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The logic, stripped of the contempt behind it, wasn't entirely without merit. With Earth off-limits and a finite number of humans in Alliance space, we did need broader solutions. The mate shortage was real, and it wasn't going to resolve itself through sentiment.

"You make a valid point," I said, hating that I had to concede anything to him. "We should explore all possible solutions to ensure our species' survival."

"I'm glad you see reason, my lord." The satisfaction in his voice was controlled but audible. "I'll begin researching compatible species and present you with options at the next council meeting. Along with, perhaps, a formal proposal regarding the human mating question, so the council might discuss the matter properly."

"You do that," I said. "Anything else?"

"Just one more thing." His gaze dropped pointedly to my hands. "Be careful with the human, my lord. Attachment makes us vulnerable. We cannot afford vulnerability right now."

He walked away before I could respond.

I stood in the empty courtyard and listened to the silence he left behind.

He was right, technically. Every instinct I had as a king told me that getting involved with Leila complicated things I couldn't afford to have complicated. That whatever I was feeling would compromise my judgment at a moment when I needed to be precise and clear above all else.

But my dragon didn't care about political strategy. My dragon knew exactly what it wanted, and what it wanted was the female whose blood sang in ways I'd never heard before and couldn't stop listening.

I looked down at my hands, still feeling the phantom warmth of her skin against my fingers, the way she'd trembled and gasped my name as she came apart. The guilt rose again, sharp and suffocating. How could I want someone else when Marion's memory still lived in me?

Except it wasn't fresh anymore, was it? Seven hundred and fifty years had passed. Marion was gone. And I was still here, still alive, still standing in a courtyard at dusk feeling things I had no framework for.

I didn't know what to do with that.

So I pushed it down, as I'd been pushing things down for weeks, and told myself I'd figure it out later.

Even though later was very clearly running out.

Chapter 11

Leila

I made it back to my quarters before the tears started.

Not the dramatic kind—I wasn't that far gone yet. Just the hot, angry sort that burned behind my eyes and made my throat ache with the effort of keeping them contained. I closed the door and leaned against it, pressing my palms flat against the wood like it could keep me from flying apart.

The room was exactly as I'd left it. Sunlight still came through the tall windows, the sapphire gown hung in the wardrobe, and my tablet waited on the desk, probably full of messages from Chloe about app logistics that I absolutely could not deal with right now.

Because thinking about the app meant thinking about Kavan finding a mate. And thinking about Kavan finding a mate meant picturing him with someone else. Someone who wasn't me. Someone with three boobs and lavender skin and tentacles for hair who was trained in the art of pleasure. Someone who hadn't let herself fall for a seven-and-a-half-foot dragon king who'd just called her a mistake.

I moved to the window and wrapped my arms around myself. The view was spectacular, the same rolling hills and purple-leaf trees and distant mountains it always was. I'd thought it was romantic when I first arrived. Medieval and magical and exactly where fairy tales happened.

Turned out fairy tales were significantly more complicated from the inside.

I could still feel him. That was the worst part. The ghost of his hands, the weight of his body blocking out everything else when he'd had me pressed against that wall. The way he'd worked me like he had all the time in the world and every intention of using it, until I'd stopped thinking coherently about anything at all.

I'd never felt anything like that. Not with my ex Jacob, who'd been perfectly adequate but never made me feel like I was going to lose my mind from wanting. Not with anyone before him. Kavan had touched me like he was cataloguing something precious, like my responses mattered to him, like I was something worth paying attention to.

And then he'd stepped back, gone cold and distant, and told me to leave.

It was a mistake.

The words echoed in my head, sharp and cruel and impossible to unhear. I'd seen the guilt in his eyes, the way he'd pulled back like touching me had burned him. Then he'd told me to leave, his voice cold and distant and nothing like the rough, desperate growl he'd used when he'd been working me toward orgasm with his fingers.

I pressed my forehead against the glass and breathed through the ache.

The thing was, I knew he wanted me. That part wasn't in question. I'd felt the tension in him, the hardness of his cock against my belly, heard it in his voice before it went cold, seen it in his eyes when he'd watched me come apart. Whatever was holding him back, it wasn't lack of interest.

But wanting wasn't enough. Not when the guilt followed him everywhere. Not when every time he touched me he looked afterward like he'd done something unforgivable. I understood grief. I understood the way it could outlast all reasonable expectation. What I didn't understand was how to compete with a woman who'd been dead for seven hundred and fifty years.