She had touched me. She'd walked across that clearing on her own, tears streaming down her face, hands shaking, and she had chosen to reach for me.
I would live off that moment for the rest of my life if she never gave me another one.
Liz sat on the ground with her knees pulled up and her arms wrapped around them. She stared at the tree line as if the pines owed her an explanation, and her breathing came in shallow, uneven pulls that told me her body was still catching up to what her mind had already accepted.
I lowered myself to the ground about four feet from her, one arm draped over a bent knee, keeping my posture open.
Every instinct I had screamed to close the gap, to pull her against my chest and wrap myself around her until the trembling stopped. My dragon pushed hard and made my body ache with the effort of staying still.
She needed space more than she needed comfort right now, and I’d cut off my arm before I crowded her into something she wasn’t ready for.
The clearing settled around us, and birds cautiously resumed their noise in the canopy.
Liz spoke first, her voice coming out rough. “There’s something in my chest.”
My heart kicked. “I know.”
She turned her head to look at me. Her brown eyes were red-rimmed and glassy, her cheeks blotchy from crying, and she was still the most stunning woman I had ever seen in my life.
She pressed her fist against her sternum. “Like a hook behind my sternum. It gets louder when you’re close. What is it?”
I chose my words carefully. “It’s a tether. A bond between a dragon and his mate.” I braced for a flinch that never came. “My dragon recognized you the moment I caught your scent in the forest. That pull you’re feeling is the connection trying to form.”
Her jaw worked, and she looked away. “You’re telling me some magical leash has been installed in my chest without my consent.”
The word “leash” landed like a fist to my sternum. I didn’t know the details of what brought her here, and I didn’t need them yet. The evidence was in every guarded look, every flinch away from kindness, every wall she’d built from bricks of self-reliance.
“It’s a map that tells me where you are and if you’re hurting. It pulls me toward you because my dragon’s entire purpose is to protect what matters most to him.” I paused. “It is never a leash.”
She looked at me again, searching for more.
“My dragon knows you’re mine.” The words rumbled out of me, weighted with the truth my whole body confirmed. “But I know you belong to yourself.”
Her chin trembled. She bit down on her lower lip, hard, the way people do when they refuse to cry a second time.
“What if I don’t want it?”
The question carved through me. My dragon recoiled, a hot flare of anguish that seared my insides. I breathed through it.
“Then I’ll still be here.” I held her gaze. “The bond doesn’t override your choices, Liz. It’s just a thread attempting to pull us together, but it doesn’t compel anything beyond what you're open to.”
She stared at me for a long time. The wind shifted her short hair across her forehead. “You’re serious?”
“Yes. There are three parts of a bond: the physical connection, the emotional acceptance, and the acceptance from the quad.” I knew this information might overwhelm her, but if I even wanted a chance, she needed to know. “The bonding can go as fast or as slow as you want it to.”
“The quad? Kade, Atlas, and…” She cringed. “Please tell me that serial-killer face isn’t a dragon too.”
“Zarek had his flame snuffed and is still recovering.” I didn’t add that he’d been dealing with his dragon’s bitterness for almost a decade. “He is very loyal once you worm your way through his dragon’s defenses.”
She nodded, and her posture relaxed, her fingers threading through the grass next to her and making it stand again. “What’s the physical component?”
There was no point in sugarcoating it. “Sex.”
Her mouth twitched. The tiniest, most reluctant flicker at the corner of her lips. She squashed it immediately, pressing her face into her knees.
My dragon purred so loudly I felt it vibrate my teeth. That twitch was worth more than every piece of gold in our hoard.
After a few moments, Liz lifted her face from her knees and studied me with unguarded curiosity, stripped of the suspicionthat had colored every interaction we’d had since I’d told her I was the man in the woods.
