Maybe she liked his apron.
She put her hands on his shoulders, and his stomach twisted. At any other moment, he would have enjoyed this triumph more than anything in the world, yet right now, he felt vaguely as if he would pass out.
“This is another thing I never got about you, Aegis,” she said, running a hand up his neck. “You never make a move. Even the other day, you could have seen me naked, and you just turned away. Not that you should be a pervert, but you didn’t even think about it.”
“I don’t want to take advantage—”
“It’s just odd. You never let anyone else disrespect me or attack me, but you never did anything either.”
“Did you want me to?” he asked, swallowing and feeling even more ill. He couldn’t really process what she was saying. Was she saying she wished he had made a move? That would make him like all the other jerks who harassed her. “Back then, we—”
“I don’t know what I wanted then,” she said. “It was confusing and difficult. But now, I’m wondering.”
“Wondering what?”
“Sometimes I think you’re so obsessed with the idea of me that you don’t see me as a woman.”
He looked her over through his vaguely swimming vision. “What do you mean I don’t see you as a woman?”
“You see me as a prize, a friend, some sort of property, but you don’t want me.”
“Of course I want you.” She was being absurd, and his ill brain was having trouble keeping up with it. “Why else am I doing all this?”
“You want me to mate you because you want to keep me forever. But you don’t actually try to get close. All those years together, you didn’t even hold my hand.”
He cocked his head. Had she really wanted that? She had known he cared, right? He had tried to protect her. Was anything else really appropriate?
His heart was pounding like a tribal drum.
“I don’t want a mating as just a childhood friend,” she said. “Or someone you respect.”
“You’re more than that,” he said. “Someone I love.”
“Then show me,” she said, folding her arms. Her eyes were a vivid light blue, frosty like a winter morning, with just a hint of purple. Her pale skin was glowing and smooth. Her body was softly rounded, as if she’d been drawn with flowy strokes instead of rigid pencil lines.
Of course he wanted to touch her.
But maybe he had been holding back for so long he didn’t know how to let go.
Maybe it had always been enough to just be by her side, and he hadn’t wanted to hope for anything more.
Even if they mated, perhaps he would have offered for it to be a mating in name only.
He didn’t know.
All he knew was she was asking him to make a move, and as much as he wanted to, his body had picked the worst time to rebel against him.
“Opal, I…” he trailed off, clutching his stomach.
Her full lips pursed in a frown. “See? Just thinking about it is making you queasy. You’re turning positively green.”
He gave her a weak smile because there wasn’t anything else he could do about the situation and pitched forward onto the floor as everything went black.
Chapter 7
“So he’s going to be okay?” Opal asked as Sapphire stood, looking down at their patient.
Aegis was pale, his breathing shallow, and he seemed to be having odd dreams that made him murmur and thrash. But he was slowly calming, thanks to Sapphire’s diligent healing over the past few hours.
“He really did a number on himself, but yes, he’ll be fine,” Sapphire said.
“What happened?” she asked. “Shouldn’t he be immune to his own poison?”
“I don’t know,” Sapphire said. “Poison dragons are supposed to be immune to most venoms, but maybe something about ingesting his own plus the heat from the oven set off a toxic combo. Even if I hadn’t been here, I think he would have been fine, albeit after scaring everyone to death.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“It’s fine,” Sapphire said, brushing back blond hair. “As odd as it seems, I like the guy.”
“I’m not sure why,” she murmured, taking Aegis’s hand in her own, since he seemed to be calmer when she touched him. “He doesn’t make any effort to be liked.”
“He’s entertaining. He’s sharp. He is loyal in his own way, and he does have rules, though it’s hard to understand them,” Sapphire replied.
“Don’t underestimate him,” she said slowly. “I have seen him kill people who underestimated him.”
“And I have seen him show mercy,” Sapphire said. “But I know you aren’t as harsh on him as you sound. You care about him; it’s obvious. And he cares about you.”
She nodded. “We were all each other had for a long time. But I’ve seen him do things that were hard for me to accept.”
“That’s why you disappeared?”
“I didn’t mean to disappear that long. That part wasn’t my fault. But yes, that’s why I went.”
“Is that why he’s trying to cook for you? Why he’s trying so hard in general the past few days?” Sapphire asked.
“He thinks I want him to be a marshmallow,” she said, stroking through Aegis’s soft, light-gold hair. It felt so good in her hands. “He thinks that would win me back.”
“Would it?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I cared for him. I always have. Even when I was gone. And seeing him again, it’s amazing but painful. Of course he was on the wrong side. Of course he would only switch for me.”
“He really likes you,” Sapphire said. “Well, I don’t know how else to put it.”
“He’s obsessed,” she said. “He was always out of control. I always thought I could help him. Right up until I left him. Now I’m back, and I’m not going to leave him, but I don’t know how to fix him.”
“You can’t fix him,” Sapphire said. “Maybe you should stop trying to think like that. Give him a chance to be himself and see if you can like that. Don’t you think, with you gone, he had no reason to be anything better?”
“The reason should have been a proper moral compass.”
“I know,” Sapphire said. “But some of us come by that easier than others. But still, as soon as he had someone to live for, he wanted to live the right way.”
“You are being too idealistic,” she said, eyeing Sapphire with his kind blue eyes that seemed so trusting. “I hope he doesn’t let you down.”
“Sometimes that’s the only choice we can make if we really want to give someone a chance. To let them try to be the person they promise they can be and see what happens.”
“So I should stop trying to fix him is what you’re saying,” she said.
“He has to want to fix himself. He has to come to see the world the way you do. But I think he has the best chance of doing that if you are by his side.”
“I’m here,” she said, looking at Aegis. “I’m not leaving again. We weren’t meant to be apart. That was misery.” She brushed back a lock of damp, blond hair and marveled at just how beautiful he was.
The child she’d once known had grown into a man so slowly by her side that she’d barely noticed.
But having him come back into her life fully grown, it was impossible not to notice his huge body, broad shoulders, height a few inches over six feet, and angelically beautiful face.
“I can see he is in good hands,” Sapphire said. “I’m going to go check on my mate.”
“How is Hallie doing?” Opal asked, thinking of the kind woman with dark hair and blue eyes and a sweet, compassionate smile for every human or animal she came across.
Opal was genuinely worried for her, as the first mate of the awakened dragons due to give birth. No one knew what was going to happen.
Sapphire’s face darkened slightly. “Not so well. More ill than before. She is getting more ill the closer the baby comes to being born.”
Opal swallowed. �
��It’s going to be fine.”
“Is it?” Sapphire asked, sitting in a chair and putting his hands over his face. “I wish someone could tell me it was.”
“I’m telling you,” she said. “We will all be here for you when it happens. Six dragons at your disposal.”
“Six?”
“Because I have no idea if Aegis would be there. I can’t ever promise anything in regards to him.”
“I doubt Hallie would want him there anyway,” Sapphire said with a grin. “He did kidnap her after all.”
Opal smiled. “Somehow, I think Hallie’s the type who’d forgive him.”
“You’re right,” Sapphire said on a sigh. “I guess it would be me being protective. I don’t want her stressed.”
“Understandable,” Opal said. “Well, give Hallie my best wishes and let me know if there is anything I can do for her.”
“I will,” Sapphire said, stretching one last time. “And remember, no more Aegis marshmallow.”
“What?” she asked.
“I don’t think Aegis was ever meant to be a marshmallow,” Sapphire said, looking at him. “I think he was always meant to be a sword. And a poison-dipped sword can be powerful when aimed at the right people. But no one wants a poison marshmallow.”
She nodded. She got the point. Aegis would never be a fluff, never be like Citrine. Never be some kind of nice do-gooder. He had sharp edges and he could kill.
And he was a powerful person to have on your side if he liked you.
The problem was Aegis mistrusted everyone and constantly mistook good people for bad and attacked without thinking.
But as much of a miscreant as he was, he was her miscreant.
She lay down against him, enjoying his warmth, and felt sleep overtaking her.
Plus, a memory of the day she’d first seen his powers. A small smile touched her lips as the dream came to her.
She was back in the dungeon where she’d spent so many days talking with Aegis.
He was taken up frequently for testing. Grueling tasks meant to bring out the dragon powers inside him.
But nothing worked.
And it seemed her father had finally given up and found another mate for her instead, since Aegis wasn’t suitable.
“They’re mating you, aren’t they?” Aegis called out, his voice hoarse and desperate. “Not to that Ainsley freak?”
She nodded, and his hands gripped the bars tight. She looked up at her friend, studying him one more time. She’d miss him. Their time reading and talking.
“You have to fight them,” he urged.
“I can’t,” Opal said, putting her arms around her knees. “They’re full-grown dragons. What am I supposed to do?”
“You have powers,” he said. “You can do something at least.”
“And what? Get myself and others hurt? For nothing?” She sighed. “I always knew this was coming. That there was nothing I could do.” She eyed him. “I guess I just hoped it would go another way.”
His eyes narrowed. “You wanted me to get my powers. You blame me.”
Her eyes went wide. So luminescent. “No,” she said. “No, of course not. I’m just saying… I would have rather…” She shook her head and stood, brushing off her clothes and drying her tears. “No, there is no point talking about it. It will only make me sad.”
“I would do anything for you,” he said. “Don’t go with them. Don’t let them take you.”
“I—”
“If you have to go, go fighting,” he said.
“I’m not like you, Aegis. I’m not mad at the whole world. I don’t fight when it’s pointless. It’s not what I wanted, but I can’t change it. Sometimes you have to accept that you can’t fix things, so there is no point fighting them.”
He shook his head. “The point is to let them know you don’t want this. To at least have a voice in all the chaos. To say, ‘I’m here and I exist and I have feelings and they matter.’ That’s why I fight anyway.”
She looked up at him. “I’m just not strong like you. I will miss you, though.”
“I don’t want to hear that,” he said. “You are the strongest person I know.”
“Thank you, Aegis,” she said. “I won’t forget you.”
There were footsteps on the stairs, and he looked up in alarm. “No.”
“They won’t get rid of you,” she said. “I know they’ll still keep trying to get your powers to come out, but they’ll need you. You’ll be safe.”
“Fuck safe,” Aegis spit. “I don’t want to be here without you.”
Three big men came through the door, holding chains. It just proved that her father didn’t care what she wanted.
Aegis snarled and shook the bars, but the men spared him barely a smirk before turning their attention back to Opal.
“Come now, Opal,” Berkley, one of the lead guards, said. “Don’t make this dangerous for us.”
Opal shook her head, stepping back into her cell as the man came forward after unlocking the door.
“We don’t want to hurt you, but—”
She cringed back, wondering what she could even do to fight them.
She just wanted to run away.
She made a desperate break for it but was grabbed around the waist by one of the men as Berkley came closer with the chain in his hand.
“Calm down, Opal. There’s no point,” he said.
Still, she struggled, wanting desperately to break free, though she knew it was pointless. She was pushed back onto the ground, and Berkley shoved a knee into her chest, pinning her, as another guard helped him hook the chains onto her hands, pulling them together.
“No,” she said, trying to get out of them. “Please, please no.”
“Get off of her!” Aegis shouted from his cell.
She looked over at him helplessly. They were so young. What could they do?
“Stop it, you evil pricks!” he yelled again, stamping the ground.
She was surprised to see a crack split into the stone and rush toward them, spidering out in all directions. Was he…?
Berkley turned in annoyance and looked in Aegis’s direction. “What is the little freak—”
The door to Aegis’s cell broke off and went flying, and he came forward, surrounded by odd green mist swirling like fire around him.
“What the hell?” one of the other guards said.
Berkley sighed, wrapping her chains around one of the prison bars and clicking them closed with the lock. “I’ll handle this.”
Aegis was so much smaller than the grown shifters. A lithe teenage boy with an angelic face that right now looked cruel and enraged.
His green eyes were glowing in an unearthly way, and Opal struggled against her restraints. She didn’t like seeing him this way.
His eyes went to her, and the green mist rose higher. He turned his attention on Berkley, who was walking toward him.
He raised a hand, and Berkley suddenly jerked and fell forward onto his knees. When he got up, he spun on his partner and grabbed him by the shoulders, head-butting him. The horrible crack resounded throughout the dungeon. When that guard was down, Berkley grabbed the next, punching him in the face. A dragon, and stronger than the others in the basement, Berkley was easily able to put down his two friends.
When both men were unconscious and bleeding on the ground from their brutal beatings, Berkley turned to the bars of one of the empty cells and began beating his head on it, over and over.
Opal recovered from the shock of it all just in time to realize the horror of what was happening. Yes, Berkley had been cruel to them. Yes, he’d chained her up and planned to take her to her father. But she didn’t want to watch this.
As long as she had known Aegis, she had seen him battle between the good and bad side of himself. There was the sweet, funny Aegis who looked at her like she was treasure and joked about what they would do when they got out. And then there was the dark, upset Aegis who plotted revenge due to hatred, who couldn’t forgive anyone
who had wronged him.
She knew exactly which part was winning right now.
“Aegis, stop it. Please,” she pleaded.
Aegis turned on her with shocked, angry eyes. “He deserves it.”
“That doesn’t mean you need to do it,” she said. “Don’t become like him.”
“I’m nothing like him,” Aegis said. “Except I have power now, and I don’t have to take crap from a brute like him.”
A prickle of fear moved through Opal. She should have known Aegis would do anything to protect her. Even awaken parts of himself he hadn’t been able to access for any other reason.
But she didn’t want to be the reason he committed violence. “Please, for me, stop.”
But Aegis just walked closer to the man, glaring as he watched him grow bloodier and more dazed from the blows.
Opal felt cold washing over her. She’d never seen this side of him before. Unleashed. Uncaring. Vengeful.
Another vicious bang on the bars. Even a dragon wouldn’t be able to take much more without being unconscious. Or worse.
Opal stared vacantly, knowing there was nothing she could do to stop this.
Finally, Berkley fell to the ground with a thud. Opal’s heart pounded as Aegis stepped swiftly over his body and then bent to rummage for the keys, acting as if nothing had happened.
When he found the keys, he brought them over to her cell, trying them out in the lock.
“Aegis, I’m glad you have your powers, but you can’t just—”
“No one can tell me what to do anymore, Opal,” he said. “Not even you.”
He found the right key and the lock came free, and as she looked in his eyes, she knew he wasn’t the boy he’d been moments before, straddling the line between good and bad.
He was something different. Something he’d been pushed to with sheer desperation.
“I’m going to protect you, Opal,” he said. “Whether you like it or not. If you won’t fight for yourself, then I’m going to do it.”
“Why does anyone have to fight?” she asked.
“Because we have things to protect and people who would take them from us,” he said darkly.
Aegis pulled off her chains, and she let out a breath, feeling confusion and relief mingling inside her. “No one can hurt us anymore,” he said.
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