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"Kavan—"

"I know," he said, pressing a finger to my lips. "You need to think about it. But while you're thinking, I want you here with me. So I can show you what it could be like to be the mate of a dragon."

My stomach did a little flip at the implication, and I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. He kissed me softly before getting out of bed.

I watched him move around the room getting dressed and tried to memorize every detail. The way the morning light caught in his white hair. The scars that crisscrossed his chest and shoulders, each one a story I wanted to know. The way he moved with such easy grace despite his size.

When he was ready to leave, he came back to the bed and kissed me again, longer this time.

"I'll see you tonight," he said.

"Okay," I whispered.

After he left, I lay in his bed for a while longer, wrapped in furs that smelled like him. Then I got up and made my way back to my own quarters, my heart lighter than it'd been in days.

I should've just said yes.

The thought kept circling through my mind as I walked through the quiet corridors. Why hadn't I? When he'd asked me to stay, not just tonight, but every night, my heart had screamed yes before he'd even finished the sentence. I wanted to stay with him. The though of getting on a shuttle and leaving made my heart hurt so badly I could barely breath. So why had I hesitated?

Old habits, maybe. The part of me that still carried the faint worry that somehow Marion's ghost might intrude on our future. The part that remembered what it felt like to lose everything and have to rebuild from nothing.

But this wasn't nothing. This was Kavan. Who looked at me like I was precious, who touched me so gently, who made me feel safer than I'd ever felt in my life. This was real, and deep, and exactly what I wanted.

I wanted to wake up in his bed every morning. I wanted to learn the stories behind every scar. I wanted to be there when he came back from boring meetings, to ease the tension from his shoulders, to make him smile that rare, genuine smile that transformed his entire face.

I wanted to be his mate.

The realization settled over me like warmth, like certainty, like coming home. I would tell him tonight. No more hesitation, no more protecting myself from something that already felt inevitable. I would tell him yes. Yes to staying, yes to everything, yes to the future we could build together.

Whatever he thought he'd had with my ancestor Marion seven hundred and fifty years ago, this was now and it was real. I wasn't Marion's shadow or her replacement. I was Leila. Myself, wholly and completely. And what we had together was ours alone. Our connection, our chemistry, our growing love. It belonged to no one else, living or dead.

I wasn't competing with a memory. I was writing a new story entirely.

A smile spread across my face as I turned the corner toward my quarters. Tonight. I would tell him tonight.

I was so caught up in my own happiness that I didn't notice the shadow in the corridor until it was too late. A hand grabbed me from behind, yanking me into an alcove. Before I could even process what was happening, something pressed over my nose and mouth carrying a sweet, cloying scent.

The last thing I remembered before everything went black was a chemical, sweet scent and a voice whispering, "I'm sorry."

Chapter 16

Kavan

The fishing hatchery report was mind-numbingly boring. I sat at the head of the conference table, surrounded by Alliance biologists and water specialists droning on about spawn rates and optimal temperatures. All I could think about was Leila.

The way she'd looked at me this morning, sleepy and content. The way her hair had spilled across my pillow like honey in sunlight. The way she'd whispered my name when I kissed her goodbye.

And the way her eyes had widened when I'd called her my mate.

I'd said it without thinking, the word slipping out in the heat of the moment. My mate. She'd gone still, her breath catching, those beautiful green eyes searching my face with an expression I couldn't quite read. Shock, certainly. But not unhappiness. Not rejection.

Just surprise. And maybe something that looked like hope.

I hadn't taken it back. Hadn't tried to soften it or explain it away. Because it was true. Every instinct I possessed, every fiber of my being, my dragon itself, all of it recognized her as mine. My mate. My blood singer. The one I'd been waiting centuries for, even when I'd convinced myself I'd already found and lost her.

I would convince her. Whatever it took, however long it required, I would show Leila that this was real. That we belonged together. That she could build a life here, at my side, and be happy. I would give her everything. My kingdom, my protection, my heart. All of it was already hers anyway.

I was so thoroughly distracted that I didn't hear the commotion outside the chamber until the heavy wooden doors swung open.