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Chapter 10

Augustine

A ugustine didn’t go back to his father for advice. He didn’t scour his library or the bookshop for yet more books on incubi. He didn’t even scry for answers magically—the last resort of a truly desperate man, since scrying was about as reliable as crossing one’s fingers.

Because as much as Augustine was desperate for answers, he knew there was only one.

So he sat in the small antechamber that faced the ocean, looking out the magically camouflaged window. It was enormous—big enough for him to fit inside in his full draconic form, but also spelled so that no one on the outside could see it unless they knew precisely where it was.

They were facing the wrong way to properly see the sunrise, but it was beautiful nonetheless, watching hints of gray, then blue, lavender, rose, and finally gold creep into the view. The ocean crashing against the rocks below, curling forward and forward and forward, only knowing to go in one direction, dashing itself against the rocks in the attempt to continue its momentum.

Rather like him, he supposed. So determined to go down his path that he simply kept bashing himself against the same obstacle over and over, never realizing that he’d reached the end. There was no way to continue, nowhere for him to go.

It was over.

For centuries after his mother’s death, Augustine had worked to convince himself that he wouldn’t have a mate. So many dragon mates were humans, or near-humans like witches and werewolves and such. At first, he simply couldn’t imagine himself being able to love one of the monsters who had taken his mother away. Then as time passed, he thought perhaps he was no longer able to interact with them, too blunt and cold and irritable, more like a hammer instead of a person.

Perhaps that was still true. He would never know.

Nothing had truly changed, had it? There was one person he now wanted to interact with, and they didn’t want to interact with him.

All the fine food and conversation and research hadn’t helped. Declan was no more interested in knowing him than when he’d brought him home.

Home, to the nest he now realized he had made for Declan. Every object inside chosen with him in mind, as though some part of August had already known him. Known what things would make his soul sing and his heart pound. He supposed it explained the room of monitors and wires and other “computer” bits he’d started collecting some years earlier, despite knowing that he would never have any interest in the items. He didn’t even have electricity arranged to make then work, though he had a spell that would fix it easily enough.

That room had been one of the few things that had captured Declan’s attention entirely, fingers curling and uncurling in the so familiar urge to reach out and touch. His eyes had roamed the mess of tangled things hungrily, and he’d even taken half a step inside, breathed out, “Is that seriously a brand new?—”

But then he’d cut off. Shut down. Turned away.

Gone back to his room and pretended disinterest.

And that was it.

Declan would never want August. Want his home, his hoard, his company.

There was no reason to ask more advice.

It was over.

Augustine had lived centuries without a mate. He had always thought that when he found someone that loneliness would be over, at least for a while. For as long as his mate lived.

Irony of ironies, Declan would live many centuries—perhaps even as many as Augustine himself.

But August was still alone. Would always be alone.

As the waves danced under the fully risen sun, gulls soaring overhead and clouds floating past, Augustine steeled himself for what was to come. It was no different from the many years he had already lived, was it?

Except that now he knew. There was little to hope for or look forward to. No possibility of a mate in the future.

He stood and went into the main room of the cave system. Part of him wanted to keep pretending, go to the kitchen and make Declan food, eat with him, try hopelessly to make small talk while his mate scowled at him and then glared at his food while assuring August that it was delicious. Telling him that he loved sablefish while trying to set it on fire with the power of his glare.

Instead, he went to the extra bedroom and knocked.

“Mmm,” came the answer a moment later, and Augustine took it as permission to enter. Rude, perhaps, but he wasn’t much in the mood for real manners.

Declan was sitting up in bed, apparently already awake. He looked better than the day before. His skin pink, the hollows of his cheeks fuller, and his eyes more present in the moment.

That was good. Augustine wouldn’t want him to get lost and injured. Just because he didn’t want August, that was no reason for him to be hurt. It wasn’t as though anyone else wanted Augustine, either. Why should his mate be punished for being exactly like the rest of humanity and human-adjacent creatures?

“It’s time to go,” he told him. “You can take the clothes if you like.”

Declan looked at him in confusion for a moment, glancing down at the clothes he was wearing. More of Augustine’s sweatpants, the kind he wore when he sometimes ran along the beach below early in the morning. Finally, he looked up at August again, confused wrinkles forming between his brows. “Go where?”

Augustine sighed. He really didn’t want to have a conversation about it. Didn’t want to explain the whole pathetic mess, and how sorry he was he’d ever laid eyes on Declan, let alone brought him home, hurting both of them with his attempt to integrate his mate into his life.

So pathetic.

He shook his head, sighing, and marched over to the bedside, hefting Declan into a princess carry and heading back to the front of the lair. He dropped the shield with his magic, and leapt out as he shifted.

Declan yelped, clinging tight to his neck as they flew together over the ocean, turning after a second to head down the beach.

Declan’s clothes were still there, in a pile, next to the abandoned old pier, so it seemed as good a spot as any. The sooner he could get it over with, the better.

Maybe eventually the scar from his heart being ripped out and stomped on would heal, and he was ready for it to start. The longer he had to look into those beautiful eyes, wide and confused and questioning, the longer he had to think about them.

It was ridiculous to assume he would ever stop, but at least for now, he would try to convince himself. Someday. Someday he would look back on this and think himself ridiculous for ever wanting a mate. He was better off alone, just as he’d been for centuries.

Maybe he would abandon this ridiculous lair, made for a mate who didn’t want him, and start over. Leave the Poisonwood Forest entirely, find a new lair in a different country, where no one looked like Declan, or spoke his language, or bit his lip in that infuriatingly cute way.

He set his mate down for the last time with a flourish, shifting back into his two-legged form, motioning to the discarded clothing. “You can change into those if you wish. Or not.” He waved at the clothing Declan was wearing. “Keep those.”

And then, bracing his spine for the pain that was to come, he turned and walked away.