Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 9

took on a wary edge. "It's what you said," he pointed out.
    "Yes, but—"
    "Let me see that wrist."
    "Kreed—"
    "Alec, don't ask me that." He gingerly pulled Alec's shirtsleeve up away from the injury. "Please."
    "I have to." Alec leaned so his head was just touching Kreed's where he bent over the arm. "I have to know. Do you ever think about it? Mating? Me?"
    Kreed went very still. "Dragons, Alec. Dragons don't."
    Alec yanked his arm free of Kreed's grip, wincing at the pain that tore up his arm. "Then I'm not a dragon. You should go back to the dorms."
    "Alec."
    "Go."
    "Alec, listen to me."
    "No, it's fine." Alec couldn't look at him. Heat flooded into his face that had nothing to do with mating fever. "Forget it. I had to know and now I do."
    "Alec!"
    "What?"
    "What do you mean, you're not a dragon?" his nostrils flared and his cheeks flushed. "I can smell you. You're as much dragon as I am."
    "Only I do , Kreed. I think about it all the time. Not just in the spring. Every time I look at you. Or Robert. When you come in my room and cool the fever, I think, if you would just…if you would just…" He drew in a breath and pushed his heels into the dirt shoving himself back until he was leaning against a tree trunk near the center of the clearing.
    "Just what?"
    Alec studied his friend. The poor man looked terrified and fascinated, and completely lost.
    "Nothing." Heaving a sigh, Alex closed his eyes and let his head rest against rough bark. "Never mind. You don't want to know. If I say it again, it would just be awkward."
    "And Powers know, there's never been awkward between us," Kreed muttered, shuffling closer, from the sounds of movement.
    Alec rolled his head from side to side. "Not like this. You're my best friend; I want to keep it that way."
    "No you don't," Kreed replied. "You want me to mate you. That's…"
    "Not what dragons do. I know." There was no escaping the horrible sinking feeling that he'd ruined everything between them, so Alec remained as he was, eyes closed, feeling the sting of cuts and toxin sink toward marrow and the worse pain of rejection seep into his soul.
    "Alec." When Kreed touched his cheek, it wasn't with the usual chill of soothing magic.
    Alec blinked. Of course it wasn't. Because there was no magic in this place.
    "That's not something that can happen—"
    "I know. I get it."
    "Powers, you stubborn jerk, would let me finish a sentence?" His green eyes blazed with the dragon when Kreed smacked his cheek. "Just shut the hell up and let me talk."
    Alec nodded, "'Kay," and blinked, and pursed his lips.
    "You're hurt. And sick. The poison in your bloodstream is fucking with your head."
    Alec opened his mouth to protest, but Kreed placed a finger over his lips.
    "Shut it. You say you've always felt this way. I say, dragons don't come out gay. Maybe I'm wrong, because you look at me like you're looking at me now, and I'm not so sure about anything. But you are hurt, and this null grove is killing you. I can smell it. The toxin will kill you if you stay here. So right now, I have to get you back, and then you have to get better, and then…."
    "Then?" Alec asked when Kreed finally stopped.
    "Then if it really is you and not the Mating fever, it will still be there, won't it? And if it's not, we haven't fucked up our friendship. I only ask one thing."
    "What?" Alec pushed up straighter against the tree trunk "Anything."
    "Robert gets himself a new roommate."
    Alec grinned. "You know he would never."
    "I don't know it all. And I'm not taking any chances. You're mine from now until we figure this thing out. Then?" he shrugged. "We'll see."
    "Yours." Alec's grin grew wider, even as the idea sank a strange curl of trepidation through him. "You're going to go dragon on me now?"
    "Hell yes. You brought this up. Deal with it."
    In the next instant, Kreed was once again the huge, pearly blue dragon that took Alec's breath away. Alec stared up at him, terrified and fascinated and waited. Either Kreed would rip him apart, or not. There was little he could do about it now.
    Kreed cocked his head, lowered himself to peer at Alec, then lowered one giant wing flat along the ground, offering his back.
    "No way," Alec breathed.
    Kreed snorted.
    "You understand me?"
    Kreed blinked.
    "I should ride you?"
    A low, keening sound crawled up from deep in Kreed's throat and his jaws opened in a toothy leer.
    "You have a filthy mind, my friend."
    Another snort and an impatient shake of the wing, and Alec