Page 76 of Mating Her Dragon

Sydney blinked at him. "Excuse me?"

"Food. Water. Bed."

There was a beat of silence just long enough for Garrett to hear exactly how that had sounded a half-second after it left his mouth.

Sydney raised one eyebrow, slowly and deliberately, clearly delighted.

Somewhere behind him, Bonnie choked on something.

"Maybe specify your intentions," Sydney said, "when there are witnesses."

"Rest," Garrett said, with as much dignity as he could locate. "I meant rest."

"Sure, you did," Maggie said, not looking up from where she was repacking the cooler.

Garrett decided, for the second time that day, that he would very much like the Earth to simply open up beneath him.

The party dissolved slowly after that, which he was grateful for. Nothing about the last hour deserved a rushed ending. Bonnie and Maggie packed enough food into the Airstream to feed a small army through Christmas, arguing the entire time about whether Sydney needed the potato salad or the cornbread more, and settling it by giving her both. Ginnie made Sydney promise, with her whole hand raised like she was being sworn in, not to "just quickly inspect" a single Realm boundary for at least twenty-four hours.

Carrick found Garrett near the trucks, low-voiced, businesslike, the way he got when he was passing along something that actually mattered. "Keevandrie remains secure," he said. "No escape attempt. No emergency. Nothing requiring you at all, for once."

Garrett waited for the rest of it. The complication. The new development. The thing that needed him.

There wasn't one.

He turned that over slowly, like a stone he wasn't sure was actually as smooth as it looked. Nothing that needed fixing. Nothing waiting on the other side of this conversation demanding his attention. It felt almost physically strange to stand there with absolutely nothing left to do.

Carrick studied his face and seemed to understand exactly what he was looking at. "Go be Mated," he said.

"We are Mated," Garrett said.

Carrick glanced toward the Airstream. Then back at him, entirely too pleased with himself.

"Not completely."

Garrett considered several responses. Then, he discarded all of them and settled for simply staring until Carrick laughed and walked away.

Kellan caught him a few minutes later on his way to the truck. Clapping him hard on the shoulder in the way old soldiers did when actual affection embarrassed them too much to say anything outright, he said, "Congratulations."

"Thank you," Garrett said.

Kellan's face didn't move at all. "On both parts."

"You leaving?" Garrett said.

“You throwing me out?”

“Pretty much.”

“That’s good.” Kellan left, laughing the whole way to his truck, and Garrett reflected that he had apparently Mated into a life surrounded by people with absolutely no respect for his personal boundaries. He found, testing the thought, that he didn't mind nearly as much as he should have.

Cars and trucks pulled out one by one. Voices faded down the access road. The bluff went quiet, the ocean settling into its evening rhythm below, gold fading slowly into blue.

Finally, it was just Sydney and him.

He found her sitting on the Airstream steps. She had changed out of the ceremony dress into soft leggings and one of his old shirts. Her hair was down and thoroughly disheveled. Her bare feet were tucked up under her, a mug of water– not coffee, because Ginnie would have actually murdered her– was balanced on her knee. A blanket someone had draped over her shoulders had slid halfway down her arm. The enormity of the day hit him all at once as he stood there looking at her.

This morning Sydney had been his Mate-but-not-fully-Mated. Then vows. Then the Mating Bond. Then the blood exchange. Then Hell itself, reaching for her, and Sydney reaching right back. Freedom, finally, after a century of not having any, felt overwhelming, wonderful, and hard to wrap his mind around all at the same time.