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I can’t look at him. Not now. Even when he threads his hands into my hair and tries to tip my head back to meet his eyes, I stay stubbornly right where I am until he relents.

“We should head back to the city.”

The way he says it makes it sound like everything is alright. Handled. Settled.

Still, when he slides out of me and helps me find my clothes so I can get dressed, when he shifts back into his dragon form and gathers me up gently in his claws, taking off and flying back toward the city, it doesn’t feel like anything is settled.

It feels like the last bit of candleflame winking out. It feels like another goodbye. One that’s about to be permanent.

34

Blair

I haven’t been able to think straight since Friday.

Not since I lost my last thread of control and took Kenna out of the city. Not since her gentle words and the touch of her hand were the only thing that could bring me back when I felt entirely lost to my baser nature. Not since I fucked her like it was the last time I’d ever get to touch her, and felt the moment she realized it would be.

By the time Monday afternoon rolls around, I’m stretched to a breaking point.

It’s been quiet so far today. No calls from Harrison or Secretary Thompson. No salacious tabloid fodder or scathing political article outing the Director of the Bureau as an unstable dragon and a kidnapper. Nothing but silence and normalcy and business as usual that only ratchets up my sense of impending dread even more.

I am, as Kenna would probably phrase it, freaking the fuck out.

Not that I’ve talked about it with her. Guilt and shame have been clogging my throat since the moment I dropped her off on Friday. They’ve been sitting like an anvil in the center of my chest, and for the life of me, I don’t know how to make it right. I don’t know what to do or say to fix anything between us, or how to work up my nerve for the conversation I know we need to have.

The one where I let her go.

I almost did it on Friday when I dropped her off back at the Bureau parking garage, after I’d shifted and pulled a spare set of clothes from my car to get dressed. It was on the tip of my tongue to say it, but the weight settled on my chest and the chokehold of emotion creeping up my throat kept me mute.

At least until my phone started ringing, and a quick glance down showed a half-dozen missed calls from Cleo.

Grasping onto the one straw I could reach, I’d made an excuse to Kenna and left her there. Just left her there like the coward I am.

I could feel the weight of her eyes on me as I walked away, just as certainly as I could feel the sting of it in my chest, the pounding of guilt behind my temples, and the soul-deep ache that’s been plaguing me ever since I left her.

It’s constant, burning, an unending reminder of all the ways I’ve failed her and how completely, utterly selfish I’m still being.

I’ve barely been able to function these last couple of days, let alone sleep or think rationally about what I need to do next.

I’m still barely hanging on just after end of business on Monday, when the sound of my office door opening breaks through the dull static in my brain. Ruthie’s been at an off-site meeting with Cleo most of the afternoon, and I’m not expecting anyone.

I’m especially not expecting a kraken with an expression like thunder on his face.

“What the hell, Blair?”

I swallow around the thickness in my throat. “What do you want, Elias?”

Not bothering to take a seat, Elias crosses to the desk and braces both his palms on it.

“What did you do to Kenna?”

A shot of ice moves through my veins. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, my mate has been worried about her for weeks. And then two days ago Nora gets a phone call, goes to see Kenna in the city, and comes back looking pale as a damn ghost over whatever the two of them talked about. Care to provide any insight into what that might be?”

“Nora spoke to Kenna? Is Kenna alright?”

Cursing harshly under his breath, Elias removes his hands from my desk and runs one of them through his unkempt black hair before finally taking a damn seat.