He said it like it was good and not shameful, and the satisfaction on his face sent tendrils of pleasure winding through her. His joy was her joy. “No, I couldn’t.”
“I wish I’d known you were coming to see me at night.”
“I wish I’d told you.” They could have had the past week, too. Her treasure chest was empty, except for the times spent with him, but each moment glittered like a single perfect gem.
He hugged her to his side, forgiving to his detriment. He had no idea what she might have condemned him to. What she’d done to them both.
She loved him more than life itself. “If something happens to me, you must go back to Earth,” she urged, recalling the vision of the woman of his future. Although only part dragon, he, too, was permitted only one mate. In claiming him, she’d eliminated all contenders—not that the other woman could have been his mate anyway. She did not have fyre.
She hated the anonymous future woman for even the limited role she would play in his life, but he deserved the joy of children. O’ne couldn’t give him that. She couldn’t even give him herself.
“Nothing will happen to you,” he said with a male’s endearing arrogance and ignorance. “And, I’m not going back to Earth,” he stated. “First, I wouldn’t leave you, and second, it’s not possible anyway. Draco has severed relations with Earth again. No ships can leave. No ships may come in.”
“A temporary situation.”
“Helena said King K’rah is adamant.”
“King K’rah.” She dismissed the monarch with a flick of her wrist. The man was a dragonling, all bluster and smoke. “Earth and Draco are on a path of convergence,” she said. “They cannot remain apart any more than two bonded mates can.”
“And you know this because you’re the priestess?”
Her lips curved smugly. “Because Helena is the child of my child and will not give up. The human who desecrated the temple will be caught, and, when he is, Helena will work her wiles on T’mar who will work on his father. Rhianna will do the same with Prince K’ev. King K’rah does not have a chance against my daughters.”
The wall melted away as they came to his suite. She picked up her skirts and stepped over the string.
“So much for my alert system.” He followed her in, and the wall melded together again. “I wonder how many others have been here.”
“None,” she replied and tapped her nose. “I would smell if someone had been here.”
“That’s reassuring.” He shoved a weapon under the bed pad.
“Would it be all right if I dried my hair?” She glanced at the bathing chamber.
“Use whatever you would like,” he said.
In the other room, she removed her gown, undid the braid, and then stepped under the ionizing drier. In a short minute, her hair had been restored, and she stepped out of the unit, eager to return to her mate. He’d promised there wouldn’t be much sleeping, and he was a man of his word. He kept to his promises much better than she did.
He weakens you. He seduces you with his human scent, his exotic otherness, his rumbling voice, his lithe muscular body, the dragoness growled.
We are mates. Our fyres yearn to be one, O’ne replied.
You liked him before the merging. You sought him out.
She couldn’t deny it.
He heals the loneliness. He makes you feel alive. Not since we left our daughter have you felt this way. You have never turned to me the way you turn to him. You shut me out. You blame me for the loss.
No! Why do you say that?
Because I failed her. I did not destroy those who’d taken her when I had the chance.
There was no chance. We didn’t know she would be taken from us. It didn’t happen until we boarded the ship.
That is when I should have destroyed them.
No. There was nothing you could have done. We couldn’t have shifted on the spaceship. It would have killed us, she would have been taken anyway, and the perpetrators would have lived on.
Then why have you shut me out? For 10,000 years, you have barely spoken to me. And then he comes along…
How could she have not realized the dragoness had been grieving? That she had hurt her with her silence? Wallowing in sadness, she’d separated herself from everyone, including the dragoness who could have been her deepest ally, her confident, her companion. I am ashamed. I did you a grave injustice. I am so sorry.
It is a sign of weakness to apologize.
Then I am weak because I am sorry for hurting you. I should have turned to you, comforted you.
The dragoness did not respond.
Grief had consumed her, and she had handled it badly. Not until Rhianna and Helena arrived on Draco and she learned her daughter had survived and had raised offspring who’d had offspring had her grief begun to heal.
She should have turned to her dragoness. They could have wept together, supported each other. Most likely she would not have gone to the temple with the intent of becoming priestess so she could wreak her revenge. She might have sought vengeance another way, perhaps allowed her dragoness to battle those who had wronged them. That alone might have given them the satisfaction and closure they’d never experienced.
The sound of H’ry moving around the bedchamber filtered through the walls, and she flung away the veil of regret. Even a powerful priestess couldn’t change the past and had only limited ability to affect the future.
The present was all she could lay claim to.
She draped her dry hair over the crook of her arm, conscious more than ever of its weight.
I accept your apology, the dragoness said.
Thank you.
