Page 87 of Retrograde

I thought he might be holding his dragon back as well which was surprising. I’d have to ask Myriam or Treena about that later. I didn’t know how much they could sense from our dragons.

Or maybe Belinda would know? Yeah, probably. She knew most everything.

Iris wanted no part of Rigel after his bullshit and it was amusing to see even if it would piss people off. Same with Vigor from Clovergarde.

She was cautious with Scully and he seemed to be the same. Our meal had been quiet and awkward, neither of us hiding we didn’t want to be there, but he hadn’t been ready to open up like the others had. Fair enough and there was no rush.

It was interesting and again, the whole point of this.

Everything changed when one of the remaining prospects changed. Iris’s head snapped up and his dragon started chuffingimmediately. They stared at each other for maybe a half minute before I couldn’t have held her back if I’d wanted to.

Same with him.

And we knocked dragons over to get to each other.

I felt like I blinked and was nuzzling necks with a dragon—I’d barely said two words to themanthough. And it felt so fucking right that it was like… I didn’t know.

I couldn’t like feel how it just worked.

What? That didn’t even make sense in my mind, but Iris just needed to be closer to his dragon.

Eloise was as shocked as I was and I had the mental image of her mouth hanging open in her third form as we stared at each other.

There was a roar and I turned to block him as Onyx came charging over. I shot fire in the air as a warning and then roared in his face, making it clear I would take him out to protect this dragon.

Thepainin his dragon’s eyes gutted me, Sagan, but Iris wasn’t playing around.

He shifted back, kneeling with his head lowered. “Sorry. I wasn’t ready for—sorry. Excuse me.” He couldn’t even look at me as he turned and walked away.

And my heart broke. Iris didn’t care and said he needed to stop being so possessive, but I argued we would becrushedif he acted that way with a female dragon in front of us.

Eloise agreed and we were supposed to be a team. That made Iris settle some and she apologized, promising not to be so harsh on him… And then went back to cuddling with the dragon she wanted.

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Do you realize who he is? You had to pick one of the most complicated people. Why do you—how could you do this to us?

“Dragons are dragons. You figure out the people stuff,”she argued and basically told me to shut it so they could spend time together.

I mentally groaned and told her to stop because this was a problem and people were freaking out. She paid attention for real then and remembered herself—whowewere and behaved, backing away from the dragon.

Who didn’t like us moving away. He didn’t give chase, but it was like how sometimes I could practically feel Myriam’s tiger swatting her tail even when Myriam was in person form.

The dragon was giving off that energy and counting the moments until he could get what he wanted again. Then the air around the dragon changed and the man was kneeling down in front of me.

“This is fantastic,” the Alpha of Emberward said loudly.

Berlinger slowly lifted his head and I saw in his eyes that he thought it was anything but fantastic.

Yeah, glad we were on the same page on that.

Berlinger Mohan was an issue… His mother more specifically.

Oh boy.

Nothing happened with Ezerial, but Gavriil’s dragon seemed confused with me and it took me a moment to realizeEloisewas reacting to him. His dragon was sensing that and maybe having a reaction toher. She was practically doing a mental dance inside of us and wanted to play.

Yeah, see how important it is we’re all on the same damn page?

Iris agreed and promised to chill out… While backing away from Gavriil’s dragon like she didn’t know what to do with him either.