He releases my shoulders and raises one enormous hand to my face. Fuck, he’s big. I recoil, afraid, but he only wipes away my tears with his thumb.
“Are you an angel?” My gaze traces over his wings.
He gives a low chuckle. “No.”
I raise my hands between us. “Demon?”
“No!” He takes my hands between his own. “I’m a dragon.”
“A dragon?” I wasn’t expecting that, and the answer leaves me completely confused.
“Whatever Roman’s told you about us, it’s not true.” His voice is low, deep, and commanding.
I study him for a moment and then remember Roman shooting at us with some sort of blue weapon. I have noidea what this winged man means by being a dragon, but I’m beginning to think he’s far more worldly than any angel or demon. My eyes narrow.
“You… you abducted me!”
He holds up his hands. “Easy. Let’s just talk about this.”
“You kidnapped me on my wedding day.”
His blue eyes narrow and his jaw hardens, lips forming a cocky grin. “You didn’t want to marry that guy.”
I scoff and shake my head. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
He frowns slightly as if considering something. “You were staring at me, begging me with your eyes to keep you from making the biggest mistake of your life.”
For a moment I’m stunned silent. No way am I going to admit to thisdragonthat I was second-guessing my marriage. “Begging you? I never said a word to you.”
His smile is back. Slow. Wolfish. “But you admit you were thinking it.”
Something clicks inside me, like my body has thrown a switch from fear to anger. Fire pumps through my veins as if I’m a stick of dynamite whose wick has burned down to nothing. “Motherfucking, arrogant freak! You cannot be suggesting I am somehow to blame for my own abduction!” I poke a finger into his chest, my face feeling flushed as fury courses through me, overpowering any remaining fear or instinct for self-preservation. “I don’t care what you thought you saw in my eyes. You’rewrong. Take me back. Take me backnow.”
He narrows his eyes and pulls me closer, his delicious warmth surrounding me. “Sorry, sweetheart, you’remine.”
“Yours?” I huff, struggling against him. I break free of his hold and stand on my own, facing him, the cold slamming into me once more. I don’t care how warm he is or how beautiful. This is bullshit. “I most certainly am not yours!”
Something in his face changes, almost like I’ve slapped him, and all the warmth and humor drains from his eyes. “You are until I get what I want,” he says through his teeth.
“What do you want?” I bellow. The wind picks up and I shiver, folding my arms over the useless lace dress.
“The Order to answer for the murder of Lucy Vale.”
I draw back, more confused than ever. “The Order? Who the hell is the Order?”
“Like you don’t know.”
I stare at him blankly. “Lucy Vale? That’s the woman who was murdered in Paris. The one with the Latin inscription over her head, written in her blood.”
“That’s right. You didn’t think we’d let the Order get away with murdering one of our kind without answering for it, did you?”
I swallow. “Your kind? Like…dragons.” I play back the conversation in my head. Nothing makes sense. Why does this man think Roman wants to kill him or his family? I shake my head. “Roman isn’t part of any Order. And he certainly isn’t a murderer.”
The wind blows again, tiny flakes of snowswirling down from above in its gusts. Where the hell are we? I hug myself harder against the cold, against the realization that my life just got turned on its head.
“Come inside. You need to get warm.” He grabs my upper arm and turns us toward a house I would have called luxurious in any other context. All rich wood and stone with a wraparound porch and a pair of rockers out front. It looks like it belongs in a vacation catalog for Montana or Wyoming.
“Where are we? How did you…? How did we get here so fast…? You didn’t just fly me here did you?” I shiver hard but somehow feel hot. My joints ache. My head throbs.
