When they were alone in his tower, both were silent for a long moment, Ruan’s eyes flickering around the room as Adrissu watched him cautiously.
“I wanted to...” Ruan started, only to trail off. He sighed and turned to face Adrissu again. “I’ve... I’ve missed you.”
Adrissu blinked. “As have I,” he answered, his voice finally betraying some of the bottled-up emotion that he’d kept so carefully pushed away.
“So I’m here to... apologize, I suppose,” Ruan continued resolutely, looking down at his feet. “For how I acted toward you. I was frightened, and lashed out at you.”
“Ruan,” Adrissu murmured, shaking his head. “I couldn’t hold that against you. There is no need to apologize.”
Silently Ruan nodded, but his gaze was still on the ground. There was clearly more that he wanted to say, but he remained silent. Adrissu, much as he wanted to speak, bit his tongue and waited. After a moment, Ruan swallowed hard and glanced back up at him.
“I don’t want to be apart from you,” he said, eyebrows furrowing together. His face was open, vulnerable. For a fleeting instant Adrissu thought that even if this was some kind of cruel trick, a ruse to lure him into a false sense of security before the town turned on him, it would be worth it for the chance to meet his gaze and drink in the warmth of his eyes again. “I don’t understand it. I should hate you, but I hate being apart from you more.”
A bitter laugh stuck in Adrissu’s throat. It was the same feeling that he had felt toward Ruan for so long; hearing it now directed toward him, it struck him how foolish it was, and how cruel it sounded to his ear. Why had he ever wanted to hate Ruan?
“I know the feeling,” he replied softly, and the first hint of a smile cracked along the edges of Ruan’s lips.
“I’ve been able to think this all over since... since then,” he continued. “I was angry at first, of course, more angry than anything. But the more time passed, the more I realized I missed you. I hated myself for missing you, but it didn’t make me feel it any less. And then I thought more on what you said... That you liked Polimnos, and didn’t want to see it suffer. And I thought about how you could have done whatever you wanted all this time, and you—you chose to stay, to take a weaker form and stay here. I couldn’t see why you would do such a thing unless you wanted to help the city and be a part of it. And why would you do such a thing only to destroy it? The more I thought about it, the more sense you made.”
A tiny flicker of hope had started to rise in Adrissu’s chest, a single glowing ember amidst a pile of cold ash. He could not bring himself to speak, so instead he only nodded and continued to watch Ruan with rapt attention.
“And then I thought—I have to make a decision about all this,” Ruan said. He scrubbed a hand through his hair, pushing back the tumble of his reddish-brown waves. “But to make such a choice based on just a memory... And something I don’t know if I even remember accurately. I was so angry and afraid, and so hurt.” He paused, and Adrissu nodded, opening his mouth to start to speak, but Ruan continued abruptly, “So I want you to show me again.”
For a beat they were both silent.
“Show you again?” Adrissu repeated slowly, and Ruan nodded.
“I want you to take me back down to your... lair,” he said slowly, and Adrissu could tell he was forcing himself to continue meeting his eyes. “I want to look you in the eyes, the real you. And then I’ll know. I’ll know what I can live with, then.”
The stubborn, prideful part of Adrissu wanted to seethe against the demand, to snap at Ruan that he would not be treated as a plaything. But the rest of him—the part that had grown soft and given up trying to resist the constant tugging on his heart with anything involving the human—was ready to do anything and everything Ruan might ask of him if it meant that there was even a chance of salvaging something between them.
He swallowed hard, feeling the two parts of himself struggle, and said hoarsely, “Then come with me.”
Adrissu stepped toward the back room of the first floor, where the entrance to his lair was hidden. He did not look to see if Ruan followed—he could sense his presence, could locate him only from the sound of his cautious footsteps—as he pulled open the hatch in the floor.
“You’ll need to trust me,” he said softly, his gaze lingering on the dark drop before them. “It’s designed for me to simply fall into. You’ll have to fall with me, but I will hold you.”
He felt more than heard Ruan’s breath stutter, but when he finally turned back, the human looked as resolute as ever.
“Okay,” he said, steadily meeting Adrissu’s gaze.
Adrissu turned his back to the hatch door, and slowly enough that the other man could easily pull away, he reached out and grasped Ruan’s wrists. He didn’t pull away, but nodded; and Adrissu stepped backward, plunging down and pulling Ruan with him.
He knew the timing of when to release his illusion by heart, pulling Ruan closer to him as his hands grew into scaled claws. He could feel Ruan’s heart beating faster and his breathing stutter, as they plunged through darkness; but then Adrissu unfurled his wings, slowing their descent with a jerk. Ruan’s hands pressed to the soft scales of his chest, and Adrissu held him with one arm as he twisted in the air, so his feet struck the stone floor of his lair rather than his back.
The moment they were on the ground, Ruan shifted his weight and dropped from Adrissu’s arms. He stepped back and peered up into his face: into the vivid blue eyes of Zamnes, Scourge of Polimnos. Whatever he saw there, Adrissu did not know, but he met the human’s gaze as evenly as he could and waited for him to speak. If he said anything now, he was sure that he would ruin whatever was to come next.
“You are him,” Ruan finally said softly, taking a slow step closer to him. “I cannot call you Zamnes. You’re always Adrissu to me.”
He tensed as Ruan lifted a careful hand up, reaching for him. HewasZamnes—but he was also Adrissu, wasn’t he? The conflict lasted only a moment. In the end, he thought, Ruan could call him anything, and he would only be glad to hear his mate’s voice.
Adrissu’s eyes flickered away from Ruan’s face to his outstretched hand; despite his stern face, his fingers trembled where they reached for the dragon.
“I am Adrissu,” he answered, softly as he could, but his voice still rumbled through the open chamber. Slowly, he lowered his head, and with his trembling fingers, Ruan tenderly touched his face: first trailing his fingers from the center of his snout and upward between his eyes, then tracing his broad forehead and downward to his jaw, his chin. The human’s fingers were cool and silky against his scales, and a soft noise of contentment escaped him. Through half-lidded eyes, he could see Ruan stifle a smile at the sound. “I have always been yours.”
“I should be terrified of you,” Ruan murmured, shaking his head, even as he lifted his other hand to cup Adrissu’s head. “But I... I’ve only missed you. I don’t think I’m frightened of you at all. My feelings not changing is what scares me more.”
Adrissu nodded, but remained silent. His heart was thrumming against his ribs.
