Page 63 of Into Ember

“Terrible pacing. No third-act conflict.” Her thumb moves once against my arm. “I loved it.”

I know she did. Years of watching her fall in love with the books she read from across the hall, and none of it comes close to being the one telling her the story.

I pour the last of the water through her hair, slow, and set the pitcher down. She opens her eyes, and the candlelight is in them, and what looks back at me is soft and warm and still holding one thing back.

I can live with that. It’s more than I’ve earned tonight.

“I think they wrote that about us, Ella.”

A small smile comes over her face.

“Maybe they did.”

Chapter 24

Elara

Maybe they did.

The words are still hanging in the steam and I can’t believe I said them, except I can, because tonight I’m just saying things now.

You moved in on a Tuesday. Out loud. To his face. Wet-haired and naked in a copper tub in a castle, I told him the one thing I swore I would never tell him.

And the world didn’t end. He didn’t laugh. He said none of them were you and then he washed my hair.

So. Facts, since I’m doing facts now.

He wants me. He has wanted me. Not recently. Not since the sky, not since the clearing, not since dragons entered my picture. From the first time we met. Across-the-hall, before-any-of-this, back-when-I-was-just-the-neighbor the whole time.

And I want him. God, I want him. That’s been true for years.

And there is nothing — not a deadline, not a hallway, not an entire realm — standing between me and doing something about it.

Huh.

Erik stands, unrolls his soaked sleeves like that’s going to accomplish anything, smiles at me, and heads for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I was going to let you enjoy the rest of your bath,” he says. “Until it gets too cold. If you want, just yell and I’ll come back and help you out.”

I don’t say anything for a long moment. The story keeps circling back through me — the winter, the basin, the time it took — and there’s something wrong in it that keeps nagging at me, and he’s almost to the door when I realize what it is.

“Hey, Erik?”

“Yeah?”

“Your story can’t be us.”

He frowns. Comes back a step, then another, like the frown is walking him. “Why not?”

“Because…” I gesture, and water goes places. “You weren’t dying when I met you. And I certainly didn’t nurse you back to health. I once watched you carry a couch up three flights of stairs alone. You were fine.”

He kneels down beside the tub. Takes my hand out of the water and doesn’t let go.

“Elara. Every male dragon alive grew up knowing how his story ended. No female. No mate. Not for us, not ever — there hasn’t been one in so many generations that wanting it stopped being sad and started being stupid. I made my peace with that ending. I had my team and my work, and I told myself it was enough, because it had to be.”

“Erik—”