He had to consciously stop his fingers from digging into her shoulders as his dragon rushed to the underside of his skin. Had he heard her correctly? Was he reading too much into her words to think she was talking about him…Them? He swallowed the thickness in his throat, aching for her to elaborate. “I’ve enjoyed having you here too.”
“I… I never thought I’d feel like this, like I’ve tasted the corner of life and suddenly want to consume the whole thing.” She backed away from him, and he let her go. “My whole life, I’ve watched the world go by in a pool of the goddess’s tears. I’ve seen our world from every angle. Every kingdom. I thought I had everything. I thought I knew Ouros better than anyone. But… but…”
“But life is more than a reflection of someone else’s experiences.” He finished her sentence using the softest voice he could muster, but she flinched anyway and looked at him as if he’d injured her. “I’m sorry. I take it back. That was rude of me. I didn’t mean to put words in your mouth.”
“No. You’re right.” She wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I never realized how much I was missing. The food here. The freedom.” Her gaze met his and held it. “The people.”
His skin tingled with the need to touch her, but he kept his hands by his side. They were in uncharted territory. On his end, he felt himself drawn to her by some sort of magnetism or gravity. It almost hurt to deny it. And in her eyes, he thought he saw a similar sentiment. But he reminded himself that she was an innocent, an inexperienced scribe. She couldn’t know what it did to him for her to hold his stare. She couldn’t know how much he wanted her.
“Dianthe made me realize today that this may be my last and only opportunity to… sample life before I return to the temple for good. I’m on a path to becoming Quanling—”
He cleared his throat. “If there’s anything you’d like to try before you go back, I’ll make it happen.” He shifted his gaze to the sea to break the tension. “Then, when you go back to the temple, you’ll have the memories of your time here. It will make your descriptions in the scrolls even more vivid and give you enough memories to last a lifetime.” How painful it was to think about her going back. How he wished there was a chance he could make her his. But he wasn’t a predator. No matter how much he wanted her, there would be no honor in trying to seduce a scribe.
He was surprised when her hand landed on the bare skin of his arm. Her fingers were long and tapered. Elves in general were shaped narrower and leaner than dragons.Lithewould be the word for the people of Rogos. Leena radiated grace and beauty.
Never had a simple touch turned him inside out as hers did. His brow furrowed. “What do you want, Leena?”
Her eyes narrowed, and she licked her lips. When she spoke, her voice was low, as if she feared someone might hear them. “There’s something I’d like to try, something I could never do in the temple and may never have the chance to do again.”
Colin held absolutely still. “What’s that?”
She closed the space between them. Both her hands moved to his chest, her touch a brand through the thin material of his tunic. The tips of her nails scraped over his shoulders, into the short hair at the base of his skull. He forced himself to swallow, and the sound of it blared exceptionally loud in his ears, the pounding of his heart a background rhythm that grew louder with her nearness.
And then she kissed him.
Colin was no stranger to temptation. He locked his hands at his sides, his mind reeling with the feel of her mouth on his, her floral scent invading his space, a welcome and intoxicating storm of his senses. He tentatively returned the kiss, completely lost to the moment. Her lips parted, and there was no denying his need. His inner dragon took over, and his hands lifted of their own accord.
One hand fisted the back of her dark copper hair, and the other banded her waist, clutching her against his body. He invaded her mouth, stroked along her tongue.Mine,his inner dragon bellowed inside his head.
Desire clamped him like a vise. He needed her. Needed to be in her, deep. Under her skin. To mark her ashis.
Leena welcomed his response with a moan, opening wider for him. Her nails scraped along his back, under his wings. He wanted nothing more than to remove his shirt, but no way would he break the kiss to do so. Instead, he endeavored to show her with his mouth exactly what those nails did to him. His trill rumbled in his chest.
She froze. He pulled her closer, but she shoved her hands against his chest and another sliver of space appeared between them. “That sound…”
“My inner dragon.”
“Your mating trill.”
He nodded. “Be mine, Leena. Don’t go back to the temple.” It was out of his mouth before he could question his sanity.
All the color drained from her face, and she pushed him away. “No. I can’t. I’m so sorry. Oh dear goddess, this was a mistake.”
“What? No—”
“Colin, I can’t.”
The words crushed his soul as completely as if a tsunami had risen from the sea and flattened him to the beach. Cool air rushed between their bodies. It might as well have been a bucket of ice. He stared, stunned silent, as she turned on her heel and ran.
Chapter Four
New Orleans, LA
Raven blinked into existence on a sidewalk in the Garden District of New Orleans, her sisters’ hands sweaty in her own. Even their mates looked beat. They’d sailed to Crete and hadn’t wasted a breath before using a series of portals to reach Louisiana. Dragon magic or not, three hops across thousands of miles drained a person.
“Please tell me this is it,” Nathaniel said, eyeing the Greek Revival home that stood to his left, set well back from the sidewalk and behind a wrought-iron fence. “I don’t think I can do it again.”
“Aye. Feels like someone’s squeezed me ’bout the middle like a lemon,” Xavier added. Even his kilt seemed to hang crookedly, the fabric itself drained of color like the rest of him. Avery leaned heavily into the Scot’s side, and it was unclear who was holding up whom.
