A dragon shifter novel Chapter 48

The Truth Will Set You Free

Evander

Her weight in my arms feels like the most fragile, most sacred thing I have ever held. Her skin is still warm from the shift, flushed gold under the fading light. Her body trembles faintly against mine, exhaustion and shock–still running beneath her human skin, and yet she tilts her face up to me as if she is not afraid… She looks at me like she trusts me. I swallow hard. This is it. The moment I have been trying to get to since the change rooms, since before the

sparring field. My chest burns with all the words that have been slawing to get out. “Allison…” My voice comes out rough and honest. “I knew you were my mate. My dragon knew. From the moment we found you in the forest. didn’t want to kiss you without telling you first. It’s not that I didn’t want to kiss you-” I give a small, helpless laugh. “I did. Fuck, I did, but I thought you should know first. You should have the choice. You should-” Her head lifts with the last of her energy, eyes heavy–lidded but sure. Then she cuts off my words as her lips collide with mine. The world drops out from under me. Every nerve in my body feels like lightning. Sparks shoot down my spine, across my ribs, my dragon roaring so loud in my skull I can barely hear my own heartbeat. Her taste is wild and warm, like river water and heat, and something wholly her own. It is not gentle. It is not polite. It is a collisionr, a claiming, an answer I had not dared hope for. My arms tighten around her automatically, holding her closer, careful of her weakness but unable to let her go. Her fingers fist in my hair. Sparks, actual, tangible sparks, jump between our mouths like live wire. My dragon’s voice rumbles through both of us, a deep, satisfied thunder. Mate. Everything else melts away. The forest. The school. The council. The future. All that exists is this moment, her lips, my heartbeat, our dragons purring under

our skins, two halves locking together.

The kiss breaks on a shared breath, our foreheads leaning together, her skin still hot under my palms. My dragon purrs so loud it vibrates through me. I feel a surge of protectiveness towards her as I brush my thumbs along her jaw, steadying her even as her body trembles. “Was that your first shift?” I ask softly. Her eyes snap open, wide, startled, full of something I cannot name. For a heartbeat, she looks like she might bolt even in her state, as if running is safer than answering me. I hold her face a little firmer, but not enough to trap her, just enough to anchor her. “Ally,” I say quietly, each word deliberate. “I am

your mate. You are mine. There is nothing in this world that will change that. Nothing you could say will make me feel differently than I do right now.” Her breath hitches. “Do you promise?” she asks, voice so small, so sceptical it spears right through me. “I swear it,” I say without hesitation. “I promise.” She

searches my face for a long, aching moment. Then a sigh shudders out of her, long and heavy, like something breaking. “Evander,” she whispers, “I’m not… I’m not a shifter.” The words hang between us. I blink at her, trying to reconcile them with what I have just seen, bones reshaping, golden scales, wings in the sky. It does not make sense. She must see the confusion in my face, because her voice drops to a thread, so quiet I almost miss it. “You can’t tell anyone… I’m… I’m a siphon.” For a second, the forest stills. Even my dragon goes silent, stunned. A siphon… She has shifted, flown, glowed like my kind, yet she is confessing to being something almost no one survives being. My hands stay on her face anyway, thumbs still brushing her skin, my dragon still

pressing his warmth into her chest through mine.

“You…” The word leaves my mouth before I can stop it. My mind is already stringing the flashes together: the punch that knocks me back like she has been training for years, the impossible strength in the sparring field, the golden fire in her shift. My hands stay on her face, steady but not trapping. “You siphoned my power,” I say slowly, like naming it might make it less impossible. “That’s how you hit me. That’s how you… shifted:” Her breath catches, and she flinches, her body drawing back a fraction, but I slide my hands down to her shoulders, pulling her gently but firmly back into the circle of my arms “It’s okay,” I say low. “Really. It’s okay.” Her eyes flick to mine, wary, waiting for disgust of anger. All I let her see is certainty. “Did you take from me yesterday?” I ask quietly. “When you were injured?” The answer is there in the way her throat works, in the tiny tremor under my palms. She does not have to tell me. “Ally…” My voice softens even more, my forehead tipping against hers again. “It’s okay. You can take from me any day, any night you need. I don’t care.” My thumb strokes a slow circle against her skin. “I just—” I exhale, my dragon pressing its warmth against her like promise *—I think that maybe that’s why the bond snapped into place early, because you siphoned from someone who is destined to be your state, someone with a beast. It’s normal for our beasts to be more in tune with our mates.” Her eyes flicker, searching mine, torn between disbelief and hope. I can feel her dragon just

beneath her skin now, watching me through her. My own beast purrs in satisfaction at finally saying the truth out loud, at finally making sense of the

impossible. “You merged our magics,” I say softly. “You took a piece of me and my dragon inside of you.”

“You can’t tell anyone… no one can know, they’ll take me away.” She whispers quickly. I pull her impossibly closer to me. The warmth of her cheek on my

chest calms my dragon. “No one will take you from me. Ever. But we will do this our way, okay? We’ll keep our bond between us until the Moonlight

Festival, so it doesn’t draw unwanted attention.”

“Okay…” she says softly. “I’ll trust you.” Those three words hit harder than everything else. My mate trusts me–my mate.

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