Page 25 of Hexual Healing
“Break a dragon curse?There are only two ways to break a dragon curse, and we both know you're not capable of either.”
“I could kill you,” I said quietly.
“Could you?”She moved closer still, close enough that I could smell her perfume, cinnamon and smoke and something indefinably her.“Could you really kill me, Tansy?After everything?”
I wanted to say yes, and I wanted to mean it.But we both knew the truth.I'd loved her for years.You don't just turn that off, even when the person becomes a literal monster.
“That's what I thought,” she said softly.Then her voice hardened again.“Which brings us back to my offer.Come with me now, and I spare the town.Stay, and I burn it all.”
“There's a third option,” Baz said, speaking for the first time.His voice was steady, controlled, but I could feel the tension radiating from him.“You could leave and never come back.”
Illanya looked at him like she'd forgotten he existed.“The bear speaks.How novel.”
“I'm not just a bear.”
“No?”She circled us slowly, predatorially.“What are you, then?Besides a convenient meat shield she's using to make me jealous?”
“I'm her mate.”
The word hung in the air like a challenge.Illanya stopped circling.
“No,” she said simply.“You're not.”
“The mark says otherwise.”
“The mark is a lie.”She stood directly in front of us, eyes flickering between human and dragon.“I can smell it on both of you.Companionship?Yes.Lust?Definitely.But not a true mate bond.That requires something neither of you has given.”
My heart was pounding so hard, I was sure everyone could hear it.She was right, of course.
Or am I deluding myself because I don’t want to deal with the reality of the situation?
I didn’t deserve someone like Baz.And I’d only left Illanya as a means of self-preservation.Every day I spent with her, I felt more of myself slipping away.I was becoming someone I didn’t much like.
“But let's say you were mates,” Illanya continued.“Do you know what that means, bear?Even if you’re strong enough to withstand the curse, it means that when she dies from it, you die too.Mate bonds are reciprocal.Her pain becomes your pain.Her death becomes…”
“My death,” Baz finished.“I know.”
“And you're okay with that?”
“Yes.”
The simple certainty in his voice made everything stop.Even the butterflies froze mid-flutter.
Illanya stared at him.“You'd die for her?Why?”
He looked at me then, and something in his expression made my chest tight.“Because she's worth it.”
The curse went wild.Pain exploded through every nerve ending, and my magic responded in kind.But instead of chaos, instead of butterflies or hexes or random transformation, something else happened.
I spoke in rhyme.
“My mate speaks true, his heart laid bare,
Your hateful words may fill the air.
You think you own me, think I'm yours,
But love's not kept behind locked doors.”