“You need to heal first. Regain your strength?—“
“A stiff wind could knock me over.” She finishes flatly. “I’m aware. I’ve been monitoring my own vitals. Heart rate’s still elevated. Blood pressure inconsistent. I’ve lost approximately eight pounds I didn’t have to spare.” She looks away. “I’m not an idiot. I know I need recovery time. I’m asking for a timeline. A structure. Something I can plan around.”
A plan. Of course. Organization. Control. She’s trying to rebuild the walls they tore down—using schedules and strategies instead of emotions.
“A week or two,” I hear myself saying. “Rest, eat, sleep. Let the healers do their work. After that?—“
“After that, you’ll teach me?”
“After that, I’ll teach you everything I know.” The promise falls from my lips before I can stop it. Reckless. Binding. Exactlythe kind of commitment I should run from. “Combat. Weapons. Fire control. Whatever you need.”
She studies me. Those sharp green depths searching for deception, for manipulation, for any sign that I’m lying.
She won’t find one.
“Why would you do that?”
“Because you asked.” Simple. True. The only answer I have.
Her mouth curves. Not quite a smile—nothing that soft, nothing that warm—but something that makes my chest tight and my dragon settle into something that feels dangerously like contentment.
“You’re strange.”
“I’ve been told that too.”
“Selene said you’re the reckless one. The troublemaker. The dragon who can’t sit still for more than five minutes.”
“All accurate.”
“Yet you’ve been sitting outside my door for days.”
“Also accurate.”
“Why?” The question is sharper now. More insistent. “Don’t give me vague answers about instinct and protection. Tell me the truth.”
The truth.
I look at her and something inside me goes still—the restless, reckless, constantly moving parts of me that have never settled for anything suddenly want nothing more than to be exactly where she is. The truth is that my dragon has been circling her name in my head since the moment we found her, repeating it like a mantra, like a prayer, like the only word that matters in any language.
The truth is that I think she might be mine.
But I can’t say that. Not now. Not when she’s still fragile, still healing, still looking at me with eyes that hold more walls than windows.
“Because when I look at you, I stop wanting to be anywhere else.” The words come out before I can filter them. “That’s never happened to me before. Three hundred fifty years, and I’ve never wanted to stay in one place until you.”
Her breath catches. Just a fraction. Just enough to tell me the words landed.
“That’s—“
“Terrifying? Insane? Both?” I force a grin. The one that usually deflects. The one that usually works. “Trust me, I’m aware. If you want me to leave?—“
“No.” The word comes out sharp. Almost startled. “I mean—“ She stops. Visibly collects herself. “You can stay. For now. In a strictly guardian capacity.”
“Strictly guardian. Got it.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” I cross my arms over my chest. Mirror her defensive posture. “Rest. Then training. You set the boundaries, I’ll respect them. Deal?”
