“My dragon took over and did it for me. I am not going to say that I didn’t have a choice, but I was urged very strongly toward Cassandra.”
“That doesn't happen very often.”
“No, it really doesn't. It just told me what I already knew. I knew the first time that we were together that she was going to be mine. It was just a feeling I had, like we were meant to be together. That's how I feel now.”
“Get out of here with that, man. Stop overthinking it.”
“That's easier said than done.”
Nathan agreed. “Yeah, sometimes it can be. It’s really hard when you have a girl that is messing with your head.”
“Are we going to talk about what happened tonight?”
“Changing the subject?”
“Yeah, I don’t need any more of your love advice.”
“You know who did this?”
“I think, it is Gill.” He said but wasn’t one hundred percent sure that it was Gill, but it felt like it. He hadn't been able to get close enough and even that night, he hadn't been able to take him out.
“So, what do we do?”
“What we always do, take care of the problem. That’s the only way. We tried letting him live.”
Antoine tightened the grip on the beer in his hand. He was done with the war that wasn't even his own. He wanted to help Nathan, that's why he was doing it to begin with, but it was just pulling him and Cassandra from one bad situation to another. And now, Antoine didn’t even have a home. That was a particularly hard blow to soften.
“You know you owe me for a house, right?”
Nathan grinned. “We will get you set up somewhere else. For what you have done for me and my family, I would buy you ten houses. I hear I have the money now.”
Antoine told him that he didn't need ten houses, just one. “You're also going to put me up in a nice hotel until that house is built.”
Nathan agreed. He would have never had the money to take care of such things, running a shifter training school for a friend of his, but now that he was king of Fire Island, he had more money than he knew what to do with. The people they were fighting, however, did not have the moral high ground, but more of an asset-rich one that they didn't want to lose.
Antoine wanted to go to bed, but he didn't know if he would even be wanted there. Cassandra was acting strange again, looking like she was debating if she wanted to even be around him, let alone be his lover. Antoine worried about things between them. He worried about her reaction to everything going on. She had been taking it surprisingly well, but maybe it was too well. How could Antoine imagine that she would go along with such things? It really didn't make any sense, which told him that it might not be the truth.
“I'm telling you, Antoine, you just need to get out of your head. You didn't want to take my advice before, but you did. You got your head right and you just need to listen to me again.”
Antoine tried to take his friend’s advice, but it didn't do much good. He couldn't forget about Cassandra and wipe the whole situation out of his mind. He wanted her again, even as he just previously wore her out. It wasn't enough for Antoine. He was starting to wonder if it would ever be enough. She was just too perfect in his arms.
He went to lay down with her and had to resist the urge to do more than pull her in for a hug. He had to refrain from doing what he wanted to do, which was make her scream over and over again. There had been a few moments where he thought he would lose her, when she had almost been burned again, and he knew that he could never live without her. It wasn't just the strength of the mating bond. It was something else. There was something deeper between them, and Antoine would spend the rest of his life making sure that she was happy.
***
Cassandra woke him up a few hours later, moving around and kicking in her sleep. He had to settle her down with a kiss, and finally he asked her what was the matter.
She sighed and fell back into the bed.
“I just had the worst dream.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, it was horrible.”
“What was it about?”
She paused for a moment, hesitating, and Antoine knew that he had to press her on the issue. She had already dreamed about him and their midnight ride. He wondered if she was like some humans, carrying powers that she didn't even understand. A seer would start out with dreams, some dreams coming true and being so vivid that they stayed with them the rest of their lives. Cassandra had those type of dreams, and he wondered if there was more to it than just the current chaos presenting itself.
