Page 36 of Fence

“What could they want with my blood, anyway?” She looked at him, at me, at my brother.

Gate shrugged. “They might have only cleaned up for the sake of cleaning, but that doesn’t make much sense. Even though the cave is suspiciously clean and free of evidence. They might have taken a sample to see if they could test it.”

“Test it?” she gasped.

“To see if a human left it, or something else.” He shook his head. “We really don’t know. I wish we did.”

“Yeah. You and me both.” She finally sank into the chair, wrapping her arms around herself.

I wanted to protect her. My dragon wanted to protect her. As far as the dragon and I were concerned, she was ours. She always would be. It was fated. But I refused to push that onto her until she was fully aware of what it meant. She had to know the full truth of her situation before she could accept her role as my mate. I wouldn’t mark her until she knew it was forever.

She took a few shaky breaths, rocking slightly, as though she were trying to comfort herself. “All right. So, they may or may not have my blood, and they may or may not have nefarious plans for its use.”

“I think it would be better to err on the side of caution. Don’t you?” Miles was as kind as he could be, but it was clear his patience was cracking.

None of us could understand why she was so slow to understand or accept what was obvious to us—but she didn’t have our experience, either. It had been ten hours since she found out who I was, that dragons even existed. Asking her to immediately go along with our train of thought was a bit of a stretch.

I knelt in front of her, forgetting the others for a moment. “Whoever they are, they must have something to do with our clan’s disappearance. Which means they’re powerful. We’ve talked about this. There’s no way I can run the risk of them finding out who you are, that a human knows about the clan’s existence. Do you understand what they could do to you if they found you?”

“You’re scaring me.”

“I don’t want to—but maybe you need to be scared, just a little. I need you to understand what we’re up against. This is why I already discussed with them over the phone the need for you to come under our protection. Which means coming home with us.”

“But… what about my work?”

I sensed the discomfort in the other two, and I glanced up at them. “Could you leave us alone for a little while? I know we could both use some rest.”

“You’re not the only ones,” Gate grumbled as he left. “We tried to get a hold of you all night.”

“I’m sorry about that,” I called out over my shoulder. They’d spent the night thinking I’d been captured.

Ciera rocked back and forth, still holding onto herself like there was a chance she’d fall apart at any moment. “What about my work? Why did you send them away?”

I placed a hand on her trembling knee. “Ciera…”

She wasn’t swayed by my touch. “You’re telling me I can’t use it. Isn’t that right? That I’ve wasted all this time on something I can never present, because if I do, somebody out there might find out and decide I know too much.”

The bitterness in her voice was nearly enough to break my heart, even as my dragon told me to ignore the guilt stirring in my gut. “I’m so sorry.”

“You were never going to let me finish what I was researching, were you?” Her eyes burned into me, forcing the truth I wished I didn’t have to reveal.

I shook my head. “I couldn’t.”

“You bastard.” A tear rolled down her cheek. “You should’ve just told me. What were you planning to do? Steal everything? Maybe when I was sleeping, and you were protecting me?”

“No. That’s not it at all. Don’t say that.”

“What, then? Would you have given me enough respect to warn me of what you were going to do before you did it? I’m honored.”

“Ciera, you’re making this impossible.” I stood and turned away, running my hands through my hair, wishing like anything that things could be different. But they couldn’t. We had to face reality. “Do you think I like this? Do you think this is fun for me? I came here with a single purpose in mind: to find out what happened to my clan. All I managed to find was their absence. No bodies, no clues, nothing. They simply vanished one day. We heard the heartbeats, as we’ve always done, and then they were gone.” I had told her about that over the course of the night. I had told her about everything but the treasure. No one was ever to know about the treasure.

I turned back, desperate for her to understand, even as the dragon raged for me to make her mine. That she was meant to be with me. That nothing else mattered. That was fine and good for him. I was sure he even believed himself. But it wasn’t enough for her. She deserved a little more than an order.

“And I found you. For some reason, something put us in that cave at the same time. Whatever that something is—call it fate, if you want—it pushed me in your direction. I felt it here.” I made a fist and pressed it against my sternum. “There was a certainty I never felt before. I had never even come close to it. That knowing. Knowing I had to help you. I had to protect you. I had to make you mine, somehow. It was meant to be.”

When she didn’t respond, I dropped to my knees again. “We’re meant to be. You’re my fated mate. And that means placing your safety above all other things—even my own safety. It means keeping you from being discovered by whatever forces are out there, trying to destroy us. This isn’t my fault. I’m doing everything I can to keep whoever it is from hurting you one day. I couldn’t possibly leave you for them. There’s no life without you now. I wish I could make you understand that. I don’t consider the work you did to be wasted, because it brought us together. And it could help the rest of us piece together what happened in the centuries since we left home. I can’t tell you what it means to be able to do that. You could be our salvation, you brilliant girl.”

I took a chance and reached up to touch her damp cheek. She didn’t pull back. A good sign.

“Ciera, no matter how mad this sounds, it’s the truth: I love you.” There it was. As simply as I could express it.

All that was left was the excruciating, breathless, crushing moment of silence that greeted my declaration.

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