She lets me pull her close and rock her in my arms, but she’s still sobbing as though her heart is breaking all over again.
“Finding out I’m an Omega and you’re my mate should have been the happiest day of my life,” she sobs. “He stole that from us.”
I feel a pulse of anger toward Emmeric, but I take a breath and push the anger away before it can fill my scent and upset her. My lips whisper over her brow. “This is the day. You’re finding out now. We haven’t missed out on anything.”
“But I could have been with you as my designation emerged.”
“We are together as your designation emerges. These are those days. He didn’t steal them from us.”
“You know what I mean,” she cries. “What if I’d never been poisoned? My designation would have started emerging while you were teaching us to fly. I would have known you were my mate, and I would have been so happy. It would have been—”
“Torture.”
She looks perplexed. “I was going to say beautiful. Why would it have been torture?”
I pull away and gaze down at her. “Because I would have driven myself mad pacing through the corridors of the castleevery time you went through a false heat. Riding my dragon back and forth across Maledin. Swimming laps of the lake.”
“But why?”
“Because you were my ward,aash’lin,” I remind her gently. Despite all that’s happened, in many ways it’s better that her designation is emerging now, when we are equals, and I can kiss her and touch her as much as she’ll allow me to.
“But us finding out we’re fated would have changed everything,” she protests.
“Some things. Not everything.”
“I would have been able to sleep in your bed. We would have been together for all your ruts and all my false heats.”
I snort in wry amusement. “No, we wouldn’t have.”
She blinks in surprise. “But why not?”
“Because I would have handed you over to theHratha’lenevery time you were in a false heat, and just like I always did, I would have gone to a ruthouse for my ruts. I’m ten years older than you, Zen. It would have been the only thing I could have done.”
Her expression is indignant. “Gods, you would have, wouldn’t you? Stesha, you’re absolutely no fun. No one would have minded if we’d stayed together. No one would have cared or even noticed.”
“I would have cared. Your mother and father would have cared, had they still been alive. Your brothers would have cared. Would keeping you with me have been protecting you, like I swore to do? Mother Linnea would have had a different reason to write my name on her list of terrible, unforgivable Alphas.”
“But Mirelle and Onderz were always together. No one made them stay away from each other.”
“They were the same age.”
“So you would have just thrown me out of our home?” she cries.
“Of course not. I would have walked you to the temple, holding your hand. I probably would have sat outside the temple for hours on end, days, because I couldn’t bear to be parted from you.”
She grasps fistfuls of my shirt and gazes up at me imploringly. “Would you have given me a kiss before you said goodbye?”
“No kisses.”
“One kiss,” she pleads, fresh tears springing to her eyes. “Just one kiss before you send me away.”
I smile and caress her cheek. She’s begging for a kiss as though we’re in a time and place that never existed. She needs to know what it would have been like for us if everything had been different back then.
“All right,” I whisper. “Just one kiss.”
I press my lips sweetly and chastely against hers.
“Thank you, Alpha,” she says, choked up, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Would we have felt lonely while we were apart?”
