It’s only fair that I get to spend time alone with her,” Kyran said, swirling the vodka in his glass as he stared Titus down.

“That’s never going to happen, my friend,” Titus said, his voice tight.

“Perhaps we should ask her what will and won’t happen,” Kyran said as Desdemona walked through the room toward the exit. “What do you think, Desdemona?”

She looked up at them as if she were seeing them both for the first time, her eyes wide and staring. She held a champagne flute in her hand and Titus could smell that the alcohol was having an effect on her.

“What do I think about what?” she asked in a slightly slurred voice.

“Do you think it’s fair that we spend time together? After all, it was me that you chose all those years ago.”

“She is not your mate, Kyran,” Titus growled.

“I don’t know if I want to spend any time with anyone,” she said.

“That would be history repeating itself, wouldn’t it?” Kyran said, his lips curling back over his white teeth, showing the fangs that grew from his canines.

“I’d like to go home if that’s possible,” Desdemona said, staring at Titus.

He wasn’t going to let her stand there in this situation any longer. Kyran was a cad who would do anything to prove himself better than Titus. Now that Titus was Alpha of the Silverdrake clan, and Kyran was still the second to his brother Jerith, their competition was greater than it ever had been before. Titus knew that Kyran would stop at nothing to prove his superiority, even using Desdemona’s confusion to do it.

“Of course,” Titus said, stepping around the couch away from the glaring eyes of Kyran Blackrose.

He slid his arm through hers and escorted her toward the door. She set her empty flute on the side table, and he helped her out into the hallway, and down the hall to the elevator that they took to the ground floor. They walked out the private exit of the Superdome and found the town car was waiting for them. When they climbed inside, Desdemona was silent and distant, looking out on the streetlights dotted in the darkness.

“I apologize that you had to see that,” Titus said.

“There’s nothing to apologize for. Kyran was in my life two thousand years ago. I do remember that much. He loved me and gave me his rose, before you did.”

“You didn’t understand then and you don’t understand now,” Titus said, immediately regretting speaking harshly to her.

“Then explain it,” she said haughtily.

“I have only ever wanted to protect you. You have no idea,” he said.

“Then enlighten me,” she said.

He knew she grew tired of the games and the secretiveness. The truth was that Titus wasn’t sure if he could bring himself to tell her. Maybe it was best if she didn’t know. He knew he had no way around any of this. The clan expected him to produce an heir as soon as possible, and he had yet to claim his mate.

With Kyran entering the picture, there was now a question as to whether she would even belong to him in the end. He felt his control slipping away. He was Alpha of the Silverdrake clan. He couldn’t run and hide from the past any longer.

His old wounds still festered deep in his gut. The sight of Kyran’s eyes looking at Desdemona had stirred something violent and dark inside him. He wanted to hurt Kyran, but part of him also wanted to hurt her, to push her away. As much as he longed to protect her and to finally feel the young supple curves of her body in his arms. Even an immortal as old as Titus could be hurt by the flippant disregard of a young woman like Desdemona. As much as he hated to admit it, she held his quivering heart in her hands.

He let go of her face and turned away, looking out the window at the city streets as they drove by.

“I have always tried to do what is right for you, even when you didn’t want me to.”

“Why do you get to decide what’s right for me?”

“You were a child. Much like you are now.”

“I’m a child and yet I’m expected to bear your young and be your wife. Doesn’t seem quite right does it?”

“I understand why you see it that way. Believe me, I do.”

They pulled up in front of the skyscraper and the driver opened the door for them. They climbed out onto the street and Desdemona was cold and quiet toward him. They walked through the entryway of his skyscraper and took the elevator up to the penthouse, the silence between them hanging like a heavy cloud. They reached her bedroom door. She grasped the doorknob, ready to disappear inside.

“You really want to know what happened?” he asked as she was about to close her door behind her.

She stopped and opened the door again, looking up into his face.

“Tell me,” she said, stepping back from the door, inviting him inside.

He stepped into her room and crossed to the seating area beside the fireplace where he took a seat and waited for her to join him. She sat across from him in an overstuffed armchair and looked up at him with expectant, tired eyes. He knew that she was drunk and overwhelmed. The thought of telling her about the past made his heart slam in his chest. He wished he knew the words to explain it in a way she could hear.

“Before the veil, when you came to the temple for the first time, you were seventeen years old. A child, not much younger than you are today. In those times, before the veil, even amid the violence of the immortal war, immortal mating often took centuries. There was far less of a rush to reproduce. Even with the deaths of so many immortals, the population was healthy. The birth goddesses fulfilled their roles, producing children every ten to twelve months for hundreds of years.”

“Birth goddesses?”

“They were the immortal women who chose that role. Breeding so intensely freed up the other witches from the duty and allowed them to study and practice their magic. Back then, a witch would study at the temple for centuries before taking a mate. There was no reason to do it sooner.”

“What does this have to do with us, Titus?” she asked wearily.

“When you came to the temple you were seventeen. We met that first year when I came to visit my brother Orion and his wife Lucia. The two of them were married for a thousand years and only produced five children. That was what was common for most immortal couples back then. That first time we met, there was an instant attraction between us. Both of us knew it. You were far more vocal about it. I did share your feelings and tried to tell you that.”

“Tried to tell me what?”

“I tried to tell you that I cared for you. But you didn’t believe me. Desdemona, you are an extremely powerful witch, but you lack the mind-reading skill Lucia has. You could never tell what was in my heart.”

“What was in your heart?”

“From the first moment I laid eyes on you, I wanted you as much as you wanted me.”

“That isn’t the way I remember it. From the memories I have, foggy as they are, I remember being like a little puppy, following around the man who gave me no attention in return.”

“I suppose you would remember it that way. That’s how you always assumed it was.”

“And I was wrong?”

“You could not have been more wrong, my dear. Your music could sing down the birds from the trees, but your insight into the hearts of men needs work.”

“So if I was so wrong, why didn’t you tell me?”

Titus sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes closed. When he opened them again he took a deep breath and let it out, preparing himself to tell her the truth.

“You were a seventeen-year-old girl in love with a three-thousand-year-old dragon. You wanted to become my mate. You also wanted to become a birthing goddess, giving birth to my children every year for hundreds of years. You wanted to start at seventeen, without your full training at the temple. And as much I wanted to, and wanted to give you whatever you desired, I could not place you in that position. I knew it would not be good for you. You would lose the opportunity to manifest your greatest potential. You needed time.”

“So, you were trying to protect me from what I wanted because you thought I was too immature to do it?”

“I wouldn’t put it that way, but yes.”

“Why didn’t you think I could do it?”

“Because no seventeen-year-old girl could do that. You had no idea the kind of strength it took to perform that duty.”

“You didn’t think I was strong enough to be a birthing goddess?”

“Desdemona, your talent is music. You should have focused on your studies for at least a few hundred years. Your desire for me clouded your judgment. I think you thought I would be impressed or honored with your dedication to me and my legacy. But you never understood that I was just as dedicated to your legacy as you were to mine.”

“What about the rose? Where does Kyran fit into this?”

“There was a ritual of the temple and after the ritual, we were intimate. I stopped before things went too far, but I kissed you. After that, you were convinced that we would mate and I would make you a birthing goddess. I couldn’t do it, so I pulled away. I was giving you space to think about your future, and what you really wanted. But by the time I came back to the temple, Kyran had already agreed to make you his birthing goddess. He’d given you a rose, and the two of you were about to be mated. I had to stop you. I had to tell you how I felt. I had never been able to do it before and when I finally tried, he got in between us. I didn’t believe that he truly loved you, and I wanted to protect you from that as well.”

“I don’t want to hear any more,” she said.

Titus could see the realization sweeping over her face and the pain that it caused her. Perhaps now, after so many thousands of years of reincarnating, dying, and being born again, Desdemona would be able to reflect more deeply. As much as he wanted to see her grow and mature, he hated to see the pain in her face.