The dragon looked down at her, then over at Dmitri. It sighed, and there were ice crystals in its breath. “I’m not sure why you say you don’t love him when you’re willing to face me. I could end you with one claw.”
She trembled slightly, due to the cold and her fear that this dragon would hurt Dmitri. Not at all for herself. She wrung her hands anxiously. “I do love him. With all my broken heart. It’s not as good as his love, and sometimes it hurts to even admit it. And I’ve done things that no one could forgive. But…”
The dragon looked down at her with those unfathomable blue eyes. Like sapphires, she thought in wonder.
But all that mattered was he wouldn’t hurt her mate.
“I understand,” the dragon said finally, disappearing in a shimmering cloud. She closed her eyes against the icy air that felt like it could freeze her, and when she opened them, she saw the man that had been at her door.
He was handsome, with boy-next-door features, a tall build, and those clear, sapphire-blue eyes. He walked over and extended a hand to her. “I’m Lucien, the sapphire dragon. Or you can call me Sapphire.”
She stared hesitantly at his hand. “But you hurt my mate.”
Lucien let out a laugh, looking over her shoulder. “You should ask him about it.”
Chelle turned to look behind her with a gasp and saw that Dmitri was only a few feet away. Despite a little bruising near his right eye, he looked okay.
She ran over to him and hugged him tight. “I was so worried,” she said quickly, feeling her voice break at just being able to touch him again.
He gently rested a hand on her back, then tilted her chin up to make her face him. “Was it true what you said? You love me?”
“I do,” she said. “I just… I do.”
He smiled. “Then we can work with anything else.” He lowered his lips to kiss her, and she kissed him back with all her heart. In whatever way she could, she would always strive to make him happy.
“This little scene is touching, but you hurt my friend, and we’re still going to fight.” Luka’s dragon voice boomed over the clearing, making all of them look up.
Luka was still in dragon form, pacing back and forth angrily, icy breaths emanating from his mouth, huge spiked tail swinging threateningly.
“Good God, Luka, put that away,” Dmitri said, waving a hand. “We were just having some fun. Lucien is already a good friend to us. In fact, I think he can help with your research a lot.”
In a poof of snow, Luka was back in human form, walking over to them, his eyes studying Sapphire suspiciously. “Then why did he hit you in the face?”
“We were comparing our dragon forms. Showing each other our powers. I thought it would be interesting. I didn’t know how it would look.” He shrugged. “I didn’t think you would come for me.”
Luka let out a breath, looking exhausted as he slumped slightly. “Of course I would. You’re my best friend. Besides, Chelle was worried.”
Sapphire put up both hands. “I’m sorry for the misunderstanding. It was an awkward situation all around.” Then he looked fondly at Chelle and Dmitri. “But I’m glad things seemed to have worked out.” He checked a watch on his wrist. “I need to get back, unless you need me for anything.”
Luka looked like he would protest, but Dmitri shook his head. “Get back to your wife and son. Luka and I will be in touch.”
With a small nod at them, Lucien transformed into his shimmering dragon form and leapt off the mountain, disappearing into the clouds.
Dmitri pulled Chelle in against his chest, holding her as though he’d never let go of her.
Chelle just hoped nothing would change once they got home and she finally told him everything.
Chapter 16
“I’m going over to Alek’s,” Luka said irritably. “You two need to work your shit out, and I need a nap.”
They’d just gotten back. and instead of going inside the apartment with them, Luka had shaken his head.
“I understand,” Dmitri said.
“Besides,” Luka said with a smile. “If I’m going to have to hear newlywed sounds, I might as well take my chances with Alek.”
Dmitri gave him a quick hug and then released him, and Luka walked over to Alek’s door and let himself in.
Leaving Chelle and Dmitri alone.
Dmitri opened the door to their apartment, dreading what would happen when they were inside. So many complicated things were between them, and while everything had seemed so simple when they held each other up on that mountain, real life was about to hit once again.
But he still couldn’t believe she had come to save him. She, a tiny human, trying to save a giant dragon from harm.
He’d always been the bodyguard, the fighter, the one who kept everyone safe. If he had been unable to do that and died in battle, it would have been expected. What he deserved.
He’d never thought anyone would try to protect him when it was his job to protect everyone else.
But Luka had come, which surprised him. And even more than that, Chelle.
Chelle, who claimed she couldn’t love him, had gotten on her knees in front of that giant beast and begged for Dmitri’s life.
Dmitri wished he had somehow known she thought he was in danger, because he would have sent word that he was all right.
But if he had, would this ever have happened? How long would it have been before they talked?
“Come in my room,” Chelle said quietly. “I’d rather we talked there.”
She removed her coat and hat to reveal a soft, worn gray sweater and black pants.
He followed her to the bedroom, trying not to think about what had happened the last time they’d been inside. Both the heated, loving, sweaty moment and the painful ones that came after.
“Sit on the bed,” she said abruptly.
He did.
She walked to stand by the window and looked out, arms folded. “This is something I don’t like to talk about. Something that hurts like daggers when I bring it up. But it caused me to hurt you that night, so I know I have to tell you the truth.” She looked over her shoulder. “Because I love you.”
His heart stopped at the frank honesty in her eyes. He didn’t think she’d ever looked at him quite that way before.
More than anything, he saw bravery.
She turned back to the window, letting out a shaky breath. “I had a friend. We grew up together. We were close. His name was Dan.” Her voice grew tighter, as if everything in her was strained, and Dmitri longed to go to the window and hold her.
But he could sense that she needed her space, at least for now.
“He told people we were going to get married. He had a crush on me from the time we could walk. My mom always thought we would get together.” She played with the edge of the curtains, and he knew that although she was staring out the window, what she was seeing wasn’t there at all.
Kind of like the night he’d told her he loved her.
He realized where he’d seen this kind of expression now. In conquered villages, in the eyes of the survivors. A certain wariness some people wrapped around them like they were always trying to keep out the cold, even though there seemed to be perfect weather.
Dear God, what had happened to his mate?
“In high school, he asked me to dances. I went as his friend.” A sad smile lit her face. “We could have fun together. He had some dark moments. Things were rough at his home, and he would come over to my place as needed.” She glanced back at Dmitri to make sure he was still listening.
He was.
“He would vent. Rest his head on my shoulder.” She sighed. “It was sweet sometimes, but I didn’t share his feelings. No matter how hard I tried.”
Dmitri clenched his hands into fists, afraid of where this was going.
“I…” She trailed off, and the pain in her voice was calling to his dragon. “I… couldn’t love him like that. Though, I tried. Well, did I try hard enough?”
“You sho
uldn’t have to,” Dmitri said heavily. “Not even with me.”
Chelle turned to face him. “It’s not hard with you. You make it hard not to love you, even though I wanted to resist. Impossible even because of who you are.” She turned back to the window, put a hand on the pane. “Then again, I don’t really understand how love works. When you wish you could feel it, you don’t, and when you don’t want to feel it, you do.”
“Maybe it’s not something we control,” Dmitri said, standing up from the bed to walk over to her, unable to let her go through this alone. Because he didn’t know if she wanted him to hold her, he simply leaned on the wall by the window. “Maybe we just love who we love.”
Chelle nodded, and Dmitri saw tears sparkling in her eyes. Saw the tension in her face as she tried to hold back. “Maybe. But there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wish it were different.”
“Tell me,” he said, unable to wait any longer. He took her gently by the shoulders, making her face him. “There’s nothing that can change how I feel about you, and you need to let this out.”
“I know,” she said softly, turning away from his hold. “Let me think.” She let out a gasp. “Except I don’t want to think anymore. I’m done thinking. All I can remember is that moment. The sirens, the pain, and wondering if I had loved him, if that would have been enough.”
“What did he do?” Dmitri asked hoarsely. Though, inside, he already knew.
“We’d broken up. We tried to date the summer after high school because he wanted to so badly. But I couldn’t take the next step with him. He told me he loved me, and I… felt it wasn’t fair if I lied to him.”
Dmitri put the pieces together in his mind. She hadn’t been talking to him that night at all. She’d been facing Dan, brought back to the past because of Dmitri’s words to her.
“I try not to love anyone now,” Chelle said quietly. “It doesn’t feel fair to him. He died because I couldn’t love him, and if I love someone else…” She shook her head. “I try to keep distant from people. I don’t want them to fall for me either. I don’t want to disappoint them, and I don’t want to be punished.” She let out a choking noise and covered her face with one hand. “I don’t want to go through it again.”
Dmitri couldn’t wait any longer. The healing forces inside him beckoned him forward, and he pulled her into his arms.
He couldn’t take the past from her, but he could be here whenever it beckoned, to love her and shield her and remind her that she hadn’t been wrong.
He kissed her head and stroked her hair as she buried her face into his shoulder, wetting his shirt with her tears. “Shh, it’s fine now,” he said. “It isn’t going to happen again.”
“I know,” she said weakly. “Because I love you. Even though I don’t deserve it at all.”
“You deserve everything. It’s okay, Chelle. It’s okay.”
She kept her face buried in his shoulder, as if she couldn’t bear to face the rest. “I got a call later that night. There were sirens.” Her nails dug into his shirt, twisting and pulling. “He had texted, but I didn’t see. I didn’t go save him. I didn’t ever think he would do that. He had always had problems, but when we broke up, he seemed fine. I thought he’d be fine.”
Dmitri just rubbed her back carefully, waiting as she got it all out.
“He wasn’t.” She began sobbing in earnest. “He wasn’t. It was all my fault he did it. He’s gone, and I never got to see him again. I never said good-bye or sorry. I didn’t go to the funeral because his family blamed me.”
Dmitri wanted to go look them up and punch them, but he knew in this situation, everyone was in pain. The best he could do now was go forward.
“I just sort of shut down. I couldn’t really face anything, and my best friend in the world was gone. I couldn’t face what had happened. This is the closest I’ve come to grieving it since then. I used to look back and wish I could have had feelings for him, but looking at it now… I see that I couldn’t just turn a switch on like that.”
Dmitri pulled back to cup her face gently. “What he did was unfair to you. You did nothing wrong, and he got to hurt you so much.”
She leaned into his hand, smiling painfully. “Sometimes we hurt people we love, even though we don’t mean to.”
Dmitri knew she was talking about him and shook his head. “You didn’t hurt me. Not like you’ve been hurt.”
She put a hand over his. “So do you hate me? Now that you know?”
He let out a grunt as he reached down and caught her under the knees, carrying her over to the bed. He got onto it and set her down in his lap where he could watch over her. “I’m glad I know. You’re my mate, and you’ve been through a lot. I wish I could take it from you, but it’s a little more than my healing powers can do. It’s not a scratch or a cut or a burn. It’s much deeper.”
“You do heal me,” she said, burrowing into him, holding on to his shirt. “By loving me, by being the friend Dan couldn’t be. By waiting and never going off. By wanting me in the right way. By being brave enough to take rejection without death.” She shook her head. “When I’m with you, I think it tells me that I wasn’t the wrong one in the first place. Because I hurt you also, and you never threaten to do what he did.”
Dmitri shook his head. “I could never hurt you. Your friend was troubled. Something was wrong with him, and it wasn’t your job to fix. And I know ‘could have beens’ are painful, but there is truly nothing you could have done.” He sighed. “And I am sorry for any pressure I put on you that contributed to your pain.”
“And I’m sorry for being so confusing,” she said. “As I came to love you, as I couldn’t help feeling the things I hadn’t been able to reach for Dan, I think I hated myself at first. I think I hoped that if I went through life all alone, it would atone for what I did. Make sense of the pain. But now I see that you can’t make sense of it. It just hurts, and you have to go on.”
Dmitri nodded.
“But I do love you. I am capable of love. And even if I feel I don’t deserve it, I know you do. And I love you with all my heart.” She stroked his chest.
“You deserve everything, Chelle,” he said, holding her close. “You did nothing wrong. You didn’t deserve to be hurt. I’m sorry that loving hurts you sometimes, but I’m going to keep holding on with everything I have. I hope there are more and more moments when happiness takes over. And one day, I’m going to make the sirens go silent.”
“You already do,” she said, looking up into his eyes. “More and more every day, you already do. I needed to tell you because they were getting louder, but now that I’ve told you, they’re fading into the dark.”
“Good,” he said quietly. “And I’ll be here when they turn back on.”
She smiled up at him, tears drying in tracks on her cheeks, looking utterly beautiful. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” She nuzzled into his chest. “And now I get you all for my own.”
“Yes, you do,” he said quietly. “And I get you, my strong, brave little mate. My Chelle. My everything.”
She pushed back from him and played with the collar of his shirt. “So I rescued you. Do I get anything?”
He laughed, a little taken aback. “I thought with what you just went through, you wouldn’t want to—”
She pushed him back on the bed beneath her. “Life is weird like that. One minute, death is everything, and the next, you just want to be alive. I lost one love, but another is here in front of me. I don’t want to waste a moment with you.” She straddled him, stroking his hair. “I thought you were going to die, and I couldn’t stand it. I don’t want to miss a moment that I can hold you in my arms.”
He put a hand to her face but still hesitated. “But you’ve been through a lot.”
She closed her eyes and nodded. “But now that you know everything but aren’t running, I realize there is nothing to run from either. I thought telling you would make you see me the way I see me. Instead, by accepting me, I think you make me sudd
enly see the truth.” She ran a hand over his chest. “That I’m not broken. That I never was. Maybe that’s the hardest thing of all. That I’m still alive, breathing, loving, and someone else isn’t.”
“Because you fought,” Dmitri said earnestly.
“I want to fight now.” She ran her nails over his chest. “I want to feel alive, feel in love with you, feel everything.”
Dmitri nodded, finally ready to give himself over to her wants. “Then I’m here with you, Chelle. Feel everything.”
She pressed her lips over his, not needing to be told twice.
* * *
Chelle couldn’t believe how free she felt as she kissed Dmitri and felt his strong hands steady her hips.
The love in his eyes had been everything when she’d expected disgust and hate.
What had she been afraid of all these years? She’d been so scared to share the thoughts in her mind that she had never been able to see how twisted they were, how wrong.
She had never been responsible for what Dan did. She wasn’t responsible for his life. And while a part of her would always hurt for him, she knew she had to move on.
That sometimes tragic things just happened, but wonderful things could happen as well.
Like dragons existing or a man awakening in her time that was fitted to her soul completely.
She’d been sleeping, and Dmitri had woken her up. His goodness, his kindness, everything in him had made it impossible to keep her heart locked.
And though she’d feared dying when it was open, what actually happened was that she felt alive.
She touched Dmitri’s arms, chests, abs, waist, wanting to feel all of him, see that all of him was okay. When she’d gotten on her knees in front of that dragon, she’d known that anything in this world could be worked through as long as Dmitri was there.
She felt the power of her love for him as he looked up at her with those astonishingly beautiful eyes. She traced the shape of his jaw with her finger, loving the hardness.
She loved how she could feel every little emotion in his features, and even after what she’d said, he didn’t look at her with any reproach.
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