to punish them for their treason against their race. That’s what our job’s all about, catching the bad guy and getting paid to do it.”
He closed the distance between them, clamping his hands tightly on her shoulders and giving her a little shake. “Our job is to stay alive to work the next target. The plan had to be changed, and as your trainer and senior Collector, I changed it. I also gave you a directive that you disobeyed.”
There were no lies in what he’d just said. Aiken was her trainer, he’d taught her everything she knew about being a Collector. He’d patiently showed her how to balance brute strength with intellect to achieve their goals and had never, not once, played the “I’m your boss” card. Until now. But this was no longer about the job. They’d surpassed that point the moment his eyes had switched to Drakon. Anger radiated from his body in thick waves of heat that attempted to speak to another part of her, a part she detested.
“You don’t control me and neither does that beast buried inside.” It was a defiant statement, one she made with pride.
“That beast is a part of you.”
How many times had he said this to her and how many times had she denied it? Apparently, not enough. “It’s not a part I claim, and you know that.”
Still, he looked at her imploringly, asking her to do something she knew she never could. “You can’t continue to hide. You have to be who you are.”
“And what if I don’t, Aiken? What happens if I continue to deny what you believe I should be? Huh? Can you tell me that?” Because she’d been doing just fine living in denial—as he liked to believe—for plenty of years before he came along.
His grip on her shoulders lessened, but he kept his hands on her, the touch a steadying force between them. “I’ve never known of a Drakon who completely denied their heritage. Who kept their dragon half locked away indefinitely. But based on what I know of the beast itself, there’ll come a time when it takes charge, when it will break free whether you want it to or not and if it happens by force, there’s no telling how much damage could be done to those around it.”
Fear circled in the center of her chest, but she wouldn’t let it win. She hadn’t when her parents left her and she wouldn’t now.
“I know you feel it, Mel.” He moved a hand up to cup the back of her neck. “You feel it inside you, reaching out, trying to claim its mate.”
Again, no lies were spoken. She had felt something easing just beneath her skin. In the hundred and ninety years she’d been alive, she’d never felt this inside her before. Or if she had, ignorance had been her bliss and she’d chalked it up as indigestion or some other ailment. She’d known her parents were preternatural, knew they’d come from the Far Realm where there were others like them, but all she’d learned of this Drakon legend had only come to her through Aiken. The guy who’d waltzed into her life just about two years ago, and who was now insisting that she change everything she thought she was.
“No!” She pulled away from him, stumbling back but still keeping eye contact. “I choose, Aiken. I choose who and what I am, not you and not any damned animal.”
He blinked fast at her words and his eyes switched back to their solid brown color. “What about me, Mel? Are you choosing me?”
The next question she wanted to scream was, why did whether she chose to be a Drakon matter to whether she loved him and wanted to be with him? Because she did want him, for the first time in her life there was someone that she liked being with, someone she’d been able to share her thoughts and dreams with. But now, she knew exactly what he was asking her. He’d asked her weeks ago and she’d wished every single night since then that he’d forget the question.
The time they’d been together had been wonderful, romantic and adventurous with them traveling all over the realm in search of their targets. Then, one day, six months into their two-year relationship, that movement beneath her skin had done something odd. It had reached for Aiken, or something like that, because he’d felt it too, and from that point on, he’d begun telling her about the