Page 63 of An Accident Waiting to Dragon

“Thank you again.”

She got a light swat on her shoulder, followed by, “Get on wi’ ya. Your mate is coming for you.”

Gwen straightened abruptly. “So I was right? He’s my mate?”

“The dragon shifter Goran was talking about? Yes. You two are fated.”

Gwen had already suspected, but having it confirmed this way… Revelation usually came with a bang, but today Gwen learned it could come with a soft sort of acceptance. Like a sigh.

Maybe she’d always known.

Happiness filled up the holes inside her, like a stream filling up a pond before overflowing and running down to the next and filling it up too. Warm and perfect and radiant.

She ran for the door, but paused, glancing over the shoulder. “I’ll come visit,” she called back before she flung the door open and shot out of the tiny home.

Straight into Asher’s arms.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Asher

* * *

Instinct had Asher wrapping his arms around Gwen the moment she collided with him. That he’d found her at all had him closing them tighter around her.

He glanced over her head at Mauren, who he’d found pacing the hills staring in the direction of…nothing. Just more hills.

Ewen and all Gwen’s siblings were hard on his heels.

They all stood now with various expressions of shock, worry, and blame, but also…maybe acceptance.

That part was good.

It was because of his own relief that he was keeping his shit together. Especially after the odd sensation like an ice pick being drilled through his hand, followed by something like what having a poltergeist drawn out of his skin might feel like.

By some miracle, she was in his arms. He wasn’t letting her go. Not this time.

Instead of pushing him away or stepping back, her arms circled round his back, and she buried her face in his chest.

Confusion collided with a second wave of relief and determination, leaving Asher swaying like he had after waking up from the wraith poisoning.

“Gwen?” he asked.

No response, but she didn’t try to leave him.

Asher inhaled sharply. “Gwen, I came here for a reason.” The words rushed out of him. Like if he could say it fast enough, maybe… “I should have gone after you years ago, but I was a coward. Instead, I hunkered down, convincing myself that living in my own personal hell was better for you. But I can’t do that anymore. And I have something to tell you, and after I do, I don’t want you to hurt anymore?—”

Movement in the doorway of the small mountainside dwelling Gwen had burst from—one that hadn’t been there a second ago—had him glancing over her head to see an elder pixie in the doorway gazing at him with deceptively young eyes in a wizened face that seemed to hold secrets in their twinkling black depths.

She smiled softly and closed the door.

“I’m sorry,” Gwen murmured into his chest, still holding him tight.

What?

He tried to take her by the shoulders and pull her away just enough to see her face, but at the slightest hint of distance between their bodies, she surged back against him.

She’s not running.

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