Page 35 of Jace

“I can’t be your mate,” she said again. “I can’t be anyone’s… mate.”

“Why not?” he asked. “Have you made a chastity promise to one of the gods?”

The thought was like ice in his veins. If this was the case, he would have to honor it, even if it killed him. He would not come between her and her beliefs.

“No,” she said, shaking her head.

Relief surged through him.

“Then we’ll take it one day at a time,” he told her. “You do not have to be my mate tonight.”

She sighed and sat up.

Instinct led him to offer her his hands.

She placed hers in them, her eyes tracing their path, as if she was surprised by it.

Another surge of rightness slammed into him at her touch.

“Bad things happen to the people I date,” she said at last, her eyes still on their hands.

“What do you mean bad things?” he asked.

“Craft accidents, falls, near-death experiences,” she said. “Remember the branch that almost fell on your head?”

“Craft accidents are common, and so are falls,” he said. “And that branch could not have killed me.”

“These things happen immediately when I like someone,” she said. “And when we touch or get close to touching.”

She was admitting that she had felt an attraction to him. The thought pleased and confused him in equal measures.

“Has this stopped you from seeing men?” Jace asked carefully.

“It started when I was in school,” she said. “I haven’t dated since.”

“It sounds to me like you have been extraordinarily unlucky,” he told her. “Nothing more.”

She bit her lip.

“I do not know about Terran adolescents,” he admitted. “But I know that dragonets coming of age are capable of incredible clumsiness and bad judgement. It can be a recipe for disaster.”

She gazed up at him with a tortured expression. He wasn’t getting through to her.

“Do you really believe these things are happening because of you?” he asked her, trying another tack.

She nodded.

“Then let’s test it,” he offered. “Let me hold you tonight, and see if anything happens.”

“Something will happen,” she said, snatching her hands away.

Instantly, he felt as if the moon had broken from its orbit and he was being swept away.

He barely managed not to snatch her hands back.

“Look at me, Susannah,” he said. “Really look.”

Her eyes lifted at last, and she took him in.

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