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“Here,” I say, with no preamble or ceremony. “Everything we know so far about what’s going on in Boston. Ophelia has the same information.”

Cas barely spares the file a second look before setting it aside and inhaling deeply. “More of that delicious spice today?”

I ignore him. “Any questions about the assignment?”

Leaning back in his chair, Cas gives me a slow, provoking smile. I do the same—minus the smile—mimicking his posture until we both look like a couple of arrogant assholes locked in a stalemate.

“I do have other work today,” I deadpan. “So unless there’s something you’d like to—”

His smile falters. “You’re really not going to talk about your human? I may give you hell for it, but after the happiness Elias has found, I would never—”

“This is different. This isn’t like Elias and Nora.”

The words fall sour and discordant into the space between us.

This is different.

Images from last weekend flash through my mind.

Kenna, naked in the summer sun, pale skin scattered with all of those freckles of hers as she fearlessly joined me in the lake. Kenna, gilded by firelight, offering soft reassurance and kindness as I poured my damn heart out to her. Kenna, a furrow of worry set between her eyebrows as she watched me drive away, leaving her alone on her front porch.

All of those memories are laced with sour, accusing shame. I haven’t called her. I haven’t even sent a damn text.

I don’t know what to say or what to do. I don’t know how to let her go.

But I know I have to. This past weekend has made that perfectly clear. I can’t offer her any kind of future, can’t give her all the things she deserves from this life, and it would make me the lowest of creatures to indulge the baser urges that would have me keep her with me anyway.

Lost in that spiral of dark thoughts, it takes me a moment to realize just how long I’ve been silently brooding. When I do, I find Cas watching me with a puzzled, slightly worried look on his face.

“You claim this woman is not your mate?”

“You know my history,” I say shortly. “So you know why that would be impossible.”

“Stranger things have happened, my friend,” Casimir murmurs. “There’s never been any stories of a dragon taking a second mate after losing their first?”

Hell if I know. By the time I was born almost five hundred years ago, most of the dragons were gone. My parents had both passed on by the time I was barely more than a youth, and they weren’t mates themselves, so I doubt they would have known much about it.

It’s never come up with the other handful of dragons I’ve met, most of them near the end of their long, solitary lives in their distant corners of the world. Or with any other shifter friends of mine.

Nor do I have any evidence—anecdotal or otherwise—that would suggest it’s possible to be blessed with not one, but two fated mates in a lifetime.

No, the common wisdom and belief has always been that there’s one, just one, for any creature who might be destined to find their other half. And in all the years I’ve watched fate offer her blessings and curses to unsuspecting beings, I’ve never known her to be generous enough to hand out such fortune twice.

Whatever he sees on my face, Cas inclines his head in a brief show of deference.

“Forgive me for any presumptions. I do not know what it is like for shifters and their mates. Vampires take our bloodbound partners by choice, not fate, so perhaps I should not speak on that which I do not understand.”

A blessing, that. Choice. Free will. The ability to take your life into your own hands rather than leave it to the whims of fickle fate.

“No apologies necessary,” I say, and clear my throat, hoping he gets the message that we need to move on. “So, about Boston.”

He takes the hint. “Ah, yes. My work with lovely Ophelia. When are we to begin?”

“She’s already on her way east. Driving, not flying, so you should have a couple of days before she’s in the city.”

“Driving all the way across the country?”

“Yes. She… well, you know what? I’ll let her tell you about it if she wants to.”