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Again and again, she heard the same words, though it would take her a year to understand what they meant. You’re safe, he said. I have you now, my fallen star.
They tried to communicate with her, but she could not understand or reciprocate. The more she tried, the more distressed she became, until Vael, the dragon who caught her, barked something in his low voice and hid her in his wings again. She only felt peace in the shelter he provided.
“Welcome our newest clanmate: Hele Varvaara Aždaja!” And then her dragons threw back their heads and roared with welcome. Fire danced, alcohol flowed, well-wishers pressed kisses to her cheeks and babies flew clumsily into her lap for attention. Her clan rejoiced. Some dark ache she had carried for eons began to ease. All the while, her dark-eyed dragon stood on the fringe of the merriment, his wings back and his gaze, proud and full of warmth, locked on her. He was not Clan Aždaja, but the fluttering in her stomach told her he belonged to her anyway.
One year, eight months, and two weeks from her fall, Hele stood in the doorway of the family dwelling and watched as Constantin swept his Chosen into his wings and kissed her. She watched, and she blinked, and she thought, I want Vael to do that. And then everything began to spin again.
Two years. Two years had crawled by since he caught his falling star, his curious, delightfully strange Hele, and that deeply dragon part of his brain simply… clicked. This one is mine, he’d thought, perfectly calm even as they plunged through the air. This is who I Choose.
“I’ve always thought lightning was pretty,” he remembered saying. “And now I get to hold it in my arms.”
He Chose her when she fell into his arms. He loved her when she flourished.
He must want me as a mate, she told herself as she slipped the straps of her dress off of her narrow shoulders. He embraced me. I want him to do it again.
He reached for her again, but this time her body moved on instinct. She bounded backward. In an instant, there were several feet between them. She wished it were more. She wished she had never gone wandering. She wished she’d never said anything to him at all.
Hele, who was once vast and powerful and incomprehensibly old, was reduced to something small, and lonely, and pitied by the man she wanted above all others. It was fucking galling.
Hele could not know that when he thought of stifling her, locking her into a relationship she didn’t want, he felt sick to his stomach. He could not, would not clip her wings.
“I am Hele of Clan Aždaja. I was vast and powerful. I am not someone you Choose later, when you feel like it.” Her narrow chin jutted forward. “I do not need to wait for you to decide on me. I can find a mate who is sure. Maybe one of my kind, or maybe a dragon, or even an elf. The only thing that matters is that they know who I am.”
“Do not drop me! I don’t understand swimming!”
Watching Hele discover new things was one of his greatest joys.
“Hele, how can you be—” “Because,” she stated simply, “I waited eons for you.”
He choked out a curse, then, gruffly, “Tell me to stop if it’s too much.” “I always speak my mind,” she primly informed him. “So I will tell you if you do it badly.” His eyes crinkled just before he gave the soft flesh of her inner thigh a quick bite. She gasped, shocked and aroused by the feeling of his fangs nipping her skin. Sounding almost like he was angry with her, he muttered into her flesh, “Gods, I fucking love you.”
I’m going to die. She’s going to kill me. Gods, I am so fucking lucky.
