Page 154
Max’s patience frayed. “If you’re about to point out that I should’ve asked somebody, Ash has already done an excellent job.”
“I did,” I confirmed.
Ignatius barely glanced at me. “I’m not blaming you for failing to know something your father apparently made no attempt to teach you properly. I’m trying to understand how much damage one incomplete explanation managed to do.”
Whatever sharp reply Max had been preparing disappeared.
Ignatius leaned back, some of the anger leaving his face. “You’re not the first lifebound dragon who’s ever existed, Max. You’re rare, not unique. The council has records going back centuries, and while some of the oldest accounts are little more than superstition, the later ones establish a fairly consistent pattern.”
Doryu opened his laptop and turned it toward us. The screen displayed dates, references, and translated excerpts from documents old enough that even I could tell the originals probably hadn’t been written in English.
“Your father was correct that a lifebound dragon can intensify existing attraction and attachment,” Ignatius continued. “The degree varies considerably from person to person. What he apparently failed to explain is that the effect changes once the dragon finds their true mate.”
Max became utterly still beside me.
“What changes?” I asked.
“The dragon begins orienting toward one person rather than unconsciously reaching outward.”
“Meaning the effect on everyone else stops?”
“Diminishes,” Ignatius corrected. “It isn’t a switch, and it doesn’t mean nobody will ever be attracted to Max again. He remains famous, wealthy, and, regrettably for his ego, objectively attractive.”
“Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
“It sounded like one.”
Doryu sighed. “Dragons.”
Ignatius ignored him. “The supernatural amplification begins to weaken as the mate bond establishes itself because the dragon no longer has the same instinctive drive to seek connection elsewhere.”
Max stared at him. “You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“Based on what?”
“Recorded cases, council histories, testimony from lifebound dragons and their mates, and family records from people who understood the condition considerably better than your father apparently did.”
Max’s expression hardened. “Careful.”
Ignatius’s face softened immediately. “I’m not insulting your father simply because I disagree with him. I’m angry because he gave a frightened seventeen-year-old enough information to make him afraid of himself, then apparently never thought to tell him there was more.”
Max looked away.
Doryu reached across and briefly touched Ignatius’s wrist before turning the laptop slightly farther toward me.
“There’s another part, and I think it’s the one you actually came here for.”
My stomach tightened. “Whether Max can affect me.”
Ignatius looked directly at me when he answered.
“A true mate cannot be compelled into loving their dragon.”
For a moment, I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly.
