Aster cautiously stood. “Do you want to be alone?”

“Yes.” My eyes stung, but they didn’t water. Dragons didn’t cry. I wanted so badly to curl up in my mother’s arms and bawl. “Wait-”

Aster stopped at the tent flap. “Yeah?”

“Don’t leave. Please.” My insides went cold, like the frigid winds from outside had made their way in. As my eyes stung again, I rubbed them without thinking. My hands were soft and pale, not reddish scales. I was cold because I’d transformed without thinking. I shouldn’t have done that. But I didn’t care. I had to lean against the tent pole just to stay sitting up, my legs hurt so much. 

Through a blurry waterfall of tears, I saw Aster coming back and sitting next to me. He unbuttoned his coat and pulled me close, wrapping it around me. I buried my face in his leather jacket. My whole body shook with barely-repressed sobs. He squeezed me tight. The entire world was the fur of his coat, the leather of his jacket, and his breath tickling the back of my neck. 

“You’re going to get use home safe. I know you will. I’m here for you, whatever you need.”

A whimper escaped my lips, and I wished I could’ve crawled in a hole and died. He didn’t need to see me like this. Nothing about me was instilling confidence in anyone right now. Still, I couldn’t stop crying, couldn’t focus enough to transform again. 

“I’m so sorry,” I said between sobs. 

“Don’t apologize. Whatever happens, I’m glad to be your friend.” He stroked my hair like he’d stroked my feathers before, and a fire sparked in my chest. 

It was a stupid, selfish thing to do, but I couldn’t stop myself. I’d used up all my self-control running here and putting on a brave face, but the floodgates were broken. I didn’t have it in me to stay strong. 

I kissed him. I, the freaky lizard girl, kissed Aster Castellanos, who was arguably the nicest and cutest guy I’d ever met. 

He jerked back like I’d slapped him. “You- uh you just- did you- you know, on purpose?”

I wanted to say, ‘how clumsy do you think I am?’ but the shock in his reddening cheeks poked a hole in my bravado. “Yeah. That’s the answer, by the way. You asked if I had a crush on you, and I do. But I get it. You don’t- I shouldn’t have kissed you. I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me.” I pulled away.

His arm tightened around my waist. With his free hand, he laced his fingers through my hair. “That- that’s all I needed to know.” He pressed his lips against mine. 

I melted against him, relishing the strength of his arms holding me tight and the deftness of his lips parting mine. This was the moment I’d imagined for years, and it might’ve been happening in the weirdest place, but it was even better than I’d imagined. 

His hand sparked heat down my spine, and I shivered as my inner fire roared. It was stronger than I’d expected. I threw my arms around Aster’s neck. Without my arms for stability, I had to lean on him for support. Only, he was holding onto me, so we both went down laughing. 

I swiped the tears from my eyes so I could see him clearly. His smile lit up his eyes as he looked back at me. That smile was everything to me in that moment. I kissed him again, stoking my inner flame to a bonfire. Closing my eyes, I tried to imagine I was home, fallen on the rug of my room. At any moment, Izzy or my parents could walk in and ruin it all, but that was part of the fun. It was those kinds of excitements that made life interesting. No one needed to nearly die in order to appreciate someone like Aster. But apparently in my case, I’d needed that much to get up the courage to tell him how I felt. 

I couldn’t say this was worth nearly dying, but it sure was worth a whole lot of something. I could give up my magic for this. I could stay human for this. Maybe he didn’t need to forget everything. If he could love me like this, scales and feathers and all, we could have a future together without him forgetting anything at all. We might need to lie to other people, but we would never have to lie to each other. I wanted that more than anything. I wanted him to be mine, for as long as we both should live. 

There was only one problem—I would most likely outlive him for centuries. In one human lifetime, I would be alone again, lonely trapped among humans for the rest of my life. No matter how little magic I carried with me into human form, my body would always preserve enough to revive me on the brink of death. My human body would age and die, but my magic would drag me back to life time and time again. I would be forced to live centuries alone, without Aster or anyone else I loved. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t do this, not knowing he would be gone so soon. But I couldn’t stop, either. 

Aster shuddered and pulled away. “Mars, you’re on fire.”

The concern in his voice told me he wasn’t being metaphorical. A glance at my arms confirmed that suspicion. They’d turned feathered again, each feather sporting a miniature flame. I extinguished them in an instant and banished the feathers to wherever they went when I was human. Sitting back, I realized my clothes were in singed tatters that left little to the imagination. I wished the feathers back into existence, and my clothes melted away. Even with feathers, I felt kind of naked being in a humanoid form, so I pulled my knees up to my chest and crossed my arms over them. 

Remembering the flames, I winced at Aster. “Are you okay?”

“Okay?” He sat up. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I didn’t burn you?” I found that hard to believe. Even if his jacket and would’ve protected most of him, he’d taken off his gloves, and his face was definitely uncovered. 

“No, I feel fine. Weird—in a good way—but fine.” He frowned at something over my head. “I could’ve sworn your feathers were all red before.”

I stiffened. Crossing my fingers that he wasn’t seeing what I thought he was seeing, I grabbed a handful of crest feathers and dragged them down into view. They were electric blue. Wonderful. I groaned. Maybe it was a false color change, something caused by stress. I had to know either way. 

Holding out my hand, I lit a little flame in my palm. “Touch this.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Are you trying to burn me?”

“No, I’m trying to see if you’re fireproof now. Just humor me.” 

Still looking at me like I’d gone crazy, he held his hand in the very tip of the flame for a second. Frowning, he moved his hand closer to mine. His frown deepened when he pressed his palm against mine and flames sputtered out between his fingers. 

“How long does this last?”

I winced. “If I’m right, until I die or move more than a couple miles away from you.” I couldn’t believe this was happening. Shade had told me a million times to never use magic while getting romantic with someone, but I only remembered that after the fact. So now I was basically screwed unless Aster liked being an honorary phoenix.

“I’m guessing this isn’t normal?” Aster took his hand back and inspected his palm. It was unmarked.

“Uh, yes and no. According to my teacher, this happens with most fire dragon couples, but I wasn’t exactly expecting it to happen with you, since you’re not… a dragon.” 

He glanced at my crest again. “Should I be worried?”

“Hmm. That depends. How do you feel about feathers?”

“I like them on you,” he said in a coy way, like he thought it was a trick question, “and I guess they work well on birds.”

“Yeah, that’s not exactly what I meant.” Hugging my knees, I tried to keep my tone level. “What we just did is called pair-bonding. It puts two dragons’ magic in sync, because fire dragon magic is volatile, so if we burn at different temperatures, we can hurt each other. Only, you don’t have magic, so I’m guessing it’s mostly one-way with us. And… uh, emotions affecting my magic is what made me start to transform just now, and I’m not sure what that might do with a human.”

He blinked. “You’re saying I might turn into a dragon?”

“Like I said, I’m not sure.”

Brows furrowed, he closed his eyes and massaged his temples. I could only imagine what was going through his mind right now. First, he took a chance on a freak like me, and now he might turn into a freak himself. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he ran off after Izzy and didn’t speak to me all the way back to Earth.