Page 42 of Into Ember

“But wait. A mate means— a— but dragon. Dragons. Wait. Are you— you said—”

I am trying. My face is fighting me and I am winning, barely, because she needs one of us steady. Rayner is already gone, head back, shoulders shaking, absolutely gone. And Gunnar has never once met a moment he couldn’t make worse.

“Oh, did your scaly self finally catch up?”

“Gunnar.” It comes out flat. “Now is not the goddamn time.”

I get up and go to her again.

This time she lets me take her hands. I’ll be living on that for a while.

“It’s okay, Elara.” Her hands are warmer than they were. “More than okay.”

And because she’s standing in the middle of a strange kitchen in a strange realm with her whole understanding of the world in pieces on the floor, and she’s still on her feet, still asking questions, still braver than any soldier I have ever commanded, I give her the truest thing I have.

“You are the most beautiful female I have ever seen. And I am proud to be your mate.”

“No.”

She jerks her hands out of mine.

“Nope.”

And she’s gone — across the kitchen, out the door, fast — before I’ve finished standing up.

The room is quiet for exactly one second.

“Well,” Brock says. “That went well.”

“Yeah.” Vick, dry as paper. “Real smooth, guys.”

“Hey!” Gunnar rounds on him. “If it weren’t for you intruding, we would have gotten there.”

Rayner makes a noise.

“Okay. Okay. Eventually.”

I look at the door she went through.

She didn’t slam it.

Open, I can work with.

Chapter 16

Elara

I don’t stop walking until the cabin is out of sight.

I am so tired of being brave. I’ve been brave since Chicago and nobody told me it was a full-time position. Everything that is underneath the brave can stay right where it fucking is, because the worst part isn’t the mates or the dragons or the realm.

The worst part has dark hair and lived across the hall for years.

I can’t think about that yet.

There’s a spot maybe a hundred steps out where the trees open up and a flat rock sits in a stream of sunshine like somebody ordered it for me. Maybe they did. Who the hell knows what happens in… wherever I am.

Fine. Great. I live here now.