Page 23

The movie wasn’t for me, but I sat through it because he’d chosen it, and when he woke, with a crease on his cheek, I was able to summarize the plot.

“I knew you’d like it.” He lay his head on my lap and went back to sleep

I started going to Stellan and Miles’s Sunday dinners. Every week previously they’d invited me, and I'd said no. Even Indigo couldn’t persuade me. But the first Sunday I turned up at Sheridan’s side, I brought a curry because they weren’t expecting me. No one said anything when I walked through the door and handed over the food. Rudy eventually told me it was about time, and he shifted his chair over.

Halfway through the meal, Indigo leaned across the table and asked Sheridan in a loud voice whether he and I were mates yet.

“We’re all waiting. Also, shouldn’t Pierogi have a playmate?”

Sheridan went red, and I pushed a few rice grains around on my plate as if they were the most fascinating thing I’d ever seen.

“It’s taking you ages,” she added, until Stellan shook his head at her.

Sheridan found my hand under the table and didn’t let go, eating the rest of the meal one-handed. Nobody had ever done that, and my beast told me it was a milestone and we should record it in a diary or something.

My thoughts went to the mark under my collar, the one Sheridan had given me. It hadn’t faded as I’d expected it to because I hadn’t given him a matching one. My dragon hadn’t stopped pestering me to mark Sheridan. He used to sit in silence and grieve, but now he begged.

Whenever Sheridan tipped his head back and laughed, or when he fell asleep with the TV on, my dragon pushed me to finish the mating.

He wants you to, and he keeps telling you that. Finish it and no one can tear you two apart.

Sheridan wasn’t begging, but he wanted it. He’d promised not to push, and he kept to that. But his fingers would press the base of his throat where he wanted the mark. He’d catch my eye and remove his fingers, but within minutes, they’d find their way back to the same spot.

He only said it out loud once. We were doing the dishes with him washing and me drying. Out of nowhere, he said, “I’m not going to keep asking. I meant that.”

He passed me a plate. “But I haven’t changed my mind, and I’m not going to. The offer doesn’t expire like a coupon.” He rinsed another plate under the faucet. “I’ll be here when you’re done being scared.”

He splashed water at me and didn’t say any more. I dried the plates and didn’t tell him how grateful and moved I was by what he said.

I was running low on reasons why we couldn’t mate. As the days ticked over and he didn’t leave, we ate dinner together, and the rabbit adopted me as his second dad, the importance of the flight’s law diminished. My entire personality was built around that concept, and yet day by day and meal by meal, those experiences were chipping away at that defense.

The walls I’d put up to protect him looked more like I was too scared to move forward.

One afternoon as I was coming back from the grocery store, the same one Indigo had done a partial shift in, I passed the secondhand shop I frequented. I’d never been able to walk past that place because my beast always spotted something to add to his hoard. He loved a tattered or broken cast-off. Recently I’d bought a teddy with one ear and a book without a cover.

No more chipped mugs. Not today, I told my dragon.

But in the window was a ring that caught my eye. It was in a tray, and the old dark silver had been worth smooth by whomever had owned it. But my shifter sight picked out a dragon with its tail in its mouth carved into the band.

I went inside before I could talk myself out of it. The woman behind the counter who knew me well from previous visits, told me the dragon was supposed to be lucky.

“It has no end, see.” She tapped the tail between the dragon’s teeth.

She had no idea she was selling a dragon a ring with a dragon on it. I paid what she was asking without haggling and smiled because no dragon paid the asking price for anything. Shifters didn’t do engagements for weddings. We didn’t exchange rings. The mark was our promise. But I couldn’t resist buying this ring for Sheridan.

I stood on the pavement outside the store with the ring in my pocket and thought about what I’d done. I’d spent weeks convincing myself I couldn’t keep Sheridan in my life. He wouldn’t walk beside me until one of us took our last breath. But I’d just purchased a ring, which for humans was a symbol of togetherness, love, and a future together.

It wasn’t a mark or a bond, but it was me trying to keep him instead of pushing him away. My beast was hopeful that I finally understood. He hadn’t been this happy since we’d been banished from the mountains.

I didn’t give the ring to Sheridan straight away. I wasn’t ready, and I kept it in my pocket and stuck my hand in there regularly to make sure I hadn’t lost it. It went on the shelf between the blue marble and the one-legged soldier. My dragon guarded it and was upset when I left the apartment, wishing he could separate himself from me and stand guard.

It looked like it had always been there, and when I was home, my beast waited, expecting me to present it to Sheridan the next time we met. But we saw one another every day, and I was enjoying the anticipation, knowing it was there and safe, and knowing I could give it to him whenever.

There was something comforting in enjoying the wait.

14

SHERIDAN