being apart for so long, returning to one another’s presence was like a rubber band snapping tight. Yesterday—it never should have happened. I wanted—” His face twisted. “That doesn’t matter anymore.”
“It never should have happened?” Her voice tightened. “Nothing happened! You didn’t even kiss me!”
“I wanted to.” He tore his eyes from hers, covering his face with one hand. His shoulders heaved with heavy breaths. “And so much more.”
Her own breathing was ragged. At last they were finally getting it all out in the open.
“Why did you come here if you know that’s what might happen? If you never wanted me—” She swallowed. She couldn’t say it.
“To protect the most precious treasure in the world.”
“Me,” she whispered.
Slowly, like night escaping the first rays of sunlight, Corin’s shadowy wings disappeared. He let out a ragged breath. “So now you know.”
“And you’ve known this entire time.” Her thoughts whirled. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“To keep you safe.”
“To keep mesafe?” Her head jerked back. “And do you think you achieved that?”
He let out a bitter bark of laughter. “No. I think you kept yourself safe. I think you survived your world turning upside down, you built a life here, and all I have done is cause you more problems.” His eyes were the deep dark of the ocean, simmering with strange lights and shadows. “If I had been the clan leader I was meant to be, no one would have dared steal from me, and you never would have been drawn back into my life. You would have been happy here. Safe.”
“Safe, maybe,” she acknowledged.
She would have never seen him again.
Exactly as she’d intended. As they both had intended. Except she hadn’t known all the facts when she made that decision.
He had.
