buffeting the mountain and redirecting her wings.
She popped up above Levi, then dropped down, taking a swipe at him with her tail as she flashed by.
“Dare me?” She winced inwardly, because that came out as more of a screech. “Dare me?” she tried again. There, that had only anger in it. “This isn’t a game.”
She paused below him, hovering there. The massive copper-colored dragon, a glorious dance of shimmering, gilded color in the moonlight, spun about and shot straight at her, getting in her face. “You love me, Lyndi. I feel it when I’m inside you. I see it sometimes in your eyes as you look at me, in the touch of your hand. And it finally hit me that all these years of you keeping me away were two things and two things only.”
“And what are they?” she snapped. Either attack or run, because she had a feeling she knew what was coming.
“Fear and love.”
That very fear lodged in her heart threatening to drag her down. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The gold dragon shook his large head, wicked spikes glinting like the ornate masks many human cultures created of gold, copper, and precious gems.
“William,” he called out. “Go get one of the other boys from the next shift to trade out with you.”
Lyndi tried not to let her jaw drop, but Levi shirking his duty, especially when it came to protecting others, was not like him at all. Which meant he was dead serious about this, flattening some of the anger she was trying to keep up, shielding her from his words.
“Follow me,” he said to her, and tipped over, his body flowing into a fast but controlled plummet to the earth.
After a brief pause where she closed her eyes, trying to mentally ready herself for a confrontation that had been coming for years, she followed. Lyndi landed on his heels, then shifted. As she came back into herself, Levi scooped her up in his arms and sat on a boulder with her on his lap.
“Let me go.” She shoved at his chest.
“No.” Pure stubbornness stared back from gold lit eyes. “If you’re going to reject me, you’re going to do it while you’re touching me, not with distance between us that makes it easier for you to forget how we are together.”
No.
Panic seized her ribs, squeezing tight like a car compactor, leeching the air from her lungs. No way could she do this touching him, breathing him in. She was already fighting her dragon and herself. “That’s not fair,” she whispered.
“We’re talking about mating. Given your hang-ups on the topic, I don’t intend to play fair.”
Lyndi grabbed onto the first emotion to hit her. “Hang-ups?” she growled. “Like I have some silly mental block like a fear of heights or snakes or whatever that is all in my head?”
“No. Like not being able to give me the respect to make a decision for myself. To know what I want.”
“It’s because I respect you that I can’t let you—”
“Let me?” He gave her a little warning growl. “You don’t get to decide for me. My life. My choice.”
“Mine, too.”
“Then we have a problem.”
“Yes. We do,” she shot back.
He bent a glare on her that Lyndi had never seen from Levi. Not in the hundreds of years she’d known him. One full of fury and frustration…and fear.
Her heart shriveled like a sundried prune. She’d done this to him.
“I’m already hurting you,” she said, going quieter.
“I love you.”
She shook her head.
“I love you.” He lifted a hand to slide it into her hair, cupping her head, and she tried so hard not to lean into his touch. “I love you, Lyndi Chandali.”
Lyndi swallowed hard. “I believe you do. Right now.”
Brows met over his eyes in a fierce scowl. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“What happens when your fated mate finally shows up? I know you, Levi. Your loyalty and your heart. It’ll tear you apart. And the longer we’re together, the worse that will be.”
He shook his head, adamant. “Won’t happen. You are supposed to be my mate.”
“You can’t know that for sure.”
“…I can.” But he’d hesitated. Just a beat, but her dragon heard it loud and clear, and whimpered in her head.
“I always knew if I let you get close—” Her voice cracked and Lyndi shoved up off his lap, walking across the small clearing, her back to him, gathering her courage and everything else she would need to do this.
Turning to face him, she found