Page 18 of Betrayed By Dragons

He may reject me. He may push me aside and refuse to talk to me.

But what good is a partnership without communication? If my pressing him now causes him to cast me off like garbage, the way Storm did, then what am I even fighting for?

"Jianyu," I try, my voice shaking as I try to pull him back to me.

He still won't meet my gaze. "You shouldn't have to be witness to this."

His voice is wretched, and my heart aches.

Is that what's going on here? Is he constantly shutting me out because he doesn't think I should want to see him being human? With real, human emotions?

"I want to be here for you. I want to know what you're feeling." My throat threatens to close. The anguish I feel for this man is too much to bear, but I will. I'll bear any weight.

He just has to let me.

Forcing myself to push past my own fears, I reach up to cup his beautiful face. He resists, and my chest cracks, but then he allows his gaze to meet mine.

There's so much conflict in the darkness of his eyes. So much that he's been holding onto for so long.

"Please," I whisper.

He shudders, and for a second, I swear he's going to turn away from me again. My heart threatens to shatter.

But then he's pulling me in.

He crashes his mouth to mine, and the relief is so overwhelming, I can hardly process it. I open to his kiss at the first probing touch of his tongue to my lips. The ever-present desire I have for this man surges, but this isn't about sex. It's about connection and acceptance. It's me trying to tell him without words that I want all of him. The good and the bad, the strong and the weak. He doesn't have to hide--not from me.

When we break apart, we're both gasping for breath. He gazes into my eyes and runs his hands up and down my spine before moving to brush the backs of his knuckles along my cheek.

"You really mean it, don't you? You want to be here--even when I'm falling apart."

"Of course I do."

How can he even question my sincerity? My devotion?

He closes his eyes and dips down to press his brow to mine. "When my mother died..."

His Adam's apple bobs, and a ripple of remembered pain shudders its way through our bond. I grasp onto him more tightly, curling my fingers around the back of his neck. My stomach sinks. I want to urge him on, but I hold my tongue. He needs to do this in his own time.

After what feels like a beat too long, he flutters his eyes open. They're glassy and red. "You might have heard about it?"

"Just news stories."

We were living in some remote area at the time, visiting a peace-loving enclave of dragons who weren't affiliated with any of the four kingdoms. I remember our life in the village only in flashes. Playing with other whelps, sleeping in tents. Sitting down to dinner on woven mats beside my parents.

But it didn't matter how isolated we were. News of the Stone Queen's assassination reached us swiftly. I remember my mother crying and my father comforting her. Unsure what was going on, I mostly played with sticks and listened in.

Now, knowing that that was Jianyu's mother who was killed...

"I was there." He looks away, but he continues to hold onto me, and I hold him back, trying to lend him some of my strength. "The assassin was aiming for my father. At least that's what the interrogators said, after. At the time, I just remember standing there. My robes were itchy, and it was too hot, and then there was this crack. My mother fell, and we were being pushed to the ground. My father shifted, but I was too little, and I just--" Wrinkles of pain appear around his mouth and eyes. "There was so much blood."

"Jianyu..."

I can picture it. This strong, incredible man was a little boy, holding his mother. A yearning inside of me aches.

I never got to know what happened to my own mother. But it's better that way. I can't imagine having been in Jianyu's shoes. To have actually had to watch the life drain out of her body.

His gaze refocuses, pulling out of the past and back to the present. When his eyes meet mine, the agony in them is fresh. "Afterward, I went to my father in tears, but he was already in the war room." His voice breaks. "He told me to get it together. We can't-- We have to be strong. For our people."

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