Page 41 of The Dragon's Gambit
He studied her for a moment. She looked almost defeated. Her eyes seemed to be filled with disappointment and sadness. He’d caused that. It was his fault. He should have asked her before it got to this point. Instead, he went to the brink and lost control. He felt like an insecure child, but he had to say it. “Well, it means you’re my mate, Reiya. Do you not want to be mine?”
Her body stiffened a bit, and her eyes widened. The betraying flutter of her heart trumpeted loudly. She was his mate? Did he want her to be his mate, or was it just because it was too late now? Ugh, this was stupid. Why was she acting like this? She needed to just open up and speak her mind. Besides, was he really that daft? Did he not know how badly she wanted him? She’d always blushed under his gaze and melted in his arms.
“I don’t understand any of this, Lee. I don’t get it. I don’t understand your questions, and I don’t understand why Xander was claiming the mark on my neck as his own. What is your game here? Am I a toy you plan to share? You guys want to play around with my feelings? Because you can obviously see how I feel about you. Is that it? It’s not right, Lee—”
“Hey! Reiya, stop. You’re the one not making sense right now. Share? I don’t share. I never have and I never will. The Xander thing … well, that’s another thing to talk about. But first, how do you … feel about me? Because I don’t know. It isn’t obvious to me.” Lee took a few steps toward her. He wanted to know how she felt. He’d always wanted to know how she felt.
“I … I don’t know if you’re teasing me or being serious.” Her eyes were almost pleading with him. “It’s been obvious since the beginning, since the day I met you. I …” Her cheeks heated up, but she pushed through the embarrassment. She needed to get everything out in the open. Why not now? She was already marked.
“Geez, Lee. You already know this, but you’re going to make me say it anyway. Just poke more fun at the girl who’s been in love with you for years. And I don’t even—”
In a second, he was there, his lips crashing down on hers. She was stunned but couldn’t help her natural reaction. She wrapped her arms around his neck and met his heated lips with her own. There was so much depth and passion poured into this kiss. It was soft but lingering. She felt like her soul was being sucked out into him. Her body tingled in the fire he was igniting. He pulled his lips away from hers and held her tightly against him.
“I love you too, Reiya. Damn … do I love you.”
The words were like pure ecstasy to her, but they were also confusing. He loved her as well? Since when? So, he did mean to mark her?
“I don’t understand. You’re in love with me too?”
“Baby, from the day I met you, I knew you were my mate. I was shocked and I wasn’t sure what to do. You were still so young. So I waited, hoping that you would also recognize me as your mate. I’ve been waiting for your damn wolf to come forward all this time. I’ve been trying to keep a distance and not force myself on you, but it was really difficult. Your very scent drives me over the edge.” His voice was low and raspy as he held her tightly against him. “All these years, I’ve been hoping you loved me … wishing you wanted me like I wanted you. I had to wait, though. I had to wait because I couldn’t claim you. What if your wolf didn’t claim me as your mate? All my self-control came crashing down tonight. You asked me to look at you as a woman, when that’s theonly way I’ve ever looked at you. Before I knew it, I had marked you as my own. I just hope … I hope this all doesn’t backfire. Reiya, I won’t be able to bear it if you don’t also see me as your mate.”
Reiya shook her head into his chest. He had loved her all this time, too. So much time wasted. She didn’t care about the mate pull. She loved him. She chose him. “I don’t care, Lee. I don’t care who my mate is, because I want you. You are my mate, with or without my wolf telling me so.”
“Reiya, things might not be easy at first. There are a couple of things stacked against us, but it doesn’t matter to me, as long as we end up together.”
“Is it because you’re a dragon?”
“There’s that, and since I’m a deity, taking you as a mate is against the rules. This is why Xander has been claiming you as his mate. The dragons aren’t really an issue. Sure, they might complain about it, but there isn’t a thing they can do about it. The truth is that I shouldn’t be around you like I have been. I’m not supposed to be with you as much as I am, but more like how Seraphina is with your mother. There are rules among the deities. They’ll need to be convinced that this is okay. I’ve always played by the rules, and this is me breaking them for once. Xander will have to keep pretending that you’re his mate in order to protect us. They wouldn’t do anything to you, so it’s really just to protect me. Don’t worry, though. It’ll all work out.”
“Would they hurt you?”
“In the worst way possible. They would try to seal me away until you die.” Lee nuzzled his head into her neck.
Reiya’s chest tightened. That was what her premonition had shown her. Lee hadn’t died. He’d been sealed away.
Chapter 28 Last to Know
“So that’s what my premonition showed me. That you’d been sealed away and couldn’t come to me.” Reiya dug her fingers into his chest and leaned her head deeper into him. “Itwas because of me, then. I’m the reason you weren’t there in the future.”
“Reiya, the future is always changing. Besides, it isn’t because of you. This …” He squeezed her waist with his hands. “This is us. Our decisions in the future gave you the premonition you saw. Xander and I already worked that detail out together. We figured that’s what your vision meant, since there’s no way I wouldn’t be there if you were in danger. I’m not going to lie, though. Your premonition did give me hope. It gave me promise that you chose to be with me at some point, and I was being punished for being with you. When I left you earlier, I told Xander and the Sage that I’d marked you. We were deep in discussion on how to proceed, and we came up with the plan that you and Xander would feign a relationship together, for now, while I try to work on the deity council. You have a dragon mark on your neck, and some dragon is going to have to claim it. Xander is the safest one to do that. And the Sage said there’s also an ace in the hole that he’s trying to iron out if negotiations fail.” Lee chuckled quietly. “There’s so much to discuss, but right now, I …” Lee inhaled deeply near her neck. “I feel like I’ve been torturing myself for years for no reason.”
“You could have talked to me, you know? Though I don’t know how you couldn’t know how I felt about you. You really were completely clueless.” Reiya smiled into his chest. She couldn’t believe that what she’d wanted all along was becoming a reality.
“It’s not like you came out and told me you had feelings for me either … well, until today, that is,” Lee chuckled. “I couldn’t let myself hope for it. I was honestly trying to tune everything out and avoid being with you too much. I didn’t want to be too tempted and go too far with you. I kept counting down the days, waiting for you to be able to sense your mate. I just wanted you to choose me for yourself and not because I … well, I didn’t want to take advantage of you. You were just sixteen when we firstmet, and … it was hard, Reiya, because I wanted to be with you. I planned to keep waiting, but in the end, there was just no more waiting. Apparently for either of us.” He smiled into her hair as he held her tightly.
“I felt like I was doing something wrong. The way I felt about you and thought about you ... I couldn’t wait for my wolf to show herself either. I wouldn’t have those thoughts about you anymore. I didn’t want to have these feelings for someone that I couldn’t have. I never thought I would actually be able to be with you. You were so close, yet so unattainable. It was so difficult to keep these feelings inside. Then, little by little, I hated the idea that you only viewed me as a little sister. I didn’t want to be your sister. So, I just snapped. I didn’t know what to think when everyone was saying that I’d been marked. Was it just an accident? There was no way you marked me on purpose. I honestly thought you only kissed me because you felt sorry for me. I had no idea that there was more to it … to any of it. Then, with Xander always implying that I was his mate, always touching me—”
Lee let out a growl. “I can’t stand it when he touches you. He gets some sort of sick satisfaction out of it. And he’s always tried to throw others off about you, which is why he did that from the beginning. I could have killed him when he refused to let you leave.”
“So, why did he do that?” Reiya glanced up at Lee.
“Because he knew. Xander and the Sage already knew you were my mate. I had told them. Xander knew I wasn’t going to do anything about it, so he kept you here for me so that I could see you every day. He was hoping to push the relationship along, or at the very least make it a bit easier for me. Still, it was none of his business. That brat refused to concede, though. I wanted you back in Elysia, but he did have a good point. You would be safer here, but I hated to do that to you. It wasn’t mycall, though. Xander is the king. I don’t interfere in the ruling king’s decisions. Well, I usually don’t.” Lee chuckled lightly. “You should have seen your father, though. He was ready to destroy the place in the conference room. There was no way he was leaving his baby girl here. It wasn’t until I popped into the room and told them I was your mate that he settled down. He still didn’t like it, but he could hardly refuse to leave you in the hands of your mate.”
“Wait! So my mom and dad know you’re my mate?” Reiya asked, a bit shocked.
“Well, they know that I at least view you as my mate. We’re still waiting on the verdict from that wolf of yours.” Lee smiled down at her.
“I told you. I don’t care who my wolf claims, because I’ve chosen you.”
