A lump formed in my throat as hot tears pricked my eyes. He was one-hundred-twenty years old? He looked, at most, thirty years old. Dragons and drakes aged slower than I’d ever thought, but his age was the last thing on my mind.
I swallowed the lump and forced a breath. My hands trembled in his. “So... you’re accepting me as your mate?”
Smoke flooded out of his nose as he growled. “I would do nothing else. You’re mine now.”
“I’m a fox, so that means—”
“You will have more than just me as a mate, yes.” He nodded, squeezing my hands with his. “I know, but I don’t care. It doesn’t take away from the fact that you’re mine, just as I am now yours.”
“Are you sure?”
He leaned in, waves of heat radiating from his skin, warming my core temperature and dampening my skin, and he touched his lips to mine.
His lips melded to mine like hot iron, and I melted into him. Magic was zipping from me to him and back in a rhythm that seemed to spark more desire in my lower abdomen than I’d felt before.
He moved back and brushed a few strands of hair off my forehead. “I thought the Fates wouldn’t bless me with a mate, Wren. I had a slight suspicion you were my mate when the mention of you calmed my magic in one of my anger spats, but I never thought it could be real.”
I sucked in a lungful of air and my eyes fluttered open. “Where do we go from here?”
“I’d like to cement our bond, if that’s something you’re comfortable with.” His gaze lowered to my chest, and he glanced back up. “You’re my mate, and I want it to be official in every form of the word.”
“I haven't, um, done that before.”
He tilted his head. “Of course you haven’t. How firedrakes cement their bond isn’t public knowledge.”
“I, ah, meant…” Nervousness trickled down my spine. “Um, how do you do it then?”
“While we make love, I’ll shift my hand into a claw and dig it into a piece of your flesh. It’s a brand. My way of marking you.”
“It’s the making love part that I haven’t done yet,” I mumbled.
“Don’t worry, fledgling, I will wait until you’re ready to cement the bond. I want you to be comfortable.” He inhaled, his nostrils flaring. “I can smell that you’ve been getting to know Damien and Alister.”
My cheeks heated as my mate mentioned the other two men I’d been hoping were also my mates. I bowed my head down as I bit my lip. “They make me feel different, but at the same time, they make me feel like I’m home.”
He untwined our hands and cupped my face, forcing me to look up at him as the pads of his thumbs rubbed circles on my cheek. Every touch from him lit me on fire, and it took a lot of effort not to start stripping out of my clothes and find the nearest ice bath. “You know how the matebond works. If you’re mated already, you won’t find any other prospective mate attractive unless they are also going to be your mate.”
My brows bumped together, and my hands flew on top of his. “Are you serious?”
“You didn’t know that?”
I shook my head. “No. I’ve never been told that before. But then, I grew up around wolf shifters for the majority of my life.”
His chest rumbled in dissatisfaction just before cold tendrils slithered over my body and snuck up my clothes to bathe me in icy shadows. I let out a breath of relief and sagged forward into Rowan’s hands.
“Tell me, little bird, do I still make you wet?” Damien’s voice whispered in my ear as Rowan let go of my face. “Do you still want me?”
His shadows stayed away from my intimate places, just slithering over my heated skin, cooling me off. I turned my head and brushed my nose against Damien’s.
A light flicker of magic skittered down my spine, and I smiled. “Of course I do.”
Rowan let out a warning growl as Damien leaned in, but Damien let out a growl of his own as he crushed his lips to mine.
Just like always, his kiss consumed me. His shadows enclosed us and his lips moved hungrily against mine. He held me against him like I was his lifeline, and my heart ached to be just that.
“Enough.” Rowan’s voice shattered our moment, and Damien let his shadows disperse as he pulled away.
I whipped my head back toward Rowan, and guilt crept up my throat. I’d just found Rowan, and the Fates had expressed to us our mate status.
