It’s not gentle.
It’s not soft.
It’sfurious.
It’s a claiming.
And I meet him stroke for stroke, because if he thinks his passion can overwhelm the Sage of fucking Wrath he’s got another thing coming—
But he doesn’t, of course.
He’s proving that he seesme, and is my match, and that, more than anything, takes my breath away.
When I finally wrench myself away to gasp for air, I’m not dizzy.
I’m onfire.
Zan’s eyes blaze with light.
And so do mine.
“I’m obsessed with you, Yora,” Zan growls again. “There has never been anyone else for me, and there never will be another. Whatever we have to decide between us,thatis not in question.”
I want to believe that so badly, but it doesn’t seem like it can be real.
Maybe that’s how Zan feels about my choosing him, but—
“How can you be sure?” I whisper raggedly. “How do you know you won’t regret not mating with a dragon? We’ve only been talking to each other fully consciously for a fewdays, and I’m a sage, I know whyI’mlike this, but—”
I take a breath; voice the real fear.
“How do you know I’ll be enough for you?”
Zan’s head tilts to the side. “You don’t feel the bond like I do, I think.”
My stomach drops.
“That’s not what I mean,” Zan says fiercely. “You can... Like with Teren. You can feel when he’s working magic, but you can’t use comfort yourself for your magic. Just because you don’t perceive it the same way I do doesn’t mean it’s a problem, I’m just trying to think of how to explain.”
Okay. Still bothers me, that there can be something between us I don’t feel but he can, but that’s nothisproblem.
And then I realize— “Wait. Is the bond how you knew I wasn’t dead?”
“Yeah. But it’s—” Zan blows out a breath. “Yora, when you went into stasis—by any rational measure, the bond potential between us should have faded. But itgrew. It hit me with such a punch it knocked me out of the fuckingsky. I thought what I’d felt before was a... quirk, a weird anomaly. I’d never felt a potential mate bond before and thought I might have been wrong, and then you detonated and I couldn’t deny it. And that’s when I realized how badly I’d fucked up—if you were willing and able to go so far on your own, then for me...”
I would have gone that far for him.
I probably would have gone farther.
And as soon as I woke up, not only did I touch him, Ichosehim, over my own life.
“It doesn’t matter if there could be another potential mate bond out there for me, or in my future,” Zan says. “What we already have is so strong I’d never settle for anything else. And I’m not willing to try to feel it. You’re right that it’s only been a few days. I want to have all the days to spend learning what vegetables you’ll actually eat willingly, and running my handthrough your hair, and finding out all the different ways I can make your eyes flash with power.
“But I already know that for me, this isn’t a passing fancy. I don’t know everything about you yet, and I want to spend my life finding out. But I know who you are. And I know that I will always choose you.”
How can the same words make me want to melt and rage at the same time?
The latter is the one that I know what to do with, so I burst out, “Then why do think I might change and not want you anymore?”
