I scrubbed my hands over my face and sighed heavily. “I guess so.” Even to my ears, I sounded more defeated than hopeful.
“How does he make you feel? Does he make you happy?”
“He does. He really does. Do you think there might be a chance? I don’t see how, but do you see a possibility?”
She smiled at me. “There’s always hope, dear.
Always.”
“He’s gonna be king, though. How can a man be king if his mate can’t bear him children? Doesn’t that make things sort of pointless? The best I could hope for would be becoming his side piece or something.”
“Don’t say that. I’ll die before I allow you to become some nobleman’s mistress. And you are really hung up on this heir thing. It’s all you seem to be able to talk about.”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “It’s kind of a big thing. Even when I was a kid, it was talked about. Wolves don’t even have a king, but even the high-ranking families wanted to make sure they had an heir.”
“Anyone worth their salt won’t care about. I’ve wanted much more for you since your exile, Elle. All these years I’d hoped you’d find something that would light a fire within you. I wanted you to find someone you could love. If that ends up being a dragon? A prince, no less? Then, who the hell cares? I’ve seen the kind of man Aurelius is, and I don’t think he’d care either. Not in the end. There’s something connecting you two. I can see it, and no matter what either of you thinks you want or need, you’ll come back around to each other.”
I huffed a laugh. “What, are you a psychic now?”
“No. I can simply see the writing on the wall.” She leveled a stern gaze at me. “There’s more too, isn’t there? The kid thing isn’t all you’re worried about. To me, it sounds like a crutch. What’s the real issue?” She patted my knee. “I’m not your mom, but I still get that motherly intuition. Spit it out.”
I shook my head. How could she read my mind so easily? Maybe she was psychic.
“There’s all this stuff going on. With my brother and my family. It’s a bit pointless to pursue anything deeper if we’re all going to end up dead soon anyway.”
Delphine made a sound halfway between a sigh and moan, and put an arm around me. “Elle, you aren’t the type to live in fear. You never have been. This situation shouldn’t change that. Life is life. Whether you get seventy years, seven hundred years, or seven days, you have to live it. Don’t let that asshole brother of yours change that.”
She had a way of cutting through my bullshit and seeing the truth of it. She was right. There were bigger things than worry or fear. Was I really letting the terror of my spoiled brat little brother cause me to hesitate with a man I was falling in love with? What would I have said if someone told me this six months ago? I’d have called them crazy. All my life, I’d yearned for love. For someone to take care of and to take care of me. It felt like I’d found that with Aurelius. Was I really going to turn my back on it for something so stupid as fear of the unknown?
I was scared, though. What if I confessed my emotions to Aurelius and he rebuked me? The chance was there, however small I thought it might be. Yet, how could I go on living if I never took that chance? I didn’t want to be an old woman, all alone, wondering what might have been. Being vulnerable was the last step. The last doorway of fear I needed to push through.
“I need to go.”
Delphine gave me a knowing smile and rubbed my back. There was no blood between us-we were not related-but deep down, in my heart of hearts, this was the mother I’d always yearned for. Hoped for. The mother who’d taken care of me and loved me even when my own had disowned me. Unconditional love. That was what a mother gave, and it’s what Delphine had shown me all my life.
Delphine nodded. “I think that’s a good?-“
I yanked her into a tight hug, cutting her words off.
“I love you, Delphine,” I whispered.
She was silent for a few seconds, but squeezed me back. “I love you too, little girl.”
When I finally released her, Delphine’s eyes were red-rimmed and wet. She laughed and wiped at them with one hand as she waved at the door with the other.
“Go on. Do what you need to do.”
Swallowing hard, I wiped my own eyes. “I’m still scared, though,” I whispered, as if my own vocal cords were terrified of the idea of putting myself out there like this.
Delphine cupped my cheek and stared deeply into my eyes. “It can be scary, yes, but isn’t it scarier to go through life wondering what might have been?”
She was right. I had to tell Aurelius how I felt. There was no real way to know if he had the same feelings, but I had to give it a shot, otherwise I’d always regret it.
“Okay, I’m gonna go find him,” I said as I stood, my heart fluttering in my chest like a panicked bird.
“You do that,” Delphine said.
I nearly ran for the door, my feet moving as fast as I could get them to go. It was as though my limbs had a mind of their own and were dragging me toward Aurelius before I could try to back out of confessing my feelings for him.
The halls were still crowded with people, or as crowded as the castle could be at the time. Around every corner, I hoped to spot Aurelius and that mane of strawberry-blond hair. Hoping to perhaps still find him outside talking to his father, I hurried to the stairs that would lead me down to the first floor.
As I grabbed the marble newel post, and slung myself around, I came crashing into a massive wall of muscle. Aurelius’s strong hands grabbed me, steadying me before I could fall over.
“Oh shit,” I gasped, staggering and righting myself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there.”
“It’s okay.” He was gazing at me in a way he never had before. There was an openness in his face, as though some great burden he’d been carrying ever since I met him-maybe before I met him-had been lifted.
“I was, uh, actually coming to find you,” I said.
“And I was coming to find you. I guess we found each other.”
There seemed to be a hidden meaning in his words. A pleasant tension built between us. A few stragglers moved up and down the stairs around us, but they might as well have been on a wholly separate world, millions of miles away. For a few seconds, only Aurelius and I mattered.
“Elle, I need to tell you something,” he said, his voice low, deep and rumbling, but gentle.
“Me too,” I said, placing my hand on his chest. His warmth radiated out of him, almost like he was filled with dragon fire.
Aurelius finally tore his eyes from mine and glanced around. “Can we go somewhere a little more private? Is that okay?”
I nodded, my head bouncing crazily as the exhilaration of what I was about to say nearly overwhelmed me. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s fine.”
Grinning, he took my hand and led me to his room. I trembled with excitement as he threw the door open and pulled me inside.
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