Page 157

The methods had been different, but the result was painfully similar.

We’d both been kids carrying things that had never belonged to us.

Except understanding Max didn’t magically make what had happened in the barn disappear.

Ignatius had answered the question that had terrified me most. My feelings belonged to me. Whatever Max was, whatever his dragon recognized in me, he hadn’t manufactured love inside my head or stolen my ability to walk away.

But Max hadn’t known that when he chose not to tell me.

That mattered.

The fact that the answer had turned out to be the one we both desperately wanted didn’t make the question less important, and it didn’t make Max right for deciding I shouldn’t have all the information before I made my choices.

He’d been afraid.

I understood why.

I loved him enough that part of me even wanted to protect him from how badly he’d fucked up, but none of that meant he hadn’t fucked up to begin with.

I was still angry, and I suspected some part of me would remain angry for a while. Trust didn’t repair itself simply because Ignatius had opened a laptop and produced several centuries of evidence proving Max’s worst fear wasn’t true.

But loving Max and being angry with him apparently weren’t mutually exclusive.

Which was inconvenient as fuck.

I looked down at our joined hands. “I chose you.”

Max turned toward me. “I know.”

“No. I don’t think you do.”

Something changed in his expression as I shifted to face him properly.

“You stayed still in that clearing. You could’ve come toward me, shifted back, or explained what was happening, but you didn’t. You stood there and let me decide what happened next.”

Understanding began to replace the confusion in his face.

“I walked to you, Max. I was the one who crossed the clearing, and I asked if I could touch you before I did it.”

“Ash—”

“The telepathy didn’t happen until after I chose to put my hand on you. Whatever the mate bond did once I touched you, it didn’t make that choice for me.”

“No,” he said quietly.

“And before that, I spent months arguing with you, which seems like a fairly serious design flaw if your supernatural powers were supposed to make me obedient.”

Doryu made a choking sound behind his coffee, and Max’s mouth twitched.

“I told you to fuck off more times than I can count, asked you for space, and walked away when I needed to.” I tightened my fingers around his. “And every time I came back, it was because I wanted to.”

Max didn’t say anything.

“I know that now. I know everything I feel belongs to me.” I held his gaze. “But that doesn’t make what you did okay.”

His expression sobered instantly. “I know.”

This time, the words didn’t hurt in quite the same way. “You should’ve told me.”