His mouth tightened. “The returned bite makes the bond mutual. It doesn’t rewrite the beginning. It doesn’t put me beside you when Dominic asked with his teeth instead of his words.”
My breath changed.
“I’ll spend the rest of our lives knowing the first dragon you said yes to wasn’t me.”
“Rhain.”
“I’m not asking you to fix that,” he said. “I’m not blaming you for it. I’m telling you the truth before it comes out uglier later.”
He hadn’t handed me his jealousy as a debt. He had put it where I could see it, without asking me to carry it.
“And the protection issue,” I said.
“If your agency comes for you now, Ashenmere hasn’t sealed your status. The private claim binds you to Dominic, but it doesn’t fully place you under clan protection. You’re between protections.”
The phrase landed badly.
“The law that buried my mother did its best work on women who were between protections,” he said. “Dominic shouldn’t have left you sitting in that gap.”
“He has been watching for it.”
“I’m sure he has.” His jaw tightened. “That isn’t the same as closing it.”
The possessiveness in his voice sent heat pouring through me.
Rhain wasn’t touching me. He sat across the table, hands still, explaining legal exposure in the tone he would use to discuss where to put his body between mine and a knife.
My pulse had no respect for context.
A breath moved through him.
“I would’ve done it differently.”
“I know.”
“I would’ve explained the law first. I would’ve asked you to choose the public claim with full information before anything irreversible happened. I would’ve made certain the claim protected you before it touched you.”
My breath caught. The word came back. Protected. Not claimed. Not owned. Protected.
The word worked on me with embarrassing efficiency.
“And then the bite would’ve come afterward,” I said. My voice was steadier than it deserved to be.
“Yes,” he said. “Afterward. With witnesses. With seal. As law first. As protection first.” He held the look. “Then as everything else.”
Heat slipped under my skin.
I should’ve been thinking about treaty exposure, agency extraction, and whether Davis already had a clean path to put me on a plane.
Instead, I was thinking about Rhain’s mouth sayingeverything elseand the fact that he hadn’t moved his hands because he knew exactly what would happen if he did.
My eyes dropped to his mouth, then moved back up. His pupils had gone vertical.
I swallowed.
I leaned my hip against the table and watched his gaze follow themovement.
My pulse moved under Dominic’s mark. The bond in my chest stayed steady. Dominic. Below us. Holding the line he had been holding all day, choosing not to pull.
