Page 74 of Kenna's Dragon

I fall asleep watching him there, wondering where his thoughts have gone, what distant years and lands and seas they’re traveling.

28

Blair

By the time I crawl into bed, Kenna is already sleeping. Although her breathing is even and deep, lines of worry and tension still bracket her forehead and mouth.

I ache to reach over and put my arms around her, to pull her to me and hold her close like I did the last night we spent together. I want to feel the warmth and the softness of her. I want to feel her breathing and hear the little noises she makes in her sleep. I want to feel her shift and grumble against me when I gather her into my embrace.

I want to savor all the life in her.

At the same time, I’m not sure I have any right to touch her.

Not right now. Not when, even though I’ve never felt closer to her, it’s never been so achingly clear why all of this has been doomed from the start.

What I wouldn’t give in this moment to be a mortal man. To be able to offer her all the things she needs and deserves.

The weight of the compassion and understanding in her eyes and her words when we sat before the fire still sits on me like the warmest blanket. The absolute humbling of being seen and heard and known in a way I haven’t been for centuries.

I’ve never resented more who and what I am, how much it limits what I can give her.

Mating bonds are wondrous things. Magick and inexplicable, drawing two souls together for reasons only the gods can know.

Or at least that’s what we creatures like to tell ourselves.

Because the alternative would be maddening.

Not a gift, but a curse. Something that might make a creature happy for a time, even deliriously so. But at what cost? To lose one loved so deeply, to face a too-long lifetime alone once they’re gone.

And then to be left to pick up the pieces, to live centuries in the darkness of grief, only to find a ray of sunshine that was never meant to be mine.

If I were a more selfish creature, maybe I’d try to keep Kenna anyway. To hoard her exactly like the dragon in me demands. To take her days and her nights and all the years of her life. To savor her fire and her sweetness for as long as I can.

I might do just that if I wasn’t fully aware how unfair it would be to her. How unimaginably cruel, to choose a partner who’ll live the entirety of her full, vibrant life while I stay exactly as I am. Not growing old with her, not changing with her, not moving through the seasons of our lives together.

And that’s saying nothing of the fact I’d only be setting myself up for the absolute devastation of loving her and losing her. Of living the rest of my dragon-long existence alone with the ghosts of the two women I’ve cared about most in this life.

Perhaps that makes me a selfish creature, too, but I can’t fathom the idea of it.

As it stands, I can still cling to a last grasp of distance. I can still keep some walls in place. I can still make myself do what I know I have to. Soon. Because this has already gone too far, and even though it just might kill me, I know it has to end before any more damage is done.

But I’ll be damned if I can end it tonight.

Knowing just how reckless and stupid and selfish it is, I shift over on the bed and pull her to me. Kenna stirs a little, eyes fluttering open for a moment to meet mine. Her green gaze is soft, still laced through with that painful, wonderful understanding, like she sees all of me and hasn’t chosen to look away.

Her body melts into mine without a word. Kenna tucks herself into my side, a soft hand on my chest and her head nestled into the crook between my neck and shoulder. She exhales, and her body relaxes, her breathing slows, and after another minute or two she’s a heavy, wonderful weight against my side.

Sleep doesn’t find me for a long time. Not until the clock has crept well past three in the morning. Not until my eyes are so heavy I can’t keep them open anymore. Not until I lose my fight to cling to every last moment with her I can.

29

Kenna

It’s been four days since Ewan dropped me off after our weekend together, and I haven’t spoken to him since.

The last I saw of him, he walked me to my door, set my bag down on the wide front porch and drew me close with an arm slung around my waist.

“Thank you for this weekend, ember,” he said as he lowered his mouth to mine. “Thank you for everything.”

---