CHAPTER 122: CHAPTER 122 (BONUS CHAPTER)

He stepped closer, though he didn’t touch her yet. "But you’re not my little sister, Jessica. You never really were. And I’m sorry it took me seventy days in a dungeon fighting for my life to realize that the thought of dying without telling you the truth was worse than any monster I faced."

Jessica turned slowly, and Satou could see tears streaming down her face. "But... but Lyra. You and Lyra are together. I saw you that morning. I heard you talking about going on a date. I saw how she looked at you, how you looked at her. I’m not going to—I can’t—I won’t try to come between—"

"Lyra knows," Satou said gently. "I just talked to her. I told her everything about our conversation before I left. About your feelings. About my confusion. About all of it."

"And she... what? She told you she doesn’t love you anymore?" Jessica looked simultaneously hopeful and horrified at the thought.

"No," Satou said. "She told me I was a dummy for not acknowledging my feelings for you. She told me that love isn’t finite, that I can love both of you. She gave me permission—no, more than permission. She actively encouraged me to be honest with you about what I feel."

Jessica’s legs seemed to give out. She sat down hard on one of the healing beds, staring at Satou with wide eyes.

"I don’t understand," she said. "Why would Lyra do that? Why would she share you? Most women would never—"

"Because Lyra is extraordinary," Satou said, sitting on the bed across from Jessica. "Because she cares about my happiness more than possessive jealousy. Because she trusts me, trusts you, and trusts that what I have with her is strong enough to include you without diminishing it."

He leaned forward, his glowing eyes meeting Jessica’s tear-filled ones.

"She made one thing clear though—she’s my first wife. What we have came first, and that gives her a certain priority. If you... if we... if this becomes something, you need to understand that. You’d be coming into something that already exists, adding to it rather than replacing anything."

"First wife," Jessica repeated, the words seeming to sink in. "That means..."

"It means I’m asking you if you want this," Satou said. "If you want to be part of something unconventional."

"But what about you?" Jessica asked, her voice small. "What do you want, Satou? Not what Lyra said is okay. Not what I want. What do you want?"

Satou stood and crossed the distance between them. He knelt in front of Jessica, taking her hands in his larger, clawed ones.

"I want to stop lying to myself," he said. "I want to acknowledge that when I see you smile, something in my chest gets warm. I want to admit that when you’re in danger, I react with more than just a leader’s concern. I want to stop pretending that the thought of you being with someone else doesn’t bother me."

Jessica’s breath hitched, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks.

"I want to take you on a date," Satou continued. "Like I did with Lyra. I want to spend time with you not as your chief or your big brother, but as someone who’s interested in you as a woman, as a person, as someone I care about deeply."

"But?" Jessica prompted, because she could hear there was more.

"But I need to be honest," Satou said. "What I have with Lyra is different from what I have with you. Not better or worse, just different. I connected with her first. We built something together before you and I had this conversation. That relationship has a foundation that yours and mine will need to build from scratch."

He squeezed her hands gently. "I can’t promise perfect balance. I can’t promise there won’t be awkward moments or hurt feelings or times when you feel like you’re getting less attention. This is all new territory for me. I’m going to make mistakes."

"But you want to try?" Jessica asked, her voice hopeful and terrified in equal measure.

"I want to try," Satou confirmed. "If you do. If you can accept being second—not in my affections, but in chronology. If you can accept sharing me with Lyra. If you can accept that this is going to be complicated and messy and nothing like the romantic stories humans tell."

She pulled one hand free and reached up to touch Satou’s face, her fingers tracing the iridescent scales along his cheek. "And now the person I love has returned from a legendary dungeon looking like a dragon had a child with the void itself, and he’s telling me that his first wife has given permission for me to be his second wife. Complicated? That doesn’t even begin to cover it."

"So is that a yes?" Satou asked, a smile tugging at his lips despite the serious conversation.

Jessica’s expression became more serious. "I need to ask you something first, and I need you to be completely honest."

"Anything."

"Do you love me?" Jessica asked. "Not just have feelings for me. Not just care about me. Do you love me the way you love Lyra?"

Satou took a moment to really examine his heart. He thought about how he felt when Jessica smiled. How her determination to master healing magic impressed him. How her gentle kindness toward patients made him respect her. How the thought of losing her had haunted him through the dungeon.

"Yes," he said finally. "I do. It’s a different kind of love than what I have with Lyra—newer, less tested, still finding its shape. But it’s real. It’s not just attraction or affection or protective instinct. It’s love."

Jessica’s face crumpled, and she threw her arms around Satou’s neck, sobbing into his shoulder. But these were tears of joy, of relief, of finally having feelings that had been eating at her acknowledged and returned.

Satou held her, careful of his claws, letting her cry out all the anxiety and fear and hope she’d been carrying.

"I love you too," Jessica said between sobs. "I love you so much and I was so scared you were going to die in that dungeon without ever knowing. I was so scared I’d lost my chance by confessing too early, by making things awkward, by—"