She squirms. “I wasn’t employed to do it. It was a favor for someone.”
“A favor led you back into a life that you are adamant you aren’t in anymore?” I pry.
“He was in danger, and I care about him.”
I take a moment to breathe through the explosion of jealousy in my chest that burns like dragon fire. I am more than this instinctual reaction. It’s a close thing though.
“Romantically?” I ask.
“Oh, god no!” Katarina’s horrified face soothes the burn. “Just someone who looked out for me and taught me skills when I needed them.”
She doesn’t name him, which is smart. But she doesn’t need to. Ben already gave me a report about her, which includes Nemo Wint as being the person who she worked with in thieving. I would not describe their relationship as one where he looked out for her.
I’ve mentored many people, and I’ve never put a teenager in the danger that he must have. He got to her young and used her for her skills.
And now, as an adult, she put herself in danger because of some misplaced loyalty.
It makes me want to kill him.
“Alright,” I say. I can’t discuss this anymore and remain logical.
Katarina sighs in relief. “You got a little murdery there.”
I twitch my lips. “I try not to, but my dragon can have outsized reactions.”
“Is your dragon who I met that night?” she asks, a teasing note to her voice. “I like him.”
And he very much likes you.
“He’s closer to the surface during breeding time,” I allow.
At the word breeding, her cheeks redden temptingly, and I watch her place a hand on her still flat stomach.
She clears her throat. “Well, I had fun.” She grins, and a strand of hair falls onto her cheek.
I clench my fist to keep from smoothing the rebellious strand behind her ear. It’s more of a temptation not to touch the woman than it should be. My familiarity with her body doesn’t help. The knowledge of how it feels to have her tightness strangle my cock and the mewling sounds she’d make are poisonous spines lying in wait.
Dangerous.
“You said that dragons can only breed under certain conditions, do you think that the figurine influenced that? It’s a magic item, isn’t it?” she asks.
I lift my chin to consider the matter before shrugging. “Unlikely. These things are written into the very threads of our soul. The figurine is from a coven of witches who are powerful, but not as powerful as that.”
“What are the conditions that allow dragons to breed then? Maybe we accidentally did something.” Katarina’s brow is furrowed. I don’t want to ponder how this came to be. It doesn’t change anything. The child exists no matter how impossible.
“We did not. Dragons can only breed with their mate.” I clench my jaw, trying to keep my tone even.
It was a mistake to say that.
Katarina’s face lights up as if that possibility is precious. Something her soul craves. It’s a lash across my senses.
She opens her mouth before I can head her off. “Do you think it’s possible—”
I almost snarl to interrupt her. “You cannot be my mate because I already have one.”
13
KATARINA
“YOU’RE MATED?” Fury I don’t recognize blazes through my chest, even as surprise is as sharp as a slap.
How dare he?
How could he be with me while he was connected to another? Is this just one more thing I don’t understand about paranormal beings? But everything I’ve heard treats mating as an absolute. Infidelity in a mating is almost unheard of. Alarm flares next, protective over the little disturbance inside me. What does him having a mate mean for our child?
Kalos closes his eyes, his face pained. “My apologies. I had a mate.”
Had.
“Oh,” I say. Past tense. He had a mate. My anger and fear fade, leaving a washed-out, ambiguous sense of longing.
Kalos holds himself so tightly that it’s a wonder I don’t hear his bones grinding together.
The longing makes me open my mouth when I shouldn’t because I need to know. “What happened to them?”
“She died. A long time ago.” Kalos’s gold eyes open, but he doesn’t look at me.
How long ago doesn’t matter. His emotions are stark in the lines of his body and face.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. The sentiment is a useless one, but it doesn’t make it less true.
Kalos shrugs and sighs before his gaze meets mine again. “Dragons have one predestined mate. So you see, we are not mates, and I wouldn’t want us to be. My heart is only meant for one.”
My brain is too stubborn to let this go without more investigation. “But the night we spent together—”
His eyes freeze over, and my words dry up. “Was about sex,” he says. “Not love, and it was a mistake.”
Mistake. That word shatters the tenuous hope in my chest that whispered that I’d finally found my place in the world. That after all the human couples who’d declined to adopt me, I’d found a family.
“Being mated to you would be a lower circle of hell,” he’d said. Even if he could mate with me, he wouldn’t want to.
Kalos clears his throat and pushes his chair away from the table, standing and adjusting his suit. He takes the jagged remains of that hope and continues to stab my heart.
“You are the mother of my child. I will try my best to make you comfortable, but do not look to me for anything else.”
The numbness spreads out from my chest.
“I don’t say this to be cruel, but for you to know your place here,” Kalos says.
I blink up at him. For all that his pain was on display a moment ago, his face shows no emotion now. He nods like I’ve agreed and leaves. His footsteps are clipped and echo in the empty dining room until they fade, disappearing entirely.
The beautiful room that was warm and cheery just a moment ago is as silent as a tomb.
I inhale a shuddery breath, trying to do damage control on the thud of my heart.
I don’t love him, so why does what he said hurt so much?
SLEEP COMES SLOWLY FOR ME. I’m in the most comfortable bed I’ve ever slept in, and still my mind spins. I find another blanket in the closet and add it to the bed. I’m not quite cold yet, but past the hollow pain in my chest, the chill is encroaching again.
Eventually I’ll go to Kalos to get an injection of warmth, but I can’t right now. I’m licking my wounds.
Tomorrow, I’ll be strong. Tonight, I grieve.
I don’t love Kalos. I loved the idea of having a fated mate. A place where I fit. I thought that maybe that place could be with Kalos.
There’s something magnetic about him. When he’s not being cruel, it’s hard to remember that he’s practically a stranger.
But nothing is going to happen with him. He still feels for the rightful mate that he lost.
I sigh and rub my chest.