“Well, you should at least talk to her first. Tell her your fears instead of acting like she doesn’t exist.” Kaelith’s frustration bled through every word. “Explain why you’re terrified instead of making her think she did something wrong.”
I don’t know how without breaking everything.
The thought whispered through his mind with devastating honesty. How could he explain that every moment she remained in his life increased the chances of her death? That his love for her was the very thing that could eventually destroy her?
“You think I haven’t considered that?” Damon’s voice turned rough with emotion he couldn’t quite suppress. “You think Idon’t want to figure this out? Every instinct I have is screaming at me to claim her completely, to never let her out of my sight. But those same instincts could get her killed.”
“So what, you’re either going to have her leave because she can’t stand being ignored anymore or you’re going to keep her locked up in the estate forever?” Kaelith challenged. “Because either option sounds pretty terrible.”
The words hit their target with brutal accuracy. Damon had spent three days creating exactly that scenario, and it made him sick. Isla deserved attention, freedom, adventure, a life filled with the joy and warmth that radiated from her like sunlight.
“I don’t know what to do,” he admitted, the confession torn from somewhere deep in his chest.
“Then figure it out together,” Kaelith said simply. “Stop being a coward and actually talk to her. Maybe she’s stronger than you think. Maybe love is worth the risk.”
TWENTY-FOUR
DAMON
The suggestion sent his dragon surging forward with desperate hope, but Damon crushed the feeling ruthlessly. “What if Veyrik hurts her because I was too selfish to let her go? I can’t—” His voice cracked. “I can’t survive losing someone else because of my choices.”
He wanted Isla gone not because she didn’t matter, but because she mattered too much. More than anything he’d ever experienced in two centuries of existence.
“Being an Alpha’s mate isn’t easy,” Damon said quietly. “Especially not mine.”
“No,” Kaelith agreed. “But it could be worth it. If you actually give her the chance to decide for herself instead of making the choice for her.”
With that, Kaelith rose from his chair and headed for the door, leaving Damon alone with the wreckage of his carefully constructed excuses. As the door closed behind his friend, the mate bond pulsed again—stronger this time, carrying Isla’s growing determination like a warning bell.
She was done waiting.
The realization sent panic racing through his veins, followed immediately by something that might’ve been relief. At leastwhen she finally confronted him or left, this torturous limbo would end.
The paperweight in his hand finally gave way under the pressure, glass fragments scattering across the tactical maps like deadly tears. He stared at the destruction, seeing a perfect metaphor for everything he touched.
The office door creaked open, and Damon didn’t bother lifting his head from the scattered glass fragments that had once been his paperweight.
“Just go away,” he muttered, assuming Kaelith had returned to deliver another lecture about emotional cowardice and wasted opportunities.
But then the scent of vanilla drifted across the room—a scent that made his dragon surge with desperate hunger after three days of deliberate starvation. Every muscle in his body went rigid as recognition slammed into him.
Isla.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you. I can leave.”
Her voice carried that careful neutrality that people used when they were trying very hard not to show how upset they were. The sound of it made something crack open in his chest.
“No.” The word came out rough as he finally looked up, and the sight of her nearly undid every carefully constructed wall he’d built over the past three days. She stood in the doorway wearing a soft yellow sundress that made her auburn hair catch fire in the lamplight, but it was the guarded expression in her hazel eyes that hit him hardest. “I didn’t mean that. I thought you were Kaelith.”
His dragon was practically clawing at his ribs, demanding he cross the room and pull her into his arms, claim her mouth, reassure himself that she was real and safe and still here despite his spectacular failures as a mate. The urge was so powerful it made his hands shake.
“Please stay,” he managed.
She stepped fully into the room but kept her distance, arms crossing over her chest in a gesture that screamed defensive protection. “Can I talk to you?”
“Of course.”
He braced himself for the inevitable—the conversation where she told him she was leaving Everflame Isle, that she couldn’t handle his world or his damage, that what they’d shared had been a mistake she wouldn’t repeat.
