Page 7 of Rejected By Dragons

She waves me off, laughing, but I can feel the hurt beneath her facade. "Just kidding."

She's not.

"I wish..." Fuck, there are so many things I wish, and not one of them is in my power.

"I know," she says quietly.

Words barrel their way into my throat. I ache to tell her exactly what she means to me. To explain all the dangers lurking around us. To tell her the truth about why I have to stay.

But I can't.

All I can do...

All I've ever been able to do...

Is take her in my arms.

And try the best I can to show her how I feel.

* * *

EMBER

The pain in Storm's eyes breaks my heart. For the thousandth time, I wish he'd tell me what was going on. His family is the worst--obviously. He's shown me glimpses of the terrible burden he bears as the second son of King Zephyr, but he's always stopped at that. Glimpses. Never the full truth.

I want to shake him. Beg him to confide the rest in me. Doesn't he know that I'm his? That he can trust me?

I stare up at him, pleading with my gaze.

Despite the serious nature of the moment, I can't help but be distracted by the sheer presence of this man. He's tall, of course. All the men of the Air Kingdom's royal family are. He has Fury's strength, but less of his bulk and menace. Instead, his gray eyes are warm with kindness. His fair complexion is golden from the sun, his short-cropped hair thick and dark. Hints of stubble line his razor-sharp jaw, and the exposed forearms beneath his athletic T are corded with tight muscle.

How can I feel such longing for him when he's right here? Close enough to touch. And yet still, eternally, so far out of my reach.

I open my mouth, bracing myself to be brushed off yet again.

Before I can get any words out, though, he seizes the opportunity to crush his lips to mine.

Immediately, my mind goes blank. The overwhelming rightness of his kiss consumes me, and I'm lost to the feel of him. The hard muscles of his chest beneath my hands, the towering height of him. The heat of his mouth and the taste of his tongue.

I moan, my body going to liquid as he grasps my waist and hauls me up against him. He's hard already, that enormous, thick length pressing into my lower belly and making me wet for him. "Storm," I groan.

"Ember."

He's lifting me, then. I go so willingly, curling my legs around his waist. The breath is knocked out of me at the press of his cock against me through our clothes. He lets out a noise of his own that's pure sex, and deep inside, I pulse.

The force of my desire bowls me over every time. Ever since that first moment, right before my dragon should have shown her face. I looked at him, and a gravelly voice deep inside hissed MINE. Before everything went to shit, I half imagined he could be my fated mate. The one created for me by the gods to be my other half, but, well... Only a dragon can have a fated mate, and my status remains--ahem--undetermined.

After Storm's dragon Emerged--right on time, naturally--I hoped that things might change, and they did. Sort of. He came to me, his eyes full of desire. But it wasn't the fire of destiny. He may have claimed my body and my heart that night, but he's never felt that deep, impossible pull. The possessiveness I imagined I felt remained, but it never grew into the bone-deep knowing that the elders talk about.

Not every dragon finds their fated mate. Not everybody has one, even. Meeting mine at age twelve in this shitty town that my mother abandoned me in would have been too much to ask for.

I still dream of it. I imagine that someday, my inner beast will Emerge, our eyes will meet, and I'll feel it. With both of us transformed, he'll feel it, too. A fated mate connection is impossible to ignore. Even King Zephyr wouldn't be able to keep us apart.

A pang squeezes my heart. I grip more tightly to Storm's shoulders as he sets me down on the workbench in the corner. A tool of some sort jabs into my ass, but I shove it away. I kiss him harder, scrape my teeth against his lip, and he groans.

As it is, I'm no one. Nothing. Barely even a dragon. Prince Fury and his bitch girlfriend and their cronies remind me of my pond scum status every day. King Zephyr would never allow his son to take a defective reject like me as his mate. Our only option to be together would be to run away.

I swallow my laugh and close my eyes against the threat of tears.

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