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Lux threw his shoulder back, clenching his flesh and metal fists before relaxing them. He found Jay’s limp hand with his and gripped it as if desperate for strength. “I need to start from the beginning.” Lux pulled a glass of water off a side table with a straw and made sure Jay drank while he gathered his thoughts. “You know about my fall out with Leberecht, the Air King, um, my dad?”
“I know what the rumors said.” I picked up Jay’s other hand, and she squeezed me too. “That King Leberecht kept you hiddenaway, but you rebelled and showed the world your deformities and ran.”
Prince Lux swallowed hard, and his grip around Jay’s hand shook.
I leaned over Jay to put my hand over the air prince’s. He put his prosthetic over mine. Tension filled the air between us. Challenge blazed in his gaze. Would I pull away? Comment? I remember how close he and Jay had been during our game night.
I didn’t pull away.
The prince met my gaze. “They’re not deformities.”
I released Jay to hold his metal hand between both of mine. “I know.”
Every muscle in his body relaxed, and he pulled out of my grip.
“It wasn’t just my dad who kept me out of the public eye. It was everyone here.” His gaze filled with crackles of electricity. He took off his prosthetic and pushed his smooth stump toward me. “Because of this. Because we’ve isolated ourselves, our magic and our genetics suffer for it. There’s nothing natural about the defects cursing our race. Instead of fixing ourselves, we’ve brought humans to throw a bandage on the problem.”
I nodded, gripping Jay’s hand and bringing her arm into my lap to let her know she had my support no matter how Lux’s rant turned out.
“The air dragons believe they are better than everyone. Despite the deformities, we keep trying, we only use humans as a last resort. We keep failing. After my mom…” Lux trailed off. “Leberecht tried. He took so many human lovers, but none of them gave him the whole kid he craved. I’m it.”
I glanced down at Jay, who stared at Lux, soaking in his every word.
“Leberecht hates me because he can’t toss me aside.” He gestured to himself. “His mate died giving birth to a broken dragon. Leberecht both hates me and can’t bear to be away from me because I’m all he has left.”
My insides twisted. I didn’t know how to respond. Having been brought up by a community who didn’t rely on single parents I struggled to relate. But I knew pain when I saw it.
“You’re not broken,” I stated.
An inner strength hardened Lux’s gaze. “I’m not.”
I licked my lips. “Two dragon parents. You have more power, right?”
Lux paused to eye me, a small smile tugging at his lips. “Yea, it seems to be the case.”
I grinned. “You sound gifted to me, and no one needs two feet these days.”
Lux rocked his head from side to side.
We lapsed into a soft silence.
Jay’s fingers wiggled in mine. I rubbed her palm before running my hand down her arm to rest it on her stomach. How was she responding to all this information? What had her family been like? Her childhood? Did she even remember it if she was a thousand years old?
Lux rested his good hand on her hip. “I love the feel of her. I spent so much time alone.” He smiled. “I enjoyed working with the kids, but everyone at the temple was either young or grown-ass older dragon women. It was just isolation in a different way.”
A soft smile pulled at his lips, despite the single tear running down his cheek. Until this moment, I’d been doing my best to remain as aloof as possible. I still hadn’t heard Jay’s side of this story… but she was so calm and Lux wasn’t a stranger. Not anymore.
“God, I understand loneliness too well.” I slid further onto the bed and pulled the air prince into my chest over Jay. Insteadof pulling back, he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me tight.
“I barely know you; you’ve not said two words while I’ve spewed my feelings like one of my students,” Lux said into my bare chest. “But you’ve let me talk. You didn’t pull back from my hand, and you’ve not once judged me.”
I rubbed his back. “I have judged you. I called you powerful.”
He snorted, and I felt a hot tear fall onto my chest.
“I would give anything to be as friendly with Jay as you were last night,” I added. “Earth dragons aren’t very demonstrative. My power earned me respect instead of love from a young age. I never got the chance to connect.”
“Jay thought I was another woman.” Lux pulled out of my arms and rubbed his cheeks, erasing his tears, before looking at them as if surprised they weren’t dirty. “I don’t know either. If we’re both mates with Jay, are we mates as well, then?”
