The (Not) Satisfied Dragon - Colette Rhodes Page 0,44

that moment, pulling me away from my thoughts. His gaze zeroed in on me as he headed down the hallway. Ezra’s face gave nothing away, but his movements were less confident than usual, his shoulders a little more rounded. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was shy.

“How did it go with Ilia?” I asked.

“Fine. Things are settling down for the Enforcers since there have been no uprisings. The Council may have overestimated how concerned the population would be about the death of a flight of Councilors. Or maybe it was just those Councilors,” Ezra added with a dismissive shrug.

“So, I guess we have the next couple of days to ourselves,” I replied awkwardly, silently asking the gods to help me through this conversation since neither Ezra nor I were doing a great job of it.

“We do.”

“Okay. I guess we should go do that now, then.” I said nonchalantly, setting my brush aside and staring intently at my feet.

“Wait.” Ezra’s hand shot out like he was going to touch me before he quickly pulled it back. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about first.”

“Okay.” I forced myself to look up and meet his gaze. Ezra’s blue eyes were so dark, it looked like there were shadows behind them.

Ezra took a deep breath, his gaze flicking to the huge Alpha dragon I’d been outlining next to my head before coming back to focus on my face. I wasn’t sure if it was just my healing magic but I wanted to take his hurt away. Letting instinct guide me, I reached out to rest my hand on his forearm, hoping the small amount of contact would relax him.

“I want what’s best for you.” The words were guttural like they were being ripped out of his body.

“I know.”

“I need you to know that if what’s best for you isn’t me, then you can tell me that. I haven’t been good at respecting your wishes in the past, but I can promise you I will respect this.”

“Ezra… I don’t understand what you’re saying.” My fingers tightened slightly on his arm. Ezra made a frustrated noise, like the words he was looking for were escaping him.

“I’m saying… if you don’t want me, I’ll leave. Don’t feel that you have to accept me as your mate because you want the others. I’d rather leave the flight than put you in that position, Shira.”

Why did he keep saying leave? I couldn’t even process that idea. That wasn’t how it worked. I couldn’t pick and choose from among my mates. Why was he even suggesting leaving me? Did he want to go?

“Shira, stop. Please don’t cry,” Ezra pleaded, his voice broken. Was I crying? I moved without thinking, fisting his shirt and pulling him towards me. He couldn’t just leave. He’d screwed up, but they all had. Besides, we were working on things, weren’t we? No one got to walk away.

No. I’d walked away. Gods, I had no right to be feeling this way when I’d been the one to walk away first.

“My lo—” Ezra groaned, cutting himself off. Giving up on his restraint, he crushed me to his chest, wrapping his arms around me and burying his fingers in my hair as I squeezed my eyes shut, biting down hard on my lip to calm myself down.

Ezra pulled my head back gently by my hair to look at my face and growled as he used his other hand to pull my lip free.

“Please don’t cry. I don’t know what to do when you cry.”

His pained admission made me smile, and I took a minute to collect myself, wiping away the evidence of my tears as best I could.

“I never used to cry. For years I couldn’t, no matter how much I wanted to. When I visited my childhood den, all the tears came back and I haven’t been able to stop them since.”

“I’ll find a way,” Ezra muttered, mostly to himself.

“I don’t want you to leave.”

Ezra scanned my face like he was looking for the lie in my words. Was he really so convinced I’d be happier without him? I wasn’t good at expressing my emotions, but I thought Ezra knew things between us had changed recently. We’d both changed. Without all the anger and miscommunication in the way, it was obvious why the gods had paired us.

“Then I won’t leave.”

“Good.”

This felt like a big moment. Like I should say something meaningful or profound, but I didn’t have the words. I didn’t even know