Chapter 61 Both Natures
He is on the ice when I arrive.
Not skating this time, standing in the centre of the rink with his arms loose at his sides and his eyes closed and both his natures fully at the surface, not contained, not managed, just present, and the air in the rink is warmer than it should be by at least eight degrees from the heat his dragon nature throws off, and along his forearms and climbing his neck, the scales are visible, dark and iridescent and catching the low practice lights in colours that shift as I watch.
His wolf nature radiates outward in slow steady waves, pack authority moving through the rink like something breathing, and I feel it against my witchcraft as I push through the rink door... warm and enormous and old.
He is practising holding both at once.
Without suppressing either.
He opens his eyes when he feels me through the bond and they are full silver, no grey remaining, the dragon looking out through his face, and he does not cover it or pull it back or apologise for it.
He just looks at me.
"How long have you been doing that?" I ask, walking toward the boards.
"I've been at it for about an hour," he replies. His voice carries differently when the dragon is fully present, lower, a resonance underneath it that is not entirely human.
"Does it hurt?"
"Not anymore," he says. "It did at first. The wolf wants dominance. The dragon wants dominance. Teaching them to want the same thing at the same time is..." he pauses. "Uncomfortable."
"But it's working," I point out.
He looks at his forearms, at the scales sitting steady rather than spreading or receding, both natures in the alignment they find on ice, and something moves through his silver eyes that is not quite pride but lives close to it.
"Yes," he says quietly. "It's working."
Then I go ahead and I tell him about Nox.
All of it... the gap in the corridor, the concealment dropping, the two years of watching him specifically, the communication to Elder Valecrest that buys us the forty-eight hours. I tell it standing at the boards with him in the centre of the rink and his silver eyes on me and both his natures running steady, and he listens the way he always listens, completely and without interrupting and when I finish, the silence he holds is the thinking kind.
"She has been here two years," he says slowly.
"Yes."
"In Dragon Shifter house," he says.
"Yes."
"I have seen her," he says. "In the dining hall. In corridors. I have never once looked at her twice."
"Concealment ability," I reply. "Passive. She becomes unremarkable to people around her."
Something tightens in his expression. "She heard the archive. Bram's quarters."
"Yes," I say.
"Everything?" he asks flatly.
"Everything."
He is quiet for a moment.
Then he skates to the boards and stops in front of me, close, and his silver eyes hold mine and the heat of his dragon nature reaches me across the boards, warm and specific, and I feel the bond between us bright and certain.
"Do you trust her?" he asks.
"I trust her intention tonight," I say carefully. "I trust that she genuinely wants the anchoring to happen cleanly. But I do not trust that her branch's agenda ends there."
He nods slowly. "Neither do I." A pause. "But the window is what we need."
"Exactly," I say.
He reaches across the boards and his hand finds my jaw, warm and deliberate, and tilts my face up slightly, and his silver eyes are very close and I feel both his natures in the touch, dragon heat and wolf steadiness, and the bond hums between us enormous and certain.
"Forty-eight hours," he says quietly.
"Yes," I reply in equal register.
He leans forward and presses his mouth to my forehead, warm and slow and held for three full seconds, and I close my eyes and unintentionally, my witchcraft pulses green and reads his intention and finds exactly one thing there.
Me.
Just me.
He pulls back.
"Tomorrow morning," he says. "Corvyn and Bram. Together."
"Together," I confirm.
He lets go and skates back to centre ice and both his natures settle back into their alignment and he begins moving again, fluid and powerful and at peace with himself in the one place that has always given him that, and I sit on the bench and watch him and press my warm hand flat against the cold boards.
Forty-eight hours.
The dragon pulses below and I feel it move through the ice under his skates and through the stone under my feet and I think we are both ready and I think we are both terrified and I think those two things might be exactly the same.