She walks faster and I catch up.
“What exactly was I doing in this dream? Why are you blushing?”
“So you’re saying that when you went into my dream, you fixed my writer’s block?”
I don’t miss how she completely changed the subject, and I inflate at the idea that she had a sex dream about me. Fuck, do I wish I was actually in that one.
“It’s also the dragon energy. It’s why Zaire chose to become my Firetender. Being near me will naturally increase your creative abilities.”
She scoffs. “I know your ego is big, but you can’t possibly be taking credit for the pages I’ve written.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. I don’t create the art—I simply boost the creative energy inside you.”
The corners of her mouth curl downward.
“That makes you unhappy?”
“I don’t like the idea. I don’t want to be dependent on you. What if the writer’s block returns once I leave here?”
“Then don’t ever leave.”
The glare she shoots me arrows straight through the heart.
I swallow, schooling my features into the most serious expression I can muster. “Most likely the writer’s block won’t come back. Creativity is like a faucet. Once the water is on, it won’t turn off just because you leave me. Something powerful has to turn the handle.”
She lifts her chin. “Good.”
“I really wish you wouldn’t leave me though.”
“I’m your hostage, remember? You can’t exchange me for information if you don’t hand me over for what you want.”
My dragon stirs and everything feels dark. “I don’t care about the information. The whole fucking world can burn for all I care. I’d burn it down myself to make you mine.”
That seems to unsettle her. She looks away, into the trees as if she can’t handle my intensity.
“Will you go back to him once you’re free?”
“Initially. We have unfinished business.”
“What if you find out he was responsible for Lucy’s murder?”
“Then I’ll leave him and go on with my life.”
Alone she means. I see it then, what I’m really up against.
She studies me for a moment. “I know you say we’re mates, whatever that means, but neither one of us has committed to anything. We don’t truly know each other.”
“I want you to know me,” I say. “I want you to know who I am.”
Bones brings me the stick, and I throw it for him again.
“Why did you name him Bones?” she asks.
Finally. A crack in the door. She actually wants to know something about me, and this one is easy. “My restaurant is in Manhattan— Hell’s Kitchen. We toss our garbage in a dumpster out back at the end of the night. Something kept getting in there. Everyonethought it was rats. Thing is, we compost most of our food scraps, so the only thing food-related going into that dumpster is bones. Anyway, we couldn’t figure out how anything was getting in under the lid and out again. I found this guy one night with his head and front legs in the bin and his hindquarters braced between the fire escape and the edge of the dumpster. His face was so dirty it looked like he was wearing a mask like a burglar, and he was so thin you could see his bones through his skin. When he heard me coming, he pulled his head out, his mouth jammed full of bones. I just started laughing because it’s not like there aren’t other restaurants in Hell’s Kitchen. I’m sure there were more substantial scraps to be had, but he’d rather have bones from my dumpster than spaghetti at Luigi’s. I took it as a compliment.”
She laughs, and it’s the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard. So beautiful I have to stop because I forget how to walk.
“Anyway, I named him Bones because you are what you eat.”
