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He’d told me it wouldn’t be a complete bond until he marked me back. Gods, how I longed for that. I literally dreamed of it every time I fell asleep.

“Please, can you mark me?”

I went back to the spinach, scared to see his face if what I knew was coming.

“No.” One word, but it held so much weight.

“You can’t just tell me no. You need to explain why.” It was the not knowing why that was killing me. If I did, I could either fix what was wrong or figure out a way to move forward. This limbo was too difficult.

“There’s nothing to explain.” He went back to chopping. “It’s complicated.”

Those two things didn’t go together. Either there was nothing to explain, or it was complicated. And it was so beyond frustrating.

“I can’t make heads or tails of this if you won’t tell me what’s going on. I’m not saying mark me if you don’t want to, but it feels like you want to, and I don’t get it.”

“I’m not allowed to have a mate,” he said so quietly I barely heard him.

“What?” I dropped what I was doing and grabbed a towel to dry my hands and took the knife from his so that I could hold both of his hands. “Who decided that for you?”

“My flight.”

“Your what?”

“My flight. It’s like a pack for dragons.”

“And they told you you can’t have a mate?”

He led me to the couch, where he explained to me the basics about how dragons lived in communities called flights and that his was in the mountains where they could shift freely. He’d grown up surrounded by other dragons with no humans in sight. He had a hoard, which, for the first time, I learned was real and not just for storybooks.

“I don’t understand. Everything about your flight sounds perfect.”

“They were. But then, one day, they weren’t.”

“I’m gonna need more than this.” I didn’t wanna push him, but, also, I needed to know.

“I was out flying around, practicing some tricks to show off. Down below, I saw a dragon standing over a clutch of eggs, and I didn’t recognize him. He wasn’t from our flight, and the eggs weren’t his. I knew who they belonged to. And they... these poor babies, they were in danger.”

Emotions hit hard. Someone was trying to hurt defenseless babies. I didn’t know much about dragon eggs, and whether it was normal they were left unattended or if there was a layer to this that included the death of the parents, but something told me them being alone wasn’t normal. I didn’t interrupt, letting him continue.

“I don’t know if they wanted to destroy them or steal them for himself, but I couldn’t let it happen. There wasn’t enough time to go get help, so I swooped down, hoping that my beast was enough to terrify them and protect the eggs. Except the dragon did something I wasn’t expecting. He fought back. And his talons, well, you saw what they did.”

Scars. The ones that drew me to him. Those were from protecting the eggs. I’d hoped to hear an ending where that other dragon died a terrible death, but he didn’t. He got away. And as far as my mate knew, he’d never been caught.

“Were the eggs safe?”

“They were. And their omega father was found hurt, but ultimately safe. Unlike me, he didn’t have scars. He’d been knocked out in human form.” The way he said scars was like it was a dirty word and not the badge of honor that it was.

“I guess I’m confused about what this has to do with you not having a mate.”

“Because my flight didn’t consider me a hero. They saw me as weak, my mangled body the proof. If I wasn’t able to protect myself, how could I protect a mate?”

“That logic makes no sense.” I climbed onto his lap and hugged him tightly. “You were a hero. You saved those babies.”

“My flight disagreed and cited ancient law that said scarred dragons couldn’t mate. They expelled me from the flight.”

I hugged him tightly, unable to find the right words.

“It could’ve been so much worse. They could have clipped my wings.”