Page 36 of The Dragon's Perfect Omega
"Don't be a jerk," he said with a huff that couldn't completely hide his amusement. "But yes to all of the above."
"Knew it." I smiled back at him. "All jokes aside, though, are you okay?"
He snorted.
"What?" I asked.
"You're not the first person to ask me that today."
"Yeah? Who else asked you?" I tried to make the question sound casual, even though I felt an irrational need to crush whatever other dragon had talked to Zim. How dare they? He was my mate. My responsibility.
"Just some guy." Zim shrugged. "One of the other winners. I can never remember his name. Tim or Tom or something."
I exhaled in relief. Whoever this Tim or Tom was, they hadn't made a lasting impression on Zim.
"You don't have to worry, you know," Zim said softly. "I mean, I can see there's lots of hunky dragons on this island, but I'm not going to run off with any of them. Well, except for you. I might make an exception for you."
"I feel honored."
Zim gave me a weak smile. "I don't know why, but no other man even seems attractive to me anymore."
Yeah, if what I suspected was true, that didn't surprise me. "What would you say if I told you the reason for that was fate?"
Zim laughed. Not a loud sound, but a quiet one. "You're still holding on to that? I thought you weren't religious."
"I'm not, but some truths can't be denied." I wasn't going to be like those people who claimed that miracles didn't exist even when they experienced one. "I don't have to believe in the teachings of the shrine to believe that the connection between us is real. You feel it too, don't you?"
"Yeah." Zim said the word on an exhale. Barely more than a whisper, like he was still afraid who might hear him. He didn't have to be afraid, though. Not here. Not now.
"What do you think about running away with me?" I asked him. "At least back to my house?" The four walls of my room would offer us some much needed privacy.
Which I hoped would lead to intimacy.
"Your house?"
"We would be alone." My parents weren't going to return from the solstice festivities until early morning.
Zim tilted his head at me with a mischievous glint in his eyes that I loved seeing there. "Are you planning to do something you don't want an audience for?"
"Well..." I showed my mate a broad smile while leaning in to speak in his ear. "I don't mind having an audience for the things I want to do to you, but I figured you might. So what do you say? Are we getting out of here?" When I took a step back again, Zim looked just a little bit stupefied, but I could see the wheels turning in his head. He knew exactly what I was talking about. I wondered what images his head was conjuring up for him, whether he was seeing the same things I was—him, on his back, naked and trembling as I used my hands and mouth to make him forget what his name was, let alone what he'd been taught.
I wanted to see him ignite and go up in flames.
"Yeah," he said slowly, as if he could read my mind just as well as I could read his. "Let's get out of here."
I grinned. Exactly what I'd wanted to hear. "Let me just shift, and then we'll fly."
His eyes went wide. "You're going to shift?"
Was that so surprising? "Wings are the best method of transportation around here." But he was scared of heights, wasn't he? I remembered now. "Don't worry. It's completely safe. I would never let anything happen to you." The very idea was preposterous. Zim was my mate, and I was going to protect him with my dying breath if I had to.
"That's not... I'm not worried," Zim insisted, and when I checked, I could see in his aura that he was telling the truth. No muddied yellow tones overshadowing him the way they had on that bus in San Francisco. Zim smiled at me. "I'm just excited to see you shift."
"Oh." Shifting was such an everyday thing to me I forgot that it might be special for Zim to see my other form. But now that I thought about it, I was almost worried that Zim might not like what he saw.
Don't be ridiculous. If you're truly fated, he's not going to mind seeing your true form.
Still, I'd never felt so self-conscious about shifting as I did that day. It was a part of life, as natural as changing my underwear in the morning, something that I'd been doing for as long as I could think back... but the fact that Zim was watching me now made everything feel new and different. I paid more attention to the energy cursing through my veins as my body changed shape. Right now, I'd be nothing more than a glowing mass to Zim's eyes, but I could feel my being expand into a form that was as familiar to me as my human one. My hands turned to claws and wings sprouted on my back as gold-colored scales spread all over my skin, making my transformation complete.
