With a wicked grin, Rami said, “She’s not my type. How about
you, Kes? Not yours either, huh?”
“No,” Kes said. “She’s not.”
Mirel had been repressing her curiosity, but now she couldn’t stand it any more. “If none of those dragons are it, why did you come? Did you expect them to be different? Kes, what is your type?”
He smiled but didn’t reply. The three of them watched in silence as one by one, the dragon shifters made their selections.
Several of the chosen ones were candidates Mirel hadn’t spotted among the crowd of perfect people. The emerald dragon flew away with a beautiful woman with elegant features and midnight hair, and a short, heavyset man with a pleasant but ordinary face. The amber dragon took a dark and handsome man, and a mousy woman with messily cut brown hair. The amethyst dragon selected a chubby blonde with thick glasses and a man with burn scars covering his left hand and half his face.
“I didn’t notice them,” Mirel said slowly, as she watched the dragons fly away and the rejected candidates depart. “The man with scars… the woman with hair going every which way… I think I saw the perfect people, and then I felt hopeless and stopped looking.”
Rami nodded thoughtfully. “The next set of dragons to choose their mates will get a different crowd, I think. Or maybe just a bigger one, now that everyone knows that dragons, like humans, have all sorts of tastes and seek out all sorts of qualities. Not just beauty, but intelligence, courage, artistic talent…”
“Kindness,” said Kes. “Good company. Attraction is essential, of course, and so are courage and intelligence. But I also wanted mates who liked each other as much as they liked me and I liked them. And I wanted to see how they behaved when they thought no one was looking. So I hope you’ll forgive the deception…”
The air shimmered around him. When it cleared, he was still recognizable as himself: the muscular body, the ruggedly masculine face, the sweet smile. But his eyes were no longer merely blue, but had the depth and intensity of twin sapphires. His hair was no longer blonde, but blue-black. Where the sunlight caught it, the highlights gleamed sapphire.
Mirel’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t have spoken if her life depended on it, but luckily for her, Rami managed to put words to her thoughts. “You’re a dragon?!”
“I am.” Kes sounded as if he was wryly confessing to some minor indiscretion. “We can shift in minor ways in both our forms, like altering the color of our hair and eyes, or the length of our tail and talons. And we can make our stomachs rumble. Not that we usually have call for that.”
“So that’s what you meant by ‘not my type,’” Rami exclaimed. “Your type is human!”
“Well, that and also the dragons here today were all my siblings or cousins,” Kes admitted. “Rami, you were right about Mal—the emerald dragon. He’s my cousin, and he is critical. I expect he’ll ease off on his mates, or else they’ll criticize him right back, but he’s unbearable at get-togethers. Always has something to find fault with.”
“You’re a dragon!” Mirel spluttered, finding her voice at last. “And I served you barley!”
“I tried the ‘hungry stranger’ trick on some of the other candidates before I found you two. Some of them ignored me. Some of them were willing to give me a portion of theirs, but along with a look like I was an idiot for losing mine, or that the reason they were doing it was because they liked thinking of themselves as a very gracious and generous person indeed. But you both offered everything you had, and you did it because I was hungry. That’s how I knew you were meant for me.” Kes’s smile faded into uncertainty. “That is… if you want me.”
“Oh, I want you!” Mirel blurted out. Her heart was so full of astonished joy, she barely knew what she was saying. Kes was a dragon! Kes wanted her! And Rami too! She could have them both! Then she realized that Rami had said nothing. “At least…”
Rami laid his right hand on her shoulder, and took Kes’s hand in his left. “I want you. Both of you. But I’m the one who has to ask if you really want me. You’ll lose me, you know. And very soon. I won’t be there to help raise our child. You’ll have to choose a new mate if you want more than one child—”
Kes shook his head, sending his blue-black hair falling in shining threads across his forehead. “Maybe not. When a dragon bonds with their mates for the very first time, it breaks down the barriers between us. For an hour or so, we can feel each other’s emotions. And the dragon can extend some of their ability to change their own body to their mates, and make a change in theirs. Not a huge one. We can’t give humans the ability to shift, for instance, or make a short man tall. But my sister Del—the amethyst dragon—could probably take away her mate’s burn scars, or at least lessen them. I might be able to heal your heart, Rami. I can’t promise that it would work. But I could try.”
Mirel expected Rami to be overjoyed. She was overjoyed. Instead, for the first time since she had met him, he looked afraid.
“But…” Rami’s voice broke. “If you don’t know if you can… If you might fail… I’m not sure I want you to try.”
“What?!” Mirel exclaimed. “Why ever not?”
Swallowing hard, Rami said, “I’ve accepted that I’m dying. I made myself be strong and calm and not afraid, and that wasn’t easy. If I let myself hope now…” His voice cracked again. “I don’t want to hope. If I start believing that I could live, and then it turns out that I was wrong, I think it would break me. I have my pride now. I have my dignity. That’s all I have. I can’t risk losing that.”
A flicker of disappointment—or was it grief?—passed across Kes’s face. His muscles tightened as he clenched his jaw. But all he said was, “It must be your choice, Rami.”
Mirel stared from one man to the other. How could Rami turn down a chance at life? Why wasn’t Kes arguing with him?
Then she remembered how Kes had told them they could be chosen by the amethyst dragon, even though he could have stayed silent and ensured that they’d have no choice but him. He valued their free will; not only would he never force or pressure them into anything, he wouldn’t even keep silent if he thought that would alter their ability to choose.
As for Rami, Mirel could understand why staying in a bad situation that was at least familiar could seem easier than making an irrevocable leap into a total unknown. She could have left her village at any time, and gone to the city to seek out a better life. But she hadn’t. This trip to see the dragons was the first time she’d ever dared to leave. What had given her the nerve to do it was her certainty that she wouldn’t chosen, and that there would be no consequences but a little extra humiliation when she returned. And she was used to that.
“Kes, if there’s something you want to say to Rami, say it,” Mirel said. “If we’re going to be mates, we can’t hold back on each other. Rami, I know what it’s like to be afraid of taking chances. But imagine what you could have if you try. You could have a whole life, with both of us. Isn’t that worth the risk?”
Rami hesitated, looking down as if he couldn’t bear to meet their eyes.
“Please,” Kes said, his voice roughened. “That’s what I wanted to say. It is your choice. But please let me try. I want to have a lifetime with you both. And don’t want you to die.”