Page 91 of Kenna's Dragon

For a few tense moments, neither of us speaks. Kenna’s breathing is still shaky, her eyes are still damp, and even though every single instinct in me is screaming to reach out and touch her, hold her to me, ease away all the pain she’s feeling, I hold myself back.

I have no right to touch her right now.

“This needs to be over,” she finally says as she squares her shoulders and gives her fiery curls a defiant toss. “Both of us should have always known better.”

My brave ember. My strong, beautiful mate.

“What are you saying?” I ask, though I already know. I just want to hear her say it. I want to know how broken things are so I can start figuring out a way to fix them.

“This,” she says, gesturing back and forth between us. “All of this, it was never going to work anyway. And not just because I’m not your mate.”

The words are sacrilege.I’m not your mate.They reach in and twist the knife deeper into the center of my chest.

But what can I say?

Wait just a second, ember. I’ve had a revelation that’s going to fix all of this. Make it right. Just ignore the way I’ve been treating you for weeks, listen to me when I’ve never given you a reason to, stay even though you have every right to go.

All of it’s worthless right now.

“I’ve been such a fucking idiot,” she says. “Letting myself get so far into this when you’ve been telling me the whole time what the deal is.”

Gods above, the number of mistakes I’ve made.

Keeping her a secret when I should have had her at my side since the very beginning. Making her life at the Bureau and in the public eye a living hell. Forcing her to shoulder burdens that should have always been mine.

Kenna’s still studying me, watching my reactions to her words play out across my face. At whatever she sees, she lets out a shaky breath and drops her gaze to look at the ground.

“I guess it’s pretty obvious by now,” she whispers. “The fact that I don’t do anything half-way. Not my fuck-ups or the things I get right. Not the way I care about people. Not the way I… I stupidly let myself fall for you.”

Everything stops. The beating of my heart in my chest. The turning of the world beneath my feet. Time and space itself as her words settle themselves into the very fabric of my being. Where I already know they’ll be for the rest of eternity.

“Kenna.” Her name is a broken, fragile thing in my throat.

She continues like I haven’t spoken. “And that’s on me. I should have known better. But… I can’t do this anymore. This thing with us, all this back and forth. God, this whole fucking conversation. I just… I can’t.”

I swallow once around the lump in my throat, and then again. There are words there—apologies and assurances and promises—but I know what all of them will sound like right now: excuses.

Kenna has no reason to believe anything I say. No reason to trust me. Not after the way I’ve behaved.

Beyond that, am I truly ready to face what it would mean to have Kenna as my mate? To be the male I need to be for her, to have my own issues sorted out enough so they don’t just become more she has to endure?

“I’m sorry,” I finally manage to say. “I’m so sorry, Kenna, more sorry than you can know.”

Kenna doesn’t look convinced, and I don’t blame her for that either. She’s been nothing but honest and transparent with me since the beginning. She walked into my office that first day with kindness in her eyes and her heart on her sleeve, willing to recognize and accept what I couldn’t. She’s suffered because of me, gotten her beautiful heart broken because of me, and I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of doing what I need to win her trust.

“I’m going to leave now,” she says—calm, flat, devoid of any fire or emotion. “And you’re not going to follow me. You’re not going to call me. You’re going to stay far, far away from me. Got it?”

The dragon in me hisses his disapproval, but I ignore the prick and give Kenna a single, decisive nod.

It violates every instinct to let her walk away, but I have the horrible certainty that trying to do anything else right now would just dig the grave I’m standing in deeper.

I need time. And a plan. Before I do any more damage.

“Good,” she says, and although she’s still trying to maintain that detached, emotionless tone, there’s a crack in it this time. Barely there, but enough to slam through me like a bolt to the heart.

“Goodbye, Ewan.”

I nod again, still unable to make any words come out.

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