Page 20 of Dragon Thief of New York
The speaker clicks and pops. “You all doing okay in there still?” the man from before asks.
“Yeah, yep.” Otto grabs my hand and squeezes. “We’re alright. Thanks.”
“Well, it might be upwards of another hour yet,” he says.
“Okay,” Otto replies hurriedly. “We’ll be fine. Thanks for letting us know.”
The return to silence makes the tight space feel even smaller than it did before. I said I’d leave, and I will, but how can I survive giving her up a second time? Dragons sometimes go mad when they lose their mate, when a human mate decides not to bond. I kept my mind when I lost her last time, but I don’t know if I can do it again. I can already feel myself crumbling, pieces of me slipping away as my dragon tries to take over. Smoke huffs from my nostrils, and I jump to my feet.
I need to move.
This time, I wouldn’t just be leaving her. I’d be leavinghim. Abandoning my son. A boy whowillremember me, even if his mother won’t.
“Fuck.” My fist meets the metal wall, making the elevator shake.
Kat screams, clinging to Otto.
Fire burns the back of my throat, bile following in its wake. “I can’t leave. I’m sorry, Kat. Even if that’s what you want, I can’t. I have a… son?” Tears choke my voice.
Kat nods, covering her mouth with one hand.
“I’m sorry. So sorry. If I’d known…” I sink into the corner, sliding down until my ass hits the hard floor.
“Yeah.” That’s all she says for a long time.
I stare at my hands, claws still extended. I can’t get them to retract. The sharp tips seem to mock me, reminding me why we’re in this mess, what I am, what she decided not to be.
“Is there any way to reverse it?” Kat whispers.
“What do you mean?” I tilt my head, focusing on her. She’s still curled in Otto’s lap, his hand rubbing her back in soothing circles.
“I get that humans who don’t become dragons forget, but I’m a dragon now, so maybe there’s a way I can get my memories back, or at least stop forgetting. I mean, clearly you all have some kind of weird magic that made me forget in the first place, so maybe there’s some way to reverse it.”
The sadness in Otto’s expression is as tangible as my own. My bond with Kat was severed when she didn’t choose me. If we reversed that—if there’s even a way—what would it do to his bond with her?
He strokes Kat’s hair out of her face. “We’ll talk to the priests and priestesses. Someone might know a way.”
Her watery smile twists my heart. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank us yet, love.” I lean my head back against the wall and stare up at the ceiling.
“I’m thanking you for trying.” She twists a little in Otto’s arms so she’s facing me. “I know it might not work, but it’s something, and I appreciate that.”
“And what happens if it does work?" I ask. "What happens if you remember the day we met, the week I kept introducing myself over and over, trying to see if you’d remember something, anything? The night we stayed up all night talking, the dinners, the flowers, the sex? What then? Will you want to be with me? What about Otto?” The sudden surge of anger surprises me. I’m not angry at her, but like a wild animal in pain, I lash out. It’s the situation, the world we live in, the goddess herself. This isn’t right. It’s not supposed to be like this.
“Maybe we can all be together,” Otto says in a hushed voice. His eyes flicker with flames as he looks at me, hungry and so familiar. Hope mixes vividly with desire in every twitch of his hesitant smile.
“W-what? I can’t be with two men.” A nervous laugh spills from Kat’s lips.
“Why not?” There’s more bite in the words than I intend.
Kat blanches, head swiveling from me to Otto. “You can’t be serious.”
“Look, I don’t know whether we can get your memories back, and if we can’t, I get that being in a relationship with someone you don’t remember the second you leave his side, probably won’t work, but if we can solve the memory issue, I don’t want you to have to choose. I don’t want to lose you. And I don’t want Damian to lose you. So, it seems the solution is simple. You get both of us.”
“But that’s not… I can’t just… It’s not done.”
“We wouldn’t be the first throuple among dragons,” Otto says with a shrug. “Or humans. Although admittedly it’s pretty rare.”
