The candlelight flickered low in my study, the pages before me filled with underlined notes and annotations in a language not my own. Human psychology. Emotional response. Courtship rituals. All of it absurdly complex — and maddeningly vague. You creatures love contradiction.

Still, I read. I learned. For her.

My eyes were tired, the runes in the margins blurring together. I had spent hours dissecting volumes on human intimacy — not the carnal kind, but the closeness. The warmth. The strange ways humans comfort one another. Gifts. Touch. Words. Time.

I had no frame of reference. My people take. Claim. Mate. There is no slow unraveling — only the burn, the bond, the fire.

But she is not dragon. She is not fire. She is something else entirely.

I pushed the chair back, bones cracking as I rose. The halls were cold, but the thought of her — soft, warm, mine — pulled me forward.

I opened the door to our chambers quietly. Not because I needed to sneak, but because something in my chest coiled tight as I stepped inside.

And then I saw her.

The nightie. Silk. Midnight blue. The one I had picked out on a whim, unsure if it was too sheer, too soft, too human. She had never worn it before.

Heat surged. My wings twitched. My tail curled, the tip dragging along the stone floor behind me as if trying to scent the air.

I forced my jaw to stay shut. My claws itched at my sides. Her silhouette caught in the low firelight — the curve of her shoulder, the fall of her hair, the barest glimpse of skin I'd imagined but never truly allowed myself to stare at.

I inhaled sharply. Control.

But the beast inside me stirred. The part of me that had gone years without a true mate. That burned month after month in silence. That endured touch without emotion. Heat without connection.

And now — her. In that.

I stepped in fully, the door shutting behind me with a quiet thud. My voice, when I finally spoke, was rougher than I intended.

“You wore it.”

I didn't move closer. Not yet. I needed to keep the space — not for her sake, but mine. My instincts were coiled so tightly I could feel my fangs ache.

“I thought... it might be too soft for you,” I added, trying to sound casual. My chest was tight. My wings were half-raised. My pulse beat like war drums in my throat.

I watched her carefully. Every shift. Every breath.

And I waited — for a word, a look, a sign. Something to keep me from crossing that invisible line I never dared to pass without her pulling me over it.

Because right now, every part of me was screaming to claim.

But what I wanted... was for her to want me back.

Even if it killed me to wait.