“Because I want you to be sure.”
“Iamsure, you thickheaded—”
“I have hadfive hundred yearsto decide who I want to be, Yora. You have so many decisions to make—”
“Yes, andthisone is easy—”
“You shouldn’thaveto rush into this,” Zan tells me. “You should have time. For you to find your footing on your own, for me tocourtyou, andthenfor you to decide that I am a worthy addition to your life.”
I have had time.
I have the benefit of five hundred years of meditation to enable me to synthesize quickly now that I’m awake, and now that I’m awake, I want tomove.
He has it backwards, I think. He’s the one who hasn’t had years of magical meditation—and a sage power—to enable him to trust what he feels.
Because he’s had those same five hundred years of no hope.
It will takehimmore time to believe in us as a reality, and not a dream.
What I really think he’s missing, though, is that I don’t want to establish a life by myself.
I’ve been alone with my thoughts for centuries.
Before that, I was surrounded by people but still functionally alone.
And there’s another realization, about who I want to be.
My wrathcanstand on its own.
But what if I don’t want to?
“What if I want to rush headfirst into you?” I whisper.
Then pause, my brain catching up with what I actually said.
“Not, like, a headbutt—”
Zan shakes with silent laughter beneath me.
My cheeks heat. Gods damn it, I was trying to have, like, A Moment, and instead just killed it—
But then Zan’s arms come around me, and he stands up.
Startled, I wrap my legs around him.
Zan begins to walk while holding me as if I weigh nothing—does he keep his dragon strength in human form?
I tighten my legs around him involuntarily. Oh, wow,there’sa thought—
“Then maybe,” Zan says idly, “We should make sure that we’re compatible. So that you can be sure of me.”
So that he knows I can be sure of him. But—
“If you’re not ready to mate, then how—”
Zan kicks open a door.
“There are many ways we can test compatibility that aren’t intercourse,” he whispers into my ear, and I shudder.
