His jaw is tight, and his eyes have grown dark. He casts a longing look back into the cave, and I realize he doesn’t want toleave this place any more than I do. I curl into his chest and close my eyes. At least we’re going home together.
It’s a short ride back to Lenhale, which is covered in a blanket of snow. The dragons are rustling flakes from their wings, and the fledglings are romping about.
Stesha carries me down from Nilak’s back. As soon as my feet touch the ground, I turn in his arms to face him with a breathless smile. “I haven’t been to any mating announcements before. How will we tell everyone? Or shall we just let everyone figure it out on their own?”
The stormy heat in Stesha’s eyes suddenly vanishes, and he’s silent for a beat too long. Even the flush of his rut fades from his cheeks. “Yes, of course I will mate you,” he says, as though taking me as a mate has only just occurred to him.
“It’s…it’s not what you want?”
“It is. Of course it is. It’s the right thing to do.”
Those six words slam into me like another avalanche.It’s the right thing to do.
My voice rises in hurt and anger. “What are you talking about, the right thing to do? We just spent your rut together. What has the right thing got to do with it?”
Stesha is supposed to say that he’s ready to give me his heart as freely as I’ve given him mine, because I know he would never make me his lavish.
He glances toward the mountains and back at me as though confused how we got here. I know Alphas can do stupid things during their ruts, but this is Stesha. He’s not thoughtless.
Fear thrums through me as I wonder whether I’ve misinterpreted everything that happened between us up on that mountain. “Well? Answer me.”
He opens his mouth and closes it again. “This is difficult for me.”
“Foryou?” I shout, trembling from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.
He rakes both his hands through his loose hair and swears under his breath. All the whites are showing around his eyes. “We should talk about this after my rut. I’m not saying any of this right.”
Talking later is the last thing I want. I have many,manywords to say to Stesha right now. “Why are you confused about this? Do you think I’m completely stupid, and I haven’t noticed the way you’ve been staring at me for the past two years? You never look at anyone the way you look at me, and yet you stand here and pretend like you don’t care for me. Don’t crave me. Is it because of the oath you made to my father? Am I not beautiful enough for you? Am I too young for you, even at twenty, soon-to-be twenty-one? We are going to talk right now, and you are going to tell me once and for all why you behave like I’m the only woman in the world and still pretend like you don’t want me.” By the time I am done speaking, I’m shrieking at him, and my hands are curled into fists.
He stares at the ground for a long time as though he’s trying to summon a shred of explanation from somewhere. Finally, he raises his eyes to mine, and says, “I have believed I’m fated to another. I’m sorry. I should have told you.”
Stesha couldn’t have winded me harder than if he’d punched me in the guts. Another woman. Of all the reasons he might have for not wanting me, I never once considered that there might be another woman in his heart. I haven’t forgotten what Zabriel said to me all those years ago, that Stesha could be waiting for an Omega, but I stopped believing that as I felt all his yearning looks while we were separated.
Bile curls up my throat, and my stomach spasms. Stesha wants another woman.
I’m not blind to his faults. His surliness and his exacting standards. The total and complete adoration that he has for his dragon that might make a woman feel second best if she wasn’t a dragonrider herself. That he would make a difficult mate and drive his partner mad with his moodiness and inability to say what he’s thinking. But I have lived with him for years, I have known him as a boy and as a man, and I know that he will never change. I don’t want him to change. This frustrating, proud, infuriating man lives in my heart, and he always will.
If he was trying to push me away because he believes he doesn’t deserve me, I could bear it, but to hear that he was holding another woman in his heart while I was in his arms up on that mountain? It’s utterly devastating. Like I don’t know him at all.
“Youhavebelieved you’re fated to another? What does that mean? Who is she?”
His jaw works. “It’s difficult to explain.”
“Try harder,” I cry, my voice hoarse and cracking.
“I have always been happy with you. I realize now that it’s been selfish, that happiness, because I can’t make you happy in return.”
“You don’t want me because you believe your heart belongs to someone else. Just say it.”
“Zen…” He reaches for me, but I take a step back, out of his reach. I’m too angry to be touched. I want an explanation, not to be comforted by him.
“Whoisshe?” I demand.
His expression is bleak. “I don’t know. An Omega. I’ve never found any trace of her.”
I want to rip my hair out of my head and scream. Zabriel was right all along. “What if you’re mistaken? If she were real, don’t you think you would have found her by now?”
“I have asked myself this. I hate this feeling. I have begged the gods to be rid of it.”
