Page 210 of Ashborne: Defiance

Her mouth fell open. “Nothing wrong? Nothing wrong?”

“No,” I said firmly, clawing a hand through my hair. “My problems are my problems. They have nothing to do with you.”

“You think I’m an idiot? We are mates. If there was nothing wrong with me, you’d have no reason to hide that!”

“What? No! I’m saying—”

“You’ve treated me like the enemy. You’ve cast doubt on my loyalty. You’ve made me feel so small!”

Regret and shame roiled within me. “I’m sorry.”

“Then tell me the truth!”

“I have.”

“No, you haven’t!” she hissed. “You never told me that the dragon bond was a part of us. I thought my desire for you came from Koa’s for Kham. You never told me we were tied together. You never told me I was your mate.” Her voice cracked and I wanted to weep. “Why? Why?”

I swallowed nausea, clenching my hands so I wouldn’t reach for her. “I thought if I denied the bond it would fade away. I thought if we never completed it, it wouldn’t affect us.”

“Why? What is it about me that is so abhorrent that you cannot stomach the idea of me? Why don’t you want me?!”

The words speared through me, igniting the fire that had been burning behind my navel since the moment I’d discovered her following me. There was a fierce struggle in my will—a battle of anger and grief.

Anger won. Anger always won when it came to her.

“Don’t want you?” I rasped. “Don’t want you?!” I cursed colorfully, but she didn’t even flinch as I stood over her, snarling. “Are you fucking joking?!”

72. Never

~ GRACE ~

I almost fell apart when it all became clear. I tore back to the stable, ready to abandon all of this. I’d known he rejected me. But this? A mate?

I’d thought things had improved. That he’d softened. That he cared. But, he found me so disgusting that he rejected a divine bond?

It wasn’t until I got to the stable and Koa chittered and screamed, attempting to soothe me, but losing her words in her stress, and I saw what this did to her, that my sight cleared.

He wasn’t the first man who’d fled at the idea of being close to me. But he was the first to be given such value, who rejected me so outright.

I had been humiliated. Shamed. And I would feel that for a long time. But it wasn’t just me. Now he had hurt my dragon.

I was furious.

All those early accusations that I was the one who couldn’t be trusted? That I was hiding things?

All that running away and demanding I tell him the truth? While he’d hidden this?

How dare he?

I had been tormented. Broken. Convinced I was the problem, that I wasn’t enough for anyone. When in truth, it was only that I was intended for One, and he found me lacking.

Poor Koa. I’d lashed out in anger at her first—why hadn’t she told me?

But it wasn’t fair of me, and I knew it. She’d tried. Suddenly all those conversations about the mate, all those times she showed me Kham when I asked questions about Voski, made sense. She’d been trying to parse out how her bond related to mine, and shown me in the only image she knew.

Luckily, Kham knew precisely where Voski was, and Koa flew me out there.

The moment I saw him, red-faced and gaping at me from the meadow where, weeks earlier, I’d gone looking for Koa and found him instead, my rage burned.