Page 63 of To Spark a Dragon's Love
“What do you mean? I’m trying to—”
“I know you’re trying to be perfect,” she cut me off. “But that’s not the real you. I don’t even know who the real you is. At first you were cold and distant, now you’re the doting mate. Which is real? I can’t trust who you are.”
“Trust?” I sat down on the edge of the bed. It was hard to hear over the roar of my beast reminding me of my failures.
“Yes.” She gathered the sheet around her. “I don’t trust you.”
I fisted the bottom of the sheet at my side so she couldn’t pull it away. “What reason have I given for you to not trust me? Have I not provided you with everything I said I would?”
Willow yanked the sheet from my grasp. “You haven’t let me in. I don’t know who you truly are other than your hero complex and that I can help fix your pain. But I didn’t ask for any of this. I was fine by myself. Then you came and I thought… I thought… You know what? It doesn’t matter what I thought.”
Weak. Pathetic. Fool.
My eyes blazed as I watched the beautiful woman—my mate—who stood from my bed, leaving it and me cold as she walked to the door. “I didn’t take you for a coward.”
“What?” Willow spun on me. Her own eyes seemed to burn with a dragon’s fire. “I’m not the coward here. You’re the one who wanted to pretend from the beginning. But this isn’t real. I’ve seen how fated mates act. They’re in love. They share everything. And they do thingsoutsideof the bedroom.”
Her words dug deep into my brain, burying themselves there.
I smiled bitterly. “If I’m at fault, then so are you, my queen. How often do you run away in the middle of the night, slipping from my embrace? When have you ever opened up to me and told me who you really are? Maybe I’m the one that should have trust issues.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she spit. “Fine. You want to know who I am? I’m a mother. That’s it.”
“Then I am just the guardian,” I growled.
“You don’t get to do that.” Her rage burned hotter than I’d ever seen it and I welcomed the inferno with open arms.
“I’m a mother. That’s who I am. I sacrificed my body, my mind, my future, my whole damn personality so I could bring that little girl into this world. I married someone who didn’t truly love me because our traditional parents threatened to disown us if we had a child out of wedlock. But then he went and crashed his dirt bike and our parents abandoned us anyway because it turns out he was gay. Yeah—that’s right—I was his cover. Sound familiar? And now I’m the only thing left protecting that little girl I birthed as the world crashes around us. I don’t have the luxury of being anything more than a mother. Then I meet you and get some magic prophecy tattooed on my neck. And it turns out, I’m only good for my vagina.The thing that you don’t even want to be in, like all the men I somehow marry.”
Willow clasped her hands over her mouth. “Oh heck. I’m sorry… I didn’t mean all that. I’m tired. You have it worse than me. I shouldn’t have complained. I’ll go—”
“Stop.” I rushed across the room, forgetting for a moment she was human as her eyes struggled to process my supernatural speed. My hand wrapped around hers on the doorknob. “Don’t leave me.”
“I can’t do this again.” She looked away. The hurt in her voice ripped at my heart.
“It’s not what you think.”
She huffed a laugh. “Oh no? What exactly do I think?”
“I can’t…” I struggled to find the words. To be vulnerable with her like she just was with me. Willow deserved so much more than I could give. She needed the truth. “It’s too much. The burden of being a guardian,” I whispered the words I’d feared speaking out loud. “I don’t want this anymore…”
My haunted, beautiful mate was no longer listening to me, though. Her attention was fixed somewhere past the door. I heard the cry a moment later.
“Harper is awake.”
I couldn’t stop Willow as she slipped from my grasp. The glass castle I’d built around us was cracking with every step we took down the quiet hall.
I wasn’t enough.
Willow was still suffering. By my hand.
I didn’t deserve this gift.
Harper’s cries grew louder as Willow raced to the room, throwing open the door. A savior in the dark night.
“Shh… Shh… Mommy’s here. You’re safe,” Willow soothed Harper.
I stayed in the hall, giving them privacy as I moved to shut the door.
