She presses her lips into a thin line and is quiet for a while before whispering, “Yes. No. Sometimes?” She groans. “Fuck, I don’t know anymore. I spent nearly all of my life alone, so I talked to myself to keep from going crazy. I’m used to wrestling with decisions by playing both sides of the argument.”
Stone hesitates before suggesting, “Have you considered it might be nothing more than a mental block?” She fixes him with a glare, and he raises his hands in surrender, but continues to defend his reasoning. “Think about it. You were raised from the moment you were born not to draw attention to yourself. Shifting into a dragon and bringing down a lightning storm is pretty much the definition of drawing attention.”
She pauses, so I pick up where Stone left off. “Why do you think we call you the light of our lives, firefly? You thrived in the dark as much as you may fear it. It made you who you are, showed you everything hiding in the shadows, and then you clawed your way out.”
I palm her cheeks, staring into her eyes, desperately reaching for the dragon hiding in the depths of her soul. “You don’t have to hide anymore. We found you,mo chuisle,and you never have to face any threat alone again. It’s finally safe to give up control and become what you were always meant to be.”
Small tremors wrack her body as she holds my earnest gaze, barely breathing.There.It’s nearly imperceptible, but her pupils narrow slightly, not quite vertical slits, but halfway there. With a strangled cry, she wrenches out of my grip, doubling over and clutching her stomach. Up the side of her neck, a flash of golden scales catch the sunlight before immediately disappearing.
Raiden spins her sideways in his lap, smoothing her hair out of her face. “Breath, love, it’s alright.”
But it’s not.
Blood trickles down her arm, the skin tearing agonizingly slowly in jagged lines, like fissures splitting rock. Inside of the wounds, motion catches my eye, bloody scales slowly shifting, like her beast is writhing just beneath the surface, waking from its slumber to shred its way out of the darkness.
Stone curses, ripping her away from Raiden. “You have to stop fighting it, Amara. Just breathe, and let it have control.”
She shuts her eyes tight, gasping. “I’mtrying.”
Each second feels like eternity, but with every one that passes, it tears the woman I love apart a little more, until her blood stains the front of Stone’s shirt.
I shove his shoulder, barking, “Do something!”
“Amara, love,” he pleads. “I need you to decide. Do you want to keep pushing through, or trust me to make it stop? Know I wouldneverhurt you?”
Gritting her teeth, she hisses between sharp breaths, “Make. It. Stop.”
Looking like he’s going to throw up, Stone shifts his grip to her neck, squeezing the sides with clinical precision until she passes out.
Our ragged breaths fill the unnatural hush that’s fallen around us, all three of us staring intently at our unconscious, bloody mate and feeling sick to our stomachs at how wildly off script this trip went. None of us bother saying a word; nothing else needs to be said.
Amara’s a dragon, that’s for damn sure. But the real question stems from if she’s strong enough to keep it from tearing her apart now that it’s awake.
Chapter 19
Raiden
