“You keep talking about the hazards for me,” I say. “But I notice you haven’t talked about the benefits. Or the dragon in the kitchen.”
“The—? Oh. Children?”
“Children,” I agree. “I’ve never even thought about having them, but—”
“If you don’t want them, then you don’t,” says Zan simply. “Wecanhave children together—my human form is compatible with yours in that way—but whether they will be dragons I don’t know. A mate bond with a human is literally unheard of. Icantell you that the dragons would still want to steal them from you.”
“Yeah good fucking luck to them.”
Zan snorts.
But I notice he didn’t answer whether he does want children—at all, or with me.
Or what the benefits of the mate bond are.
He’s trying so,sohard not to bias me in any way, and I both love that about him and also want to strangle him.
“Is that why you turned away, the first time we saw each other?” I ask instead. “Because I was human?”
Zan leans back with a grimace. “Not in the way you mean, I think. I thought it would be too hard to connect to someone like I thought you were—someone enmeshed in the Order’s bigotry. I thought it would be too much foryou, to disentangle yourself from their teachings, to be able to deal with the prospect of a dragon, let alone the reality of one. I felt the potential between us, but I didn’t see far enough beneath the surface. So I wasn’t there when you detonated.”
And we’re back to old history after all. “Zan, my survival depended on no one seeing beneath the surface. You can’t blame yourself for believing what I showed the world on purpose.”
“I can blame myself for my assumptions,” he says sharply. “I can blame myself for not trying.”
My ire rises again. “And yet here we are, with you ready to turn away from me based onmoreassumptions. And youliedto me—”
“Not on purpose,” Zan grits out. “Experiencing a fledgling mate bond is new for me—”
“You still knew you had a safe way to replenish your energy and didn’t tell me that I could help, meanwhile you kept spending all your power on helpingme—”
“I can’tmakeyou choose a mate bond, Yora! That’s when those big boosts were happening, and until after our trip up the mountain I didn’t realize it wasn’t constant, it was because—”
“Yes, I worked that out, no thanks to you,” I snap. “But then you realized andstill didn’t tell me.”
“I didn’t want you to worry about me at the expense ofyourself.”
“And you don’t get to decide what I worry about!”
“And if I had told you, would you have felt pressured, knowing that you’re my only option for a mate? Would it have been fair to put that on you when you finally have a chance to find your way? My ability to mate is not your problem—”
“Excuseme?” I interrupt dangerously.
“Whatever my feelings, they shouldn’t determine yours,” Zan says firmly.
“Bold of you to think that they do,” I say. “Tell me, among dragons, does one mate make decisions for the other? If they share power, how can they not be partners?”
Zan scowls. “You don’t know all the factors—”
“Yes, and whose fault is that? You couldtellme!”
“And you’d just have to take my word for it because there’s no other way for you to know, and you barely know me,” he bites out.
I still. “Don’t I?”
Zan opens his mouth, and I cover it with my hand.
“Do I know that you like eggs, and terrible puns, and colors in jewel tones? Do I know that even though your power is born to fire, you crave the chill of ice? Do I know that you will help people even when you don’t think they deserve it, that when youcommit you won’t be swayed even if you falter, that your sense of justice is stronger than the centuries?”
