“Wait, they’re hot!”
“I’m impervious to heat. I can walk through fire and it won’t burn me.”
She brought the cookie toward her lips. Snatching her wrist, he stopped her from taking a bite. “I’m not sure you should eat that.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not normal. I think something went wrong.”
She sighed. “It’s going to be different here. We have different ingredients.”
“But what if it’s not good? I should try it first.”
The laugh she answered with made her face light up. “Liam, are you attempting to protect me from this cookie? How noble of you.”
“I’m not noble, I just—”
“As sweet as that is, I think I can handle it.” She tugged her arm away with surprising strength and took a bite. He watched as she chewed, her face unreadable. After a few chews, she held the bit cookie out to him. “You have to try this!”
And wasn’t that just erotic as hell. He wasn’t sure why, but her feeding him was the hottest thing he could remember happening to him in a long, long time. He met her eyes before leaning in and biting over her bite.
Her enchanting gaze distracted him, and it took a second to realize something was off. The cookie tasted sweet but crumbled in his mouth like dirt. No, not dirt, it was like having a mouthful of Grape-Nuts. He chewed and chewed, grimacing at the awful texture. “This is—”
“Awful?” she added, laughing and pitching the remains of the cookie on the tray. “Not fit for dragon consumption?”
“You knew and you made me try it anyway?”
She laughed harder. “I needed someone else to share the horror of the experience.”
He squinted at her and spit the remains of the cookie into a rubbish bin. A wicked grin split his face. “You are a bad angel.”
She shrugged. “Are you going to punish me for my crimes? Anything but making me eat another Christmas cookie.”
“Oh, I have other ideas,” he said darkly.
He reached for her, but she sprinted from his grasp, giggling. He chased after her, out of the kitchen and down the hall, laughing in a way that he hadn’t since, when, third grade maybe? Fuck, he wasn’t sure what he’d do when he caught her, but it wouldn’t involve pain. Despite his earlier promise to keep his hands off her, the only thing he wanted to give her was pleasure.
He closed in, reaching for her waist as she squealed over her shoulder. And that’s when a large hand shot out from the shadows and clotheslined him.
Chapter
Eleven
“Uncle Colin, stop!” Charlotte raced to Liam’s side, relieved when she saw he was still breathing, albeit more of a wheeze. The hollow sound of his head hitting the obsidian floor had been cringeworthy, and he’d clearly had the breath knocked out of him. Praise the Mountain, there was no blood, but Colin’s hand around his throat did not appear gentle.
“Who the hell is this, Charlie?” Colin released Liam’s throat but fisted the hand, flexing his scarred arm as if he wasn’t afraid to use it if he needed to.
“He’s my friend,” Charlotte said, pushing her uncle’s hands away and checking Liam’s head and neck for injuries. “Call Maiara,” she commanded a servant at the end of the hall. “I think he’s hurt.”
“He’s not hurt,” Colin grumbled. “He’s just catching his breath.”
“He’s human, Uncle. Not a dragon. You could have cracked his skull.”
Colin grimaced. “Human? What the fuck is a human doing chasing you down the hall?”
She glared at him. “He’s my guest.”
Colin’s jaw clenched. “Your guest?”
