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“Ask your parents?”
“They died ten years ago.”
How had Bethany not known that? They needed to talk more about themselves and less about casinos and angel investors.
She scooted closer and held his hands more tightly. “Oh, Math. I’m so sorry.”
“I’m better. It was tough for a while.”
“Siblings?”
“I’m an only child. It’s common. Dragon families are usually small. Most mated dragon pairs have one dragonling, sometimes two, and very rarely three children. It’s an apex predator thing.”
“I’m an only, too, but that’s rare among witches. Considering some of our rituals, it’s not surprising that witch families can get big. Friends?”
“I asked, but they didn’t know anything, either.”
“This is like the seventeen-hundreds with two virgins on their wedding night,” she grumbled.
“People should be better prepared for this.” Lines gathered between Math’s eyes, and he looked distressed. “The problem is that we’ve already begun to mate.”
“You betcha, buddy. I’m still exhausted.” But oddly, not too sore.
“Not that. I’ve fallen into a mating fever. It happens to dragons and some other shifters, too.”
She reached over and touched his shoulder. He didn’t feel feverish through his shirt. She pressed her palm to his cool forehead. “Are you all right?”
Math closed his eyes. “No. I mean, I’ll be fine. It’s nothing. Don’t concern yourself with me. If I had known earlier that I was falling into a mating fever, I would have stopped it somehow. Or I would have backed off so that we wouldn’t have this problem. I’m sorry I put you in this position.”
She leaned back, and Math opened his eyes, his sparking, fiery eyes. She asked, “But you didn’t mean to, did you?”
“I didn’t even know it could happen. I’ve had girlfriends, even a couple of relationships that lasted a few years, but this has never happened to me before. My eyes stayed completely normal the whole time I was with them.”
“I noticed that they’d changed the last couple of weeks. When I first met you, they were a hazel, but then there were gold flecks and then streaks in them, and now they’re like this, entirely gold and glittering with just a few bits of brown left.”
“I didn’t know what it meant. Unmated dragon shifters have natural-human eyes. I didn’t know that mating fever produced the mature eye characteristic.”
“So that’s what mature dragons look like? They all have this,” incredibly beautiful and hypnotizing, “eye characteristic?”
Math nodded. “Humans can see it, but they don’t know they’re seeing it. A lot of dragons retreat from natural society after we mate because some naturals don’t know why they’re so attracted to us. Dragonmates have the eye characteristic, too. I guess it must change during the mating.”
“This mating process sounds like a phase of life, like puberty, not like dating.”
“Somewhat. I can’t believe that I’m going to grow.”
“Holy cow, Math. You’re like six-six, now.”
“My dragon is going to grow. Notme.I’m not quite six-six, by the way. I’m only six-foot-five and three-quarters.”
“Yeah, sure. That’s totally different than six-feet-six,” Bethany said, raising one eyebrow.
“My dragon is already huge, as dragons go. Most dragons aren’t anywhere near as big as mine is. I can’t believe that sucker is going to growmore.It also explains why I can’t seem to stop eating.” He gestured to the catering carts, both of them. “I ate an entire supper already, and I’m still famished. I ordered in some food, if you’re hungry.”
“We need to talk this out, first.”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “We do. You haven’t said no yet.”
She couldn’t quite bring herself to say it, like her mouth couldn’t make the word, like she really didn’t want to say it but thought she couldn’t say yes. “All this doesn’t sound so bad, except that you can’t control it.”
