“Damn it!” I held her up, her head lolling on my shoulder, her body now dead weight. She was out cold.

I looked up at Fence, who sketched a shrug as best he could while in his dragon form.

“Not your fault,” I said. “In fact, I might owe you one. She never would’ve believed if she hadn’t seen you. I thought I might have to shift once I was out here, but you spared me that.”

Looking down at her again, I could only shake my head. “Stubborn lass. You aren’t going to like it when you wake up where you came from.” But she was fast. I had to give her credit for that. “Perhaps I ought to do more running.”

Hecate and Callie met me as I walked back to the bedchamber, carrying the still-unconscious Molly across my arms.

“She ran away.” Callie groaned.

“You’re quite observant.” But there was no rancor in my tone, nor in my heart. I had expected this.

She wasn’t the type to quietly accept that which she’d always believed to be patently untrue. She had a sharp mind and tended to question everything. She was bound to question me.

It just so happened that she was also bound to believe that I was out of my mind. I had frightened her.

“I could have been better about breaking the news,” I admitted as I laid her across the bed.

“I’ll get some water,” Hecate decided, hurrying out toward the kitchen.

Callie placed a hand on Molly’s forehead. It was she who truly had a gift when it came to going into the minds of others, much more so than her sister. She closed her eyes, frowning a bit. “She’s in shock.”

“I don’t doubt it. She saw Fence out there.”

“That would do it, I suppose.” When she opened Callie eyes, they were full of sympathy.

I normally would have resented her sympathy, as I did not take well to the notion of others feeling sorry for me. Now? I was a man for whom pride meant little.

The woman I had come to love had run away from me. I had nothing left to lose. “Do you think she’s going to be able to accept me? Is there anything else you can see in her thoughts?”

“I’m sorry. I’m afraid there isn’t.”

“You went into Emelie’s head when she was unconscious, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but that was different. She was injured. Remember? She’d struck her head.” When I frowned at this, she touched my arm. “Keep in mind that she came around. She was just as frightened, just as panicked, but she and Alan are quite happy together now. She only had to adjust to the notion of a dragon.”

“Only,” I snorted. “That sounds a good deal like only asking a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.”

Her laughter was gentle. “Give her a chance. If this is truly your fated mate, she will come to understand and accept what for us has always been a part of life. You must remember that this is all so new to her. She did not reject you when she ran. She rejected what she couldn’t understand. The mind is a strange and powerful thing, and when it doesn’t wish to accept something, it comes up with a myriad of reasons why it shouldn’t.”

She was a good soul. Gentle, quiet in her power. But anyone who underestimated her would be making a big mistake.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

She tilted her head to the side, her wide, luminous eyes studying me. “For what?”

“The crash. It’s been eating away at me all this time. I could have killed you.”

“But you didn’t. Anyway, it wasn’t your fault. No one could have guessed what the storm would bring. A crash nearly killed me. You did not.”

“I was driving.”

“I don’t hold you responsible. These things happen sometimes.” She touched my arm again, squeezing this time. “Let yourself rest, now. Be easy on yourself. No one blames you for what happened except for you.”

Hecate hurried in with the water then, cutting off anything I might have wished to say. There was nothing to be said, however. I couldn’t fight with Callie when it was clear she meant what she said.

I was the only one holding myself accountable for the crash. I was the only one who could let myself off the hook, so to speak.

“I can take care of this,” I said when Hecate poured a glass of water.

She did not look so certain. “Perhaps it would be better for you not to be the first person she sees when she awakens?”

“No offense intended, but you do you think you’d bring her any greater comfort?”

She winced, but clearly saw my point. “Fair enough.” She left the water on the bedside table and slid an arm around her sister’s waist. “Good luck. Just call out if you need anything.”

For a moment, I considered taking her up on that. I didn’t know if I had it in me to chase Molly again.

But would she run? I couldn’t say. Now that she knew dragons did, in fact, exist…

I sat on the edge of the bed, beside her, taking her hand between mine. It fit so perfectly against my palm, just as her mouth had fit against mine. As if we were made for each other.

“My love,” I whispered, wishing she heard me. That she would cease pushing me away. “My love. My mate. I have no more control over this than you do, Molly. I only know that I want you, that I need you, that I would do anything in my power to see to your happiness and safety all the rest of your days. Not a moment will go by in which you need ever question whether you are loved.”

She gave no indication of having heard a word I said.

Somehow, this emboldened me. Knowing I could give voice to that which was in my heart without her rejecting me out of hand loosened my tongue further. “A dragon waits his or her entire life for a fated mate. I never expected to find you here, across the ocean. I didn’t know upon noticing your campfire just what waited for me. I could have ignored it, I could have come back inside and pretended you didn’t exist. Something compelled me nonetheless. Something told me to stay with you, even when you ordered me away. I’ve never known anything like this—an instant connection, the certainty of it. Everything makes sense, even though to the outsider it wouldn’t. I’ve known you—what—less than twelve hours. But it might as well be a thousand years. You were meant for me, and I for you, and not a force in the entire world can change that. Except for you, of course. Only you. And even if you decided to reject me again and refused to change your mind, I would go on loving you. If I never saw you again, I would carry your image in my heart always. You wouldn’t leave my thoughts for a single day. Not for a solitary hour. You would haunt me the rest of my life. Och, Molly, I only wish to devote my life to you. I wish you could understand that.”

I looked down in surprise when her fingers flexed.

“I do,” she whispered.

My head snapped up.

She was opening her eyes. “I do understand.”

“How long could you hear me?”

“For a while,” she admitted. “You were saying something about waiting your entire life for your fated mate when I came to.”

I thought back, going over what I remembered saying. “That was nearly back at the beginning!”

“Was it?” She blushed, at least. “Sorry.”

“You could warn a man.”

“I said I was sorry! You were talking. I didn’t want to interrupt, okay?”

If she was fighting with me, it meant she wasn’t too frightened. I cleared my throat, momentarily at a loss but determined to get through it. “Now you know.” I watched her, waiting.

She pursed her lips, her nostrils flaring when she inhaled. “Now I know,” she finally sighed. “I can barely believe it, but I know. I wish there had been some sort of warning before it, like, landed right in front of me.”

“I did warn you,” I reminded her in as gentle a tone as possible. “I told you of our existence.”

“Okay, sure, but there’s a difference between knowing you exist and seeing one of you with your wings spread out. I mean, it’s a pretty big difference.”

“Fair enough. Though you wouldn’t have received such a shock if you hadn’t run away.”

“I didn’t know what else to do. I thought you were crazy. I thought you were gonna hurt me. I mean, what’s a guy capable of if he believes a story like the one you told?”

“Now you know. I’m capable of turning into that which you saw outside.”

“A dragon,” she whispered, eyes wide.

“A dragon,” I confirmed.

“Are you really that old?”

“A thousand years, give or take a few. All of us are.”

“And the witches really did entrust their treasure to you? Because of people like my however-many-time-great-grandfather?”

“Something close to that. We came here—the witches and I, Dallas, Isla, and Leslie—because the dragons who’ve lived here all this time found an ancient book all but buried in their collection. In the book is a series of runes which tell parts of the history which none of us have been privy to before now. They speak of the treasure, how the coven had nowhere to hide it. But something about what Hecate and the rest have deciphered has bothered me since I first heard it, and now I understand why it’s stuck in my head so.”

“What is it?” She sat up, that analytical, questioning mind of hers already moving along. All it needed was the hint of a challenge, and she was ready.

“That’s it?” I asked. “You ran from me not thirty minutes ago, and now you wish to know more about us?”

Her shoulders slumped. “Owen, I’m still trying to work this all out for myself. I know I feel what you were talking about earlier. The connection. It doesn’t make any sense when I look at it analytically. If one of my friends told me they were in love with a guy they had literally just met that night—I mean, actually in love, considering taking things much further, commitment and all that—I wouldn’t be thrilled about it. I’d warn them against it, in fact.”

“I suppose that’s understandable.”

“But now? Being on the inside of this, knowing what it feels like and how sure I was in my soul that you were the one for me—before you told me about the dragon thing—”

“You were sure in your soul?” I repeated.

Her smile was a bit shy, her cheeks turning pink. “Yes. I was. Hearing about you being a dragon shocked me. I was heartbroken. I only wanted to be with you, or at least to keep my memories of us being together even if I never got to see you again after today. Now I know you weren’t kidding. You really are a dragon.” She raised an eyebrow. “Is your dragon inside you right now?”

“Always. It’s like what I would imagine you felt when Hecate was inside your head.”

She winced. “That must be maddening.”

“It’s the way my life has always been, for many centuries.” That reminded me. “I have to speak with Pierce. He’s one of the clan who split off and came here. I need to ask him something.”

“I’m going with you. I wouldn’t miss this for anything. Just think, people who were really here all this time! The things I could learn!”

Yes. They were here all this time, which was exactly what had perturbed me so.