He didn’t know how long she might have been telepathically knocking at his door, trying to call out to him.
They were the only two people down here, and he’d slipped away into non-personhood and left her all alone. Just because it was so much easier to give in than to fight.
Thinking that made it even more tempting to juststop. Hating himself made him want to erase himself, and there was no easier way to do that than to just hide deep inside his hellhound, where even he couldn’t find himself.
But that wouldn’t help Iz, and it wasn’t what she wanted from him.
He made himself find the right words—in this case,anywords, in any human language—and open up his mind again.
>
> Her voice was shaky. >
He sent her the feeling of falling through some endless internal darkness. > The words still felt sticky and hard to reach, hard to handle. He couldn’t imagine that this was reassuring.
But ....
> Iz said, and she sounded genuinely relieved, not horrified or disgusted or disappointed. >
>
> Iz said. >
>
> she said firmly. >
Logan wanted to believe her, and he knew he would have told anyone else the same thing.
But he’d abandoned her. He had trouble forgiving himself for that. He’d scared her.
> he said. >
She stuck one claw through the bars between them, and Logan rested his paw on it.
Iz looked at him with her shining molten-gold eyes. Logan had the sudden, intense desire to see her in her human form again. He remembered what she looked like, but it still felt like there was something he was missing.
> Iz said softly. > She looked down at where they were touching, hellhound paw covering dragon claw. >
>
He wasn’t completely joking, either. Itdidfeel like something had clicked into place between them.
Iz had mentioned broken bones. This was like realizing he’d had one his whole life, just some kind of nagging background discomfort that never went away, and all of a sudden, Iz had set it properly. There was a white-hot flash ofrightness, of his world finally getting pulled into alignment.
He didn’t want to stop touching her.
Of course, Randolph Sebastian didn’t care what Logan wanted, so he chose that moment to come down to admire his collection.
Iz and Logan pulled away from each other at the same time, retreating to the far sides of their separate cages.
The connection between the two of them was all they had, and if Sebastian knew it existed, he would take it away in a heartbeat. Logan didn’t even want tothinkabout what would happen if Sebastian found out about hellhound telepathy. He wanted to make them into zoo animals, but by putting them this close to each other, he’d accidentally given them a way to stay human. They couldn’t afford to let him know that, and the absolute last thing they wanted to do was show him that they needed each other. He would just use it as leverage.
In times like these, shifter reflexes and speed came in handy. They were huddled far away from each other by the time Sebastian actually reached their chamber.
He ignored them at first, taking the time to walk around and light all the lanterns instead. The light flickered along Iz’s scales, making the gold more luminous than ever. He wondered if dragons liked flame better than any other kind of illumination. He’d have to ask her.
Not now, though. They both needed to be sharp and on their guard.