She sighed.
“I know exactly why you chose your brother over me, and I agree with it,” she admitted. “But it doesn’t help. I’ve gotten a taste for freedom and I don’t like having it denied to me.”
I pulled her into my arms, letting my lips rest on her forehead for a long moment before pulling back to look into her eyes.
“There’s always going to be a threat to us…to you,” I told her.
She frowned, and when she would’ve spoken, I stopped her before she could.
“Listen,” I said.
When she nodded, I continued.
“Every day will be a constant struggle,” I informed her. “When there’s that many people under the same roof and in the same immediate area, tempers are bound to flare. So you’ll have to try your hardest to work with the others there, even my brother.”
She nodded.
“And when you have a problem that you can’t solve, I’d like you to come to me, talk it out with me, before you go about trying to fix it on your own. Like today,” I said.
She winced.
“I was just trying to get some air,” she said softly.
“I know,” I informed her. “But that’s another thing. You‘re going to have to get used to having security. If not me, then a dragon escort. Anything; but you can’t be left alone. You’d be a huge pawn in this war against the Purists.”
She grimaced.
“You’ll need to choose,” I said. “Your freedom, where you’re able to do whatever you want, or this place.” I hesitated, “It’s not always the best place to be in the world, but there’ll be no better place that has a greater group of friends that care about you enough to take absolutely anything for you. Even a bullet.”
“You know I can’t leave. You were the one who explained that I’d die if I was away from you,” she muttered darkly.
I smiled at her obvious irritation.
“I never said you’d be getting rid of me. I’d go with you, of course,” I said softly. “We can live out of the public eye. If we moved to a different state, it’d be likely that nobody would even know who I was.”
Her mouth dropped open.
“You’d leave this place?” she asked in stunned disbelief. “For me?”
I smiled at her.
“I’d give my left nut for you. Is it so hard to believe I’d give up my sanctuary for you?” I asked teasingly.
Her eyes narrowed. “That’s disgusting.”
I laughed, then shrugged.
“It’s the truth.”
“I don’t want you to give up your left nut,” she sighed, turning fully to face me as she said what she had to say next. “I’m not even asking you to always side with me over your brother. All I’m asking is that you at least give me the benefit of the doubt. If I tell you I’m going stir-crazy, we need to fly out as soon as possible.”
I stared at her, studied her face, and then nodded.
“I can do that. I will do that,” I amended.
She smiled then, and then walked into my arms.
Her body felt right as I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and pulled her into me.
She rested her hand over my heart, and my arm trailed down her arm to her forearm where she’d broken the bones earlier in the day.
“Are you okay?” I asked softly.
She let her head fall back as she stared into my eyes.
“I’m better than okay,” she answered. “I had a lot of thinking to do while I was waiting for you to get there, and I didn’t like what I saw.”
I blinked.
“What do you mean?” I asked worriedly. “What did you decide?”
Was that panic in my voice?
I didn’t like the tightness in my chest, or the way my breathing seemed to stall as I waited for her to reply.
“I saw my life. Two different paths I could take.” She hesitated and I lifted my hand to run down the side of her head, smoothing her hair down so I could see her eyes completely.
“Go on,” I urged.
She swallowed.
“I had two choices,” she answered. “One, I could leave…test out the theory of whether or not I would die without you.”
Despair rose inside my body, but her next words calmed that roiling storm.
“Or…I could suck it up and be a big girl,” she continued as if she was unaware of the havoc she’d caused inside of me.
Her look said she knew what her hesitations were doing to me.
And she smiled.
Something eased in my chest, and I knew which decision she’d come to without her even saying because she suddenly opened herself up to me, letting me feel exactly what was going on in that head of hers.
Everything that I ever wanted to know about her was suddenly revealed.
What it was like for her as a child.
What she wanted most in life.
What she loved.
What she hated.
Everything was there for the picking, and I had to gasp as all the love she felt for me suddenly poured through the mating bond that we shared.