Thornhill Academy. Chapter 48

**Evander**

Her weight in my arms felt like the most fragile, most sacred thing I’d ever held. Her skin was still warm from the shift, flushed gold under the fading light. Her body trembled faintly against mine—exhaustion, shock, dragon fire still running under her human skin—and yet she tilted her face up to me like she wasn’t afraid. Like she trusted me. I swallowed hard. This was it. The moment I’d been trying to get to since the change rooms, since before the sparring field. My chest burned with all the words that had been clawing to get out.

“Allison…” My voice came out rough, too honest. “I knew you were my mate. My dragon knew. From the moment we found you in the forest. I didn’t want to kiss you without telling you first. Not that I didn’t want to kiss you—” I gave a small, helpless laugh. “I did. Gods, I did. But I thought you should know first. You should have the choice. You should—”

Her head lifted with the last of her energy, eyes heavy-lidded but sure. And then she cut off my words, the only way that could matter: her lips collided with mine. The world dropped out from under me. Every nerve lit like lightning. Sparks shot down my spine, across my ribs, my dragon roaring so loud in my skull I could barely hear my own heartbeat. Her taste was wild and warm, like river water and heat, and something wholly her own. It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t polite. It was a collision, a claiming, an answer I hadn’t dared hope for. My arms tightened around her automatically, holding her closer, careful of her weakness but unable to let her go. Her fingers fisted in my hair. Sparks, actual, tangible sparks, jumped between our mouths like live wire. My dragon’s voice rumbled through both of us, a deep, satisfied thunder: *Mate.*

Everything else melted away. The forest. The school. The council. The future. All that existed was this moment, her lips, my heartbeat, our dragons purring under our skins, two halves locking together.

The kiss broke on a shared breath, our foreheads leaning together, her skin still hot under my palms. My dragon purred so loud it vibrated through my ribs, whole and fireless, protective in a way that felt like a vow etched into bone. I brushed my thumbs along her jaw, steadying her even as her body trembled.

“Was that your first shift?” I asked softly.

Her eyes snapped open, wide, startled, full of something I couldn’t name. For a heartbeat, she looked like she might bolt even in her state, as if running was safer than answering me. I held her face a little firmer, but not enough to trap her, just enough to anchor her.

“Ally,” I said quietly, each word deliberate. “I am your mate. You are mine. There is nothing in this world that will change that. Nothing you could say will make me feel differently than I do right now.”

Her breath hitched. “Do you promise?” she asked, voice so small, so sceptical it speared right through me.

“I swear it,” I said without hesitation. “I promise.”

She searched my face for a long, aching moment. Then a sigh shuddered out of her, long and heavy, like something breaking.

“Evander,” she whispered, “I’m not… I’m not a shifter.”

The words hung between us, strange and sharp. I blinked at her, trying to reconcile them with what I’d just seen—bones reshaping, golden scales, wings in the sky. It didn’t make sense.

She must have seen the confusion in my face, because her voice dropped to a thread, so quiet I almost missed it. “You can’t tell anyone… I’m… I’m a siphon.”

For a second, the forest stilled. Even my dragon went silent, stunned. A siphon. She had shifted, flown, glowed like my kind, yet she was confessing to being something almost no one survived being. My hands stayed on her face anyway, thumbs still brushing her skin, my dragon still pressing his warmth into her chest through mine.

“You…” The word left my mouth before I could stop it. My mind was already stringing the flashes together—the punch that knocked me back like she’d been training for years, the impossible strength in the sparring field, the golden fire in her shift. My hands stayed on her face, steady but not trapping. “You siphoned my power,” I said slowly, like naming it might make it less impossible. “That’s how you hit me. That’s how you… shifted.”

Her breath caught. She flinched, her body drawing back a fraction, but I slid my hands down to her shoulders, pulling her gently but firmly back into the circle of my arms. “It’s okay,” I said low. “Really. It’s okay.”

Her eyes flicked to mine, wary, waiting for disgust or anger. All I let her see was certainty. “Did you take from me yesterday?” I asked quietly. “When you were injured?”

The answer was there in the way her throat worked, in the tiny tremor under my palms. She didn’t even have to speak.

“Ally…” My voice softened even more, my forehead tipping against hers again. “It’s okay. You can take from me any day, any night you need. I don’t care.” My thumb stroked a slow circle against her skin. “I just—” I exhaled, my dragon pressing its warmth against her like a promise “—I think that maybe that’s why the bond snapped into place early because you siphoned from someone who was destined to be your mate. Someone with a beast. It's normal for our beasts to be more in tune with our mates.”

Her eyes flickered, searching mine, torn between disbelief and hope. I could feel her dragon just beneath her skin now, watching me through her. My own beast purred in satisfaction at finally saying the truth out loud, at finally making sense of the impossible.

“You merged our magics,” I said softly. “You took a piece of me and my dragon inside of you.”

"You can't tell anyone... no one can know, they'll take me away."

I pulled her impossibly closer to me. The warmth of her cheek on my chest calms my dragon.

"No one will take you from me. Ever. But we will do this our way, okay? We'll keep this between us until the moonlight festival, so it doesn't draw unwanted attention."

"Okay..." She says softly. "I'll trust you." and those three words hit harder than everything else. My mate trusts me. *My mate.*