He settled on the sand and, with only his hands, stripped the hull away from the coconut, splitting the inner shell open with his fingertips. Goddess, the strength that took! He was at least part dragon. I took the liquid-filled half he handed me, and lifted it to my lips, relishing the sweet, milky water.
“Once we were dragons,” he said at last, as we both dug into the white flesh. “Long ago, our many times great-grandfathers were dragons who fell in love with human women, or so the stories say.” His eyes slid to mine. “They saw the ones who called to their dragon souls from afar, and could not resist. They stole them from their families and took them to their lairs, where they learned to force their beasts into the shapes of men, so they could be with their mates in all ways.” He waggled his eyebrows at me, leering so comically I laughed.
“You have a beautiful laugh, Roya,” he said. “I hope to hear it many times in our years together.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, wondering if persistence was a wyvern trait. I had told him I could not be his mate. Had he misunderstood? I let it go.
“Did they lose their dragon forms, when they took the shapes of men?”
“Not at first. After many years, their great-grandchildren became what you see. Wyverns, man-shaped, but with wings and sometimes fire, and the beasts within us always seeking our sky bonds.”
I scraped more coconut meat from the shell with my knife. “Sky bond. That’s what you called me… What your wyvern called me. You had scales, as well.”
He blushed slightly. “Yes. My wyvern is very vain. He would take any chance to glitter and preen for you.”
I wouldn’t mind that at all, but it would end with my hands on his skin again, and that was a dangerous road right now. “You speak of him as if he’s… removed?”
“He and I are almost separate beasts,” Icarus admitted. “The original dragons existed in one mind, whether beast or man. More animal than man no matter what form they took, if the stories are correct. But wyverns are dual natured, as you may have noticed.”
I took a deep breath. “You said you wanted to court me. Or… he said that.”
“We both want that, my lady,” he said, his voice sounding younger than ever.
Wait. “How old are you?”
“Too old for you, little dove. I am fifty-seven this past winter.”
His eyes gleamed as I sputtered. “Fifty-seven? How? You look the same age as Thorn, maybe younger.”
“Dragon blood, I suppose. We age very differently from the short-lived races.”
I was dying of curiosity, desperate to know just how long wyverns lived. But the laughter in his eyes made me sniff, and calmly say, “Far too old for me then, Grandpa. You should be ashamed.”
He twisted his lips in an exaggerated leer. “I’m not. I guess I’m a dirty old man.” Then his eyes dropped, and the air between us became charged with some sort of unmet expectation. “My wyvern insists on being with you. He wants you… No,Iwant you—more than treasure, more than the open sea.” He used a finger that had a rather suspiciously long nail to scrape out more meat from his half and offered it to me. I took it, and by the flame in his eye, I knew I had just done something significant.
I had learned early on not to trust food offered to me, although I knew this wasn’t poisoned. Still, it had been laced with intention. “Do wyverns feed their mates?”
His eyes glittered with distant fire. “Apologies, little dove. Yes. He’s courting you already. I can try to make him stop. It’s difficult; he hasn’t been this ascendant in decades.”
We both grew silent as I thought.
I didn’t know this man at all, but something in him made me believe I could trust him implicitly. He had saved us all from the sea, cared for us for no reason.
And he wanted me, but not because I was an Omega. He couldn’t have known what I was when he rescued me. And right now, I looked like a straw-haired, red-faced shipwreck victim. He couldn’t want me for my beauty.
I was his mate, or so he claimed. Fated, somehow, to his wyvern. Could I learn to trust him, to love him?
“Let me court you,” he repeated. The breeze from the ocean changed direction slightly; evening was approaching. We needed to return to the others.
“Why does your wyvern want me?” I asked. I needed to know before I agreed. “Tell me first.”
He dropped to his knees, stared into my eyes, and said the one thing I hadn’t expected him to say. The one thing he could have said to douse the fires of passion he had ignited in my soul.
“I knew you were meant to be mine the moment I smelled you.”
The moment I smelled you.
My brain buzzed with disbelief, then hurt, then rage. How could I have been so wrong? I knew how. My Omega nature, blithely encouraging me to trust any strong Alpha who came near. Enticing me to listen to his sweet words, and believe them.
