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“That’s my business.”

“Yet, you’ve made it mine. I know it’s something to do with her power. And here’s the thing, you might have felt it from her, but it’s barely in use. She’s not the indomitable force you believe her to be. She doesn’t live up to her Celestial status. I’m trying to help her. Now, after all these years, I finally have an in.Years. Do you understand me? Do you see just how fucking bad it is? I won’t let you fuck all over this opportunity. This is my last chance. It’sherlast chance.”

“Last chance? Why?”

“After this year is done, she’ll have fulfilled her promise to her family. And that will be it. She’ll resort to what she’s wanted all this time because of her fear of her own power.”

“Resort to what?”

“She’ll disappear into the ozone. She’s even searching out dangerous ways to remove her power altogether. Unbeknownst to her, I’ve thrown up obstacles to stop her from going that route. But she’s still searching, anyway. One thing you need to know about Ari is that she’s incredibly stubborn. If her quest to get rid of her power fails, she’ll likely trap herself in aphantasmal plane, and there’s no one alive on this plane who can breach her magic to pull her out of it. Not even Ryker Morgan can absorb that much Celestial magic to break through it with his defensive power.”

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“I wish I was. She’s in a bad state. She hides it well, but Iknowher. So if you came here to taste her power, to use it for your own ends, or whatever the fuck, know that you’ve made a huge mistake.”

He scrubbed his hand over his face. “I wanted to be with someone who could match my raw might, who could understand it, who could taste it and revel in it as much as I’d revel in theirs. No magic-wielder can live up to that, no other dragon either, because I’m stronger than all my kind. I wanted to craft a new place for what I am—a freak, basically. And she’s the only one—I felt her when she reached magical maturity. She’s the one.”

Well, then.

“You don’t just want to use it. It goes a great deal deeper than that.”

“And you know I’m telling the truth because you’re covertly employing a truth spell. Smart, because I can’t be impacted by magical coercion, but a truth spell is an outlier where that’s concerned.”

I smiled. “I’ve been doing some research.”

“Tone down your arrogance, it’s only partially impacting me. It’s just giving me the urge to tell you the truth, it’s not actually forcing it all the way. The option is still there for me. You’re morefortunate than anything that I’m in a generous mood now you’ve told me what I want to hear regarding both Nyx and Ariana.”

“That I’m not a stone-cold asshole from hell to them both, after all?”

“Something like that.” His eyes narrowed. “I still can’t condone the way you’re treating her, though.”

“Maybe some balance could be helpful.”

He started. “Are you actually asking me to assist?”

“If I were, I need to make it clear right now that you can’t take her for yourself.”

“You’re in love with her?”

“Iwas.Until she turned her back on who she was. And on me. It’s kind of hard to love someone who’s no longer being themselves.”

“Sounds incredibly complicated.”

“That’s usually my thing.”

“Not when the heart is involved. It’s different then. Everything is.”

“So I’ve heard.”

He chuckled. “Sure, we’ll go with that, seeing as though it’s all you can admit. At least you’re not actually the stoic puppet master I took you for. You do wear that image well, though. It even fooled instincts as attuned as mine. Of course, that was assisted by the fact that youdopossess a dark and fucked-up side.”

I got up in his space. “You. Can’t. Take. Her. Are we clear?”

“You do know that there is something called agency? Her own agency? What she wants? Not just what you design for her, or even hope for her in your less puppet mastery moments?”

“If I didn’t know that, I wouldn’t have gone about things this way, or waited three fucking years for an opening. I don’t know you well enough yet, so I’m concerned about what you’ll do to disregard her agency.”

“The days of dragons kidnapping their women and spiriting them away to their castles full of treasure are long past. Most are fables, anyway. I only know of two actual instances where that even occurred in reality.”