Page 146
“No.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Because I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“The answer.”
A laugh escaped me, but there was nothing remotely funny in it. “Jesus Christ, Max.”
“I should’ve gone back. I should’ve found out everything the moment Ignatius told me there was more to know. I didn’t, and I don’t have an excuse for that.”
I dragged a hand through my hair, trying to make sense of a situation that seemed to get worse every time he explained another piece of it. “So we know I’m your mate, but neither of us has any idea whether that means I’m protected from whatever this lifebound thing does.”
“No.”
The answer hurt more the second time, because now I understood what I was really asking.
“How do I know what I feel for you is actually mine?”
His expression changed, and the fact that it wasn’t surprise was the worst part. He’d been waiting for me to ask.
“I don’t know.”
For a moment, the floor seemed to shift under me, and suddenly I could see every moment between us through a different lens. Vegas. Waking up beside him. Wanting him when I was hurt and wanting him when I wasn’t. That stupid ache whenever another woman touched him. The way I’d spent three years pretending I wasn’t watching him whenever he walked into a room.
The clearing. What we’d just done. I hated that most of all.
“Then we find out.”
Max blinked. “What?”
“You said Ignatius knows there’s more, so we ask him.”
Something almost like hope moved across his face, and I pointed at him before he could mistake what I was saying for forgiveness.
“This time, though, I want all of it. Not the version you think I can handle, or the version that makes you look better, and definitely not the version that protects me from something you’ve decided I shouldn’t know.”
“Everything.”
“And if Ignatius tells us something you don’t want me to hear, I still hear it. If it’s bad, if it scares you, if you think it might scare me—I don’t care.”
His jaw tightened. “You’ll hear it.”
I nodded, and for half a second, I thought that was enough. Then another thought that hurt so hard I felt it physically.
“You knew.”
Max went completely still.
“In Vegas, when I woke up beside you and told you I didn’t regret what we’d done, and later when I asked for space and then came back anyway, you knew there was something about you that could affect the way people feel.”
“Yes.”
The admission hurt, but not nearly as much as the realization that followed it. “And this morning, when I touched your dragon, you didn’t suspect anymore.”
His face changed, and I knew the answer before he gave it to me.
