He touched my face gently. “I guess we’ll find out when it happens. For now I’m glad we have the bond even if it is partial. You’re right, let’s fight one battle at a time.”

I could agree to that. No point creating worries, we had enough without searching for more.

Braxton stood and held out a hand to me. “Now we shower, dress, and eat, because I don’t know about you, but I’ve moved to that place past hungry where I’m ready to rip someone’s head off.”

I took a deep breath. I was hungry too, but that wasn’t what filled my mind. “How do you know the mate bond isn’t complete?” I took the hand he offered and got to my feet. We strode toward the bathroom, our movements in sync.

A sense of sad unease was heavy in my stomach, threatening to burst up through my body and expel itself from my mouth. I was about two-more-stressful minutes from barfing.

Braxton’s hand curved around my neck and began to gently rub. “The same way I know you are really freaked out right now. I can feel you in my heart, but I can’t hear you in my head.”

It was strange but he was right, I was rocking so many extra emotions in my chest. The tie I had always felt toward Braxton was stronger now. Although, what was he talking about with hearing thoughts?

“Mates can’t hear each other’s thoughts,” I said, as he reached around me and hit the lever on the shower.

Braxton stepped back and gestured for me to enter the stall first. I didn’t move straight away, I narrowed my eyes and processed his information. I’d known lots of true mates, even my parents, and not one of them had ever mentioned they could hear the thoughts of the other. It was not written in our history or taught in any of the classes. And we had extensively covered supernatural mates in our kinship and race diversity classes.

Braxton shuffled me back into the stall, and followed. “Dragon shifter mates can. It’s a special bond. We don’t exactly hear every thought, but we can definitely communicate mentally.”

Okay, I did not know that. Why the hell did I not know that?

He read my expression. “No one knows but dragons. We’re born instinctively with this knowledge. I figured it wasn’t worth sharing.”

“Why did you figure that?”

He shrugged, giving me that sexy half-smile. “I chose you a long time ago, Jess. Either you were my true mate and you’d discover the mental speak the fun way, or you weren’t and it wasn’t worth worrying about what we didn’t have.”

All I heard from that was: I chose you. The extra emotions in my heart swelled.