“But, I accept that, my princess,” he whispered. “You see your traumas as scars you should hide, and I see them as battle scars that made you the wonderful woman I am proud the gods matched as my mate, hope to one day announce to the world as my mate. You would not be you without those scars, Tamsin Vale, and I only want you. I did this. I made these mistakes, and I knew of your issues. Do not apologize.”
I felt tension I didn’t realize I had relax a bit. Mel was right, and he would fight to make this right, do whatever it was I needed, my soul needed, so we could find a way back to each other and forward. I sniffled loudly, quickly wiping my eyes so it wouldn’t look like I was crying to use my tears against him. I hurried to pull out the charms and handed him one.
“Mel talked to Calloway and got us these. They’re dampener charms for the energy. The energy is part of why I’ve been completely avoiding you. Fair or not, I hate the pressure it puts on me, like I’m a jerk that I haven’t forgiven you yet when the gods say we should be mates or whatever. I’m not sure I believe in fate and all of this. I didn’t grow up around mates and—I need more time.”
“Whatever you need,” he agreed, accepting the charm. “And do not worry about how I’m doing. I’m fine. Mel worries about her future king too and—”
“Liar,” I whispered, seeing the stress in his features, knowing he was at odds with River, and he’d been losing weight.
He swallowed loudly. “I did this. I’ll figure out how to leave you be and—”
“You misunderstand.” I got fidgety again when he focused those gorgeous, vibrant blue eyes on me.
Hudson was so handsome, he was dangerous to all women. Before I had known his name, I’d referred to him as Mr. Panty Soaker, and it was so, so true. He was almost seven feet and looked about as wide as tall from the right angle. He was always clean-shaven and had floppy, dark brown hair unless he had it styled perfectly for an event.
Both ways were sexy.
He was always sexy.
“I don’t want to avoid you anymore,” I admitted, closing my eyes to hold back tears and try and control myself. “I don’t know how to do this, and if you have an instruction manual on how to live, I’d love it if you’d share it, but… Mel’s right that you will try to get my trust back if I stop closing myself off. I just don’t know how or what to do.” I flinched and opened my eyes when he touched my face.
“You don’t have to,” he rasped, tears in his eyes as well. “I did this. You came here and said you’re done avoiding me. I will do everything from here, and you just tell me what you need. If it’s too much, then I’ll back off. If you can accept it, then we take the next step. You just tell me.”
“Okay.” I reached up to wipe away a tear that fell, but lowered my hand. “Okay.”
He caught my hand and brought it to his face, breaking down. “I’m so, so sorry, Tamsin. I should have told you. I didn’t know what to do. You’re not a toy or possession, and I know I made you feel that way, and cheap—I’m not sure of all the damage I did, but I didn’t mean to do any of that. I didn’t know what to do. You were going through so much, and I thought I was shouldering the burden for you.”
“I can’t get into this yet,” I whispered, pulling my hand away. I was relieved when he let me. “Logically, I’ve come up with dozens of sound reasons you didn’t tell me that I could completely understand if it hadn’t blown up as it did. But it did, and I have trouble even looking at your parents, and I’m not someone who gets embarrassed. They wanted us to end what we had, but then we were mates.”
“They’ve apologized several times for interfering and told me they’ve tried to apologize to you, but you’re not open to it,” he murmured. “It wasn’t their place, even if we weren’t mates.”
“Yeah, but they weren’t wrong, and I understood what they were saying. I—they were completely respectful, and I understood. I agreed, Hudson. I agreed with them. There were reasons we weren’t ever going to go public in my head, and those haven’t changed or gone away. Now you know how big those reasons are. You’re going to be king one day, and I’m currently the last fairy, trying to save my people and world.”
“Your stuff is now, and mine is later, much later if—things change.” He shook his head when I opened my mouth to argue. “I know you think this is the gods forcing you, or us, to be trapped together, but really, it’s their blessing to give us what we both need. There will be a time you need it to be me that will always be there for you and the one fighting to stand at your side.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but then closed it, giving a nod that I heard him.
“No, no more secrets. I know you’ve said that with Darby and Lucca, and I ask the same. I know this is all difficult for you because you weren’t raised with it. Tell me where your head is. I want to understand.”
I licked my lips as I stared at him. “Besides your parents and the other dragon royals, the other leaders in this world are shit. They’re corrupt and selfish. You assume the gods aren’t just
