The announcement of it thrilled me no more than it thrilled her, but the evidence was right there in front of me.

I’d known it the moment she connected to Callie. As if a veil had lifted from in front of my eyes and I could suddenly see clearly. Everything made perfect sense for the first time since we’d crafted our shaky alliance with the coven.

She was meant to be mine.

And I didn’t want her.

I didn’t want the first thing to do with her, no matter what my dragon thought he wanted.

She is ours, he rejoiced, relieved to have finally found what he’d been waiting ages to find. She is ours. She belongs to us.

Lucky us, I thought with a bitter grimace.

She froze when I said she was my fated one, and hadn’t moved yet. I could feel the storm in her brain, as she’d described it, a torment of half-formed thoughts and fear and sensation. Like a tornado. I’d asked her about it in an effort to understand what I sensed, because I’d picked up on it immediately. The moment she’d let down her guard, everything she thought and felt and suffered was open to me.

What an unholy snarl it was.

“Did you hear me?” I asked in an effort to draw her out. “I could repeat myself, if need be.”

“No need.” Her mouth hardly moved. Her eyes had an empty, drawn look. Her face was devoid of color.

“You couldn’t sense it any more than I could, with your shield up,” I explained. “With your energy focused on that, there was no room for anything else.”

She winced. “Stop talking. Just stop talking, please. Give me a minute to make sense of it for myself without your voice going on and on.”

“Don’t take it out on me. I have no control over this.”

“Stop. Talking.” She closed her eyes, tipping into the back seat.

Yes, this was my fated mate. This witch who loved her sister enough to take on her pain, but not enough to suffer her taking the blood of a dragon if it meant removing that pain entirely and ensuring she recovered well. Anything but that.

She hated me that much. Not only me, but all of my kind. And I was supposed to welcome her into my life? I was supposed to make her part of me? What was the chance of a future with someone who hated me so deeply?

No matter how the dragon growled—in my ear, it seemed, always present and always striving to turn my attention and affection toward her—I had not the time to heed him. There were much more vital, life-or-death matters at stake.

“All right,” I breathed, more to myself than to her. She was still half-lying in the back seat, trying to gather herself. I sensed her making a few attempts to shield herself, like radio static breaking into my thoughts, but it was no use. If she wanted to keep Callie in peace, resting as comfortably as was possible given the situation, she had to focus her attention in that direction rather than in mine.

There had to be a way to keep us safe and somewhat comfortable until help arrived. This SUV certainly wouldn’t do for long. There was room in the back if we removed the luggage or moved it up to the front seat, but that would mean sharing an enclosed space with Hecate for an indefinite length of time.

Not my idea of fun. Nowhere close.

There was no going out in the storm, however. I was fairly certain the sound of falling rain would drive me mad by the time this was over. I would lose my mind, and these witches would watch it happen.

“I’ve given this some thought.”

Hecate’s announcement from behind me was almost enough to make me laugh. She’d given it thought? What was there to think about? But naturally, she’d think she had some say in what fate had set before us. She was well out of her depth, that was clear.

“You’ve thought about this?” I studied her in the mirror. Beautiful, of course. I could admit this, even if the very sight of her made me want to strangle her. Deep in thought. Thinking she was in control.

“Yes, I have, and you know it,” she whispered, eyes narrowing in what she must’ve thought was a dangerous, threatening manner.

“Pray tell. What was your conclusion?” This would be amusing, at least.

She folded her hands on her lap. Long, slim fingers ending in neat, trimmed nails. No nonsense, much like the rest of her. “There’s nothing we can do about being here together. There’s nothing we can do about this mate situation, either.”

“This mate situation.”

“Can I finish please?” she hissed. “As I was saying, there’s nothing we can do about it. Not right now, at least. I’m willing to call a truce and be as polite as possible so long as you are. I’m far too concerned with Callie to concern myself with your dragon and your traditions.”

Traditions. My blood fairly boiled. I had half a mind to get out of the car and show her a tradition or two by unleashing my dragon. She would see in short order just how fortunate she was to be breathing.

“Could you perhaps not speak so callously about us?” I muttered, still staring at her in the mirror. She met my gaze without blinking.

“I wasn’t trying to be callous.”

“You certainly did a good job of sounding as though you were.”

“This is exactly why we can’t have a truce, because everything I say is unsuitable. You’re incapable of being told you’re wrong, or that you aren’t the most powerful, wonderful creature in the universe. Perhaps a thousand years of living with no one but other dragons has narrowed your vision.”

I wrapped my hands around the steering wheel with a low, resonating growl. “Watch what you say. Fated or not, you’re pushing me to the limits of my endurance.”

“It doesn’t matter that I’m your supposed mate.”

“Not the time to remind me of that, Hecate,” I growled. Louder this time. And when our eyes met again in that mirror, she flinched—clearly and obviously. She saw something she had never seen before, because I’d concealed it from her up to this point.

I wasn’t a bully or a fiend. I had never been the type to flaunt my strength or power, or even to hint at it. She may have been correct in a way; there had never been a reason for me to flaunt anything about myself, for I’d spent the majority of my life among my clan. We all knew who we were, for we were all the same.

Now? Now that she insisted on insulting and deriding me? Now that she showed such little regard for my clan, my blood, my very nature? All bets were off, as humans liked to say.

It took several silent minutes and many deep, measured breaths before I trusted myself to respond. When I did, my voice was more the dragon’s than my own—deep, resonating, a primal snarl. “I’ll ask ye to cease speaking of me and my clan. If ye do, speak of them with respect, for they’ve walked the earth for far longer than ye, and deserve better than your nasty, disparaging tone. Do ye ken?”

She nodded without hesitation, eyes wide over tightly closed lips.

I looked out the window, up the barely visible road already littered with tree limbs and branches. A grim sight. “Good. Now, we can decide how we’re to manage this until help arrives. It shouldn’t be more than a day, I’d hope. Perhaps they’ll wait until the storm ends, then come down. We can only hope they’ll be able to get down—though a group of dragons ought to be able to manage it better than humans could.”

She offered no argument.

Had I frightened her that badly?

“Did—” she whispered before cutting herself off and looking away, out the opposite window.

“Did what?” I prompted, eyes on the road. If only the wind and rain would calm and the clouds break a bit. I’d be able to see further, to know how much farther the road wound before reaching the peak.

“Did you know you sound more Scottish when you’re angry?”

The question was so absurd, I had no choice but to laugh. “I did not.”

“You barely sounded like yourself at all. Do you make it a point to sound more modern, with less of a brogue?”

“I’ve never given it a moment’s thought, truth be told.” Our eyes met in the mirror. “You sound nothing like a Scottish lass, now that you mention it. None of you do.”

“Aye,” she said with a gentle smile. “That’s by design. Mother wished for us to fit in wherever we happened to travel, so we were instructed to use a continental dialect.”

“But you’ve never traveled, have you?”

“No. We haven’t. We didn’t know, when we were young, how things would turn out. How we would have to go into hiding.” She wrapped her arms around herself, looking out the window again. Away from me.

When she began to shiver, I jumped into action. “You’re cold. Still wet. You ought to change into dry clothes, or you might fall ill.” While I wanted nothing to do with her and she wanted less to do with me, my dragon wouldn’t allow me to shirk my duties. She was mine to protect.

“My clothes are in the other car.”

“Callie’s are here, and you two are roughly the same size. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”

She looked around. “And just where would you suggest I do this?”

Anything to be impossible. “I’ll look away, for the love of God. Don’t give yourself too much credit.”

“It’s just—with our being—you know—”

“That has nothing to do with it,” I lied. Now that I knew who she was to me, I couldn’t help but look at her through different eyes. The idea was there, and it had already begun to sprout roots which dug deep into my consciousness.

“I was only concerned, is all.”

“I said, I’ll look away. Stop being impossible.”

My dragon also needed to stop being impossible, as he cajoled me to take advantage of this situation. All he cared about was sealing the bond with our mate and furthering the bloodline. Nothing more.

Certainly, he cared nothing for her feelings on the matter. Dragons understood nothing of sensibility. They took, they dominated, they ruled their world. What did they care for feelings and respect and tenderness? Survival was all that mattered, just as it was all that mattered for any animal.

With a mighty sigh, she turned in her seat and leaned over into the cargo area to fetch the suitcases. “Do you want something from your bag?”

I was very nearly touched that she would even offer. “I’ll wait until you’re finished changing. Besides, I need to go out there and see if there’s any hope of shelter beyond the car. No sense in getting wet all over again.”

“You’re going out there?” she asked, incredulous.

I looked in the mirror and found her backside sticking up as she strained to reach the bags. Something stirred in my core, and I averted my gaze, but it was too late. Lucky for me she was unaware. “Aye. I must.” Anything to get out of that car and away from her.

Perhaps a walk through a cold, driving rain was just what I needed.