Altair hesitated.
“I’m not reading it out loud,” she said angrily. “Here.”
He reluctantly took it from her, opening the letter.
“Dear Julian,” he read tightly.
It was the letter she’d been sending back to him. The letter that Jessie had encouraged her to write. Only, she wasn’t writing what her friend wanted.
“You’re turning him down,” Altair said quietly, looking up at her.
“Yes, I was,” she stated. “I was turning him down. Saying no. Telling him to please stop sending me letters. Because I wasn’t interested. Do you want to know why I wasn’t interested?” she asked.
“Why?” She could see in his eyes that he had a suspicion of what she was going to say, but he asked anyway.
“Because I found someone else, Altair. Someone that I was interested in. Not to mention, I was never interested in him. We met once, at a bar. He bought me a drink, we talked. He got it in his mind that we were destined to be together. I’ve not responded to any of his letters. I usually read them and throw them away, if I even do that much. The second one, I burnt the second I realized it was from him.”
“Oh.” Altair looked down, face filling with shame.
“The only reason I wrote him now, was because I had a reason to say no,” she said quietly. “A reason to let him down. I don’t know why I didn’t earlier, I guess I was keeping my options open or something. We don’t exactly meet a lot of men around here, and the biological clock is ticking, but ugh. I wish I had told him from the start. I didn’t want this to happen.”
Altair nodded. “I...I understand,” he said, thoroughly embarrassed by this point.
“The only reason I didn’t do anything with this letter and the response I started writing, is because I got so busy with training, and with spending most of my free time with a certain other person,” she said, looking at him levelly.
Licking his lips, Altair nodded. “Thank you for explaining that,” he said quietly. “I...I am sorry I leapt to conclusions.” He shrugged. “I don’t really know what else I can say besides that. This is all on me.”
She thought about telling him that yes, it was his fault. That he’d screwed up and made everything far worse than it had to be. A simple question, a ‘what is this’ and a chance for her to explain would have sorted it all out. But he hadn’t done that.
But then she would just be holding a grudge, making things worse. And that helped no one. She didn’t want to be mad at him. In fact, right then, the thing she wanted the most was to fall into his arms and cry about everything that had happened at the Outpost, to thank him for saving her life.
“You were hurting,” she said quietly at last. “You assume everyone hates you. But as you can see, that isn’t the case.”
Altair looked down. She shook her head. No, that wasn’t allowed. Reaching out, she took his chin and forced him to look up at her as she spoke.
“But if I’m to forgive you, then I need to know why you leapt to that conclusion, Altair. I need to know what it is that’s eating you from the inside. Making you assume the worst.”
She stroked his cheek. “You need to tell me what your hurt is.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Altair
HE TREMBLED UNDER HER touch.
Tell her?
“I don’t want you to think lesser of me,” he admitted.
“You’ve said that before,” Christine pointed out softly. “But you can’t keep using that as an excuse. Not with me at least. Let me in, Altair. I promise it won’t hurt.”
“How can you make that promise?” he wanted to know. If she reacted badly or said she didn’t want him around after he told her, he would...he would be devastated.
“Because I know you,” she said, continuing to caress his cheek. “The other dragons have not judged you; they continue to see you as equal. It’s quite obvious that whatever you judge yourself for, nobody else does. That makes me confident in saying that I won’t judge you either.”
Altair looked down. Rather, he tried to. Again, her fingers gripped his jaw and she lifted his head to force him to keep looking at her.
“Don’t avoid me,” she said softly. “I’m here, giving you another chance. Opening myself up to you, after the hurt I just experienced.”
He frowned.
“What, is hurt and pain exclusive to you?” she challenged. “Are you the only one allowed to feel sad and down after something happens? I opened myself up to you, Altair, and I got something I didn’t even do thrown in my face by you, making me feel like I was a bad person when I didn’t commit any wrong.”
He grimaced. She was right, after all. Here he was, acting like the victim, but in reality, she was the one that got hurt. If he’d not snooped, or if he’d given her a chance to explain, none of that would have happened. It was his actions that had hurt her.
Altair’s dragon surged inside him. It did not like the idea that he’d hurt Christine, that he’d left her in pain. That made him feel sick to his stomach, to the point he nearly bent over with nausea.
“What did I do,” he whispered to himself.
Christine wisely didn’t respond, giving him time to organize his thoughts, to pull himself together.
If you want to keep her, you’re going to have to go out on a limb for her. She’s trusting you now with her feelings, giving you another shot. But only if you can do the same. Is she worth it?
To his utter surprise and visible shock, the answer slammed into Altair like a bullet. When he phrased it that way, there simply was nothing that was worth more to him, in that moment, at that
