Page 66 of Dragon’s Rogue

True mates. Someone you were fated to be with, a magical bond that transcended time and space and lasted forever—maybe even beyond death. Blaze had heard of that; it happened to some species of shifters, especially wolves and bears.

But she’d never heard of it happening to humans.

“Is that what you think this is?” she asked. “You really think I’m one of those Destined Mates, even though I don’t have the Seal?”

He gave a one-shouldered shrug, dropping his eyes. “I don’t know about that. All I know is what I feel.”

She gathered the rest of her courage. “And… what do you feel?”

Zane didn’t answer right away. Instead, he took her hand and pulled her to the couch. They sat down, him still holding her hand, smoothing his thumb over it the same way he’d stroked the gold necklace.

And it gave her the same shivery feeling.

Blaze held her breath.

Finally he said, “Do you know how old I am?”

Draken lived a long time. Centuries. But she didn’t know if Wild Dragons were the same. “You look like you’re about thirty.”

He smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling and his dimple reappearing. “I’m two hundred and eighty-seven.”

“No way.” What was she supposed to say to that? “Umm… you don’t look a day over two hundred?”

Zane laughed.

“I’m sorry,” Blaze said. “All I can think of are Viagra jokes.”

The dimple deepened. “So far, I haven’t found the need. Maybe in another few hundred years. I’ll let you know.”

A few hundred years. She couldn’t even imagine that. “I guess I can’t wrap my head around living that long. Things around you change so much. Doesn’t that feel strange?”

He was still stroking her hand with his thumb. She loved the way that felt, and it scared her that she loved it.

“I was here before Portland was settled. I watched it grow into the city it is today. I used to fly up the Columbia Gorge with my father, and later with Thorne, and bathe in the river. I’ve seen the forests decimated by fire more than once, and seen them grow back even more beautiful.

“I was there when they built the first paved road along the Gorge. I went to the dedication ceremony, as a human, up on Crown Point, the bluff where I used to sit and sun myself and watch the river. It was just before they broke ground for Vista House. That night, sleeping in my cave further along the bluff, I had my first dream. About you.”

That stunned her. “You dreamed about me all the way back then?”

He nodded. “Over a hundred years ago. 1916. I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. After that, I used to look forward to going to sleep, hoping that the dreams would come, treasuring them when they did. Sometimes you were alone in them, and sometimes we were together. I’ve made love to you a thousand times in my dreams.”

Blaze just listened to him, mesmerized.

“I didn’t know when I would meet you, or if I even would. I didn’t know if anything in the dreams would be real.”

He reached out, running his fingertip along the edge of the necklace, over her skin. His voice was almost a whisper. “But I wanted it to be. So much.”

Blaze felt frozen. Part of her yearned toward him the way she had from the moment they met. The part that made her feel warm inside when she was with him, safe and protected. The part that had broken open inside her when making love to him, and had made the gold in her gallery sing.

But that part felt raw and new and vulnerable, and this was all so overwhelming.

The part of her that had survived and held to her mission all these years was resisting it, telling her that to be strong she couldn’t rely on anyone else. If she couldn’t trust her coven, the sacred circle she was born into, how could she trust a dragon?

That made her ache on the inside, a hollow feeling she hadn’t let herself feel for years. This was all too much. She opened her mouth to say so, but he stopped her.

“All I’m trying to say is, I feel like I’ve known you for a hundred years. I know instinctively that you’re mine, and so does my dragon.” He touched the necklace. “And we’re yours.”

The words seemed to echo in the room, and the gold hummed, as faint as a distant sigh.