I ground out that thought as well, stomping flat any spark of hope or idea that things between us could go differently. They wouldn’t. And I couldn’t afford to give any life to the idea that they might. I couldn’t let myself be hurt again.
Yet despite my efforts, the idea that maybe he did care managed to worm itself through a crack in my walls I didn’t plug in time and take root. Guiding me to answer. To tell him the truth and expose yet another broken part of me.
“My dragon disappeared while I was flying,” I said, the words short and tight as I waited for him to laugh.
Dirk grunted, shaking his head. “I know. I was there. It’s common for the first shift not to be solid. It can take days or even a few weeks to hold the shift without conscious effort. It’s why all young dragons get it drilled into them to stay on the ground until then.”
I drew up tight at the reminder of a life I didn’t get to have. “Clippys don’t get that sort of education.”
“Sorry,” Dirk said, shaking his head again. “I didn’t mean it that way. I just thought it was … I guess, universal knowledge?”
“When you’re never going to have a dragon, people stop telling you things,” I explained. “And you stop listening anyway. It only makes it hurt worse to know what’s been denied to you.”
Dirk nodded slowly, absorbing that information. “That makes sense. If it’s worth anything, I’m sorry you had to go through that. But you’re not telling me everything. Are you?”
I made a face. Was I that easy to read?
“Why would I? You’re not exactly in my good books.”
“I am well aware of that fact,” he said, perhaps a gentle rebuke of the way I’d been speaking to him. “And I don’t blame you for it one bit. It’s probably where you should keep me.”
Dirk thought it better for me if I kept him at arm’s length? Why would that be the case?
Could he have been meaning to leave … for my sake? Not his?
Too many thoughts. Too many emotions. What did I do? Trust him, that maybe he wanted to help me right now? Or call him out for trying to pretend, to get on my good side for whatever reason he might have?
“It hasn’t come back,” I heard myself say, something inside me making that decision without conscious effort. “At all. It’s quiet.”
“Quiet?”
“Yes,” I said, desperate to know if this was normal too. “I mean it left completely. My head is empty. Like it’s ignoring me.”
Dirk scratched at his chin. He seemed utterly lost. “So you mean, like, before it woke up?”
“No. This is different. Back then, I knew I had a dragon. It was just … quiet. It didn’t do anything. But it was there. Like hearing someone breathing through a thick wall and nothing more.” I tossed my hands in the air. “It’s hard to describe to someone who’s never experienced it. But now? Now it’s like I have nothing at all. A solid wall, with nobody on the other side. Pure silence.”
Dirk nodded slowly, listening intently and without judgment.
“I assume this is what it’s like to be human.” I licked my lips and asked him my biggest fear. “Am I human now?”
“No,” he said immediately, his eyes bursting back to light as his dragon rose to near the surface once more, glowing silver-blue in the night. “You are definitely not human.”
“Are you sure?” I had to know. To be sure. It would destroy me to have been suddenly granted something I desired so badly, only to have it snatched away.
“I’m positive,” he ground out, his voice thick and heavy. “I can smell you. Your mate scent is there. With every breath I take, it’s a part of me. Irresistible. My dragon knows who you are. It’s … well, I don’t need to go into detail about that. You don’t need to hear it. Just know that your dragonisin there.”
My throat dried up at the sudden intensity. He might not have spoken his thoughts, but the tone of his voice had left no surprise. His dragon still wanted me.
I suddenly was drawn back to the sight of Dirk on the landing pad. Naked. Hard. Staring right at me like the only thing he wanted to do was lift me onto the counter and part my legs.
Stop it. It doesn’t matter if he wants to fuck you. It’s not going to happen.
“Also, you healed from the wound. If you were human, you’d still be in bed. Just another bit of proof. Perhaps one more palatable.”
Dirk definitely knew I wasn’t interested in the sexual desires he must be feeling. After all, with my dragon being silent, I felt no pull to him. No screaming desire to be his, as Anna had described it to Milly and me one night.
“So why can’t I hear her or even sense her?”
