“Does Alex ever get together with Henrik Angel? Not just for sex but for good?”
The glow of her smile rivals the moon. “An author never tells.”
She releases my arm and shoves her hands into her pockets. “I think this is the longest we’ve gone without arguing about something.”
“Fire on fire,” I say. “It could be good under the right circumstances.”
She flashes a witchy smile. “More fucking and less fighting?”
My dragon rumbles in my chest at the thought, and I know Fiona can feel it on the inside. Feel it down our bond. “I would be the most attentive mate to you, Fiona. You know I would be. I’ve cared for you for weeks. But more importantly, I know you. No one can ever love you like me because no one knows you like me. You need a challenge to feel alive. Every book you’ve ever written has made that clear, and yes, I read them all. The characters you create don’t shy away from trouble, and neither do you. I inspire you, not because our relationship is easy but because the fire in me calls to the fire in you. Other men, they might appreciate your beauty, and creator, I do too. You’re stunning. But you are no hothouse flower. Even when you were sick and it would have been so easy to assume you were fragile, all you gave me was fire. No one will ever appreciate how brightly you burn as an artist or how far you’ve come on pure grit.” I hate the raw need I hear in my voice. I’ve lost all sense of my Aries self, all my fight gone. All that’s left is this bottomless pit of need for her. I need her like I need air. Like I need nourishment. “I’ve seen inside your head, and this bond between us means I feel your strongest emotions. Wewere made for each other.” I rub my chest where it’s started to ache. “You fill in all my empty spaces. And I’ll tell you one thing for certain—I don’t regret stealing you off that altar for a second. I’ll never feel remorse for it. Say yes and you will never want for anything. Say you’re mine and I will show you what it feels like when stars collide.”
She stumbles and I stop talking to catch her, hauling her upright. It was too much. I think I’ve overwhelmed her.
She rights herself, lashes fluttering. “I have some questions,” she says breathlessly.
“Shoot.” This is good. She has questions. I have answers.
“Your kind, do you mate with humans often?”
An easy one. “It happens, but not as often as with each other or hybrids of our kind. For our safety, we have to make sure a person isn’t associated with the Order before we reveal what we are. Once they know, they target us. That limits how many humans we can get close enough to for a mating bond to form.”
She looks off into the trees, contemplative. “You mentioned before that you’re suffering from mating sickness...”
“Yeah.”
“Zaire told me that you had someone who, um, helped you with that before.”
I lift a brow. How exactly does she think this works? “If you’re asking me about sex, yes, I’ve taken lovers before to help me with the sickness. The fever is uncomfortable without it. But that was before I met you. BeforeI had a mate. Mating is more than sex. Dragons choose only one mate, and when we mate, it’s for life.”
“For life?” She swallows, her voice rising in pitch. “You want to claim me as your mate for life?”
My dragon rears inside me, my blood heating instantly. When I speak, my voice is ash and cinder. “Would you rather I only wanted to use you? Are you looking for a human fling? A one-night stand with someone whose name you might forget?”
“No, I?—”
“Let me be clear,” I growl. “I will take whatever you offer me. I am starving for you, Fiona, and I will eat sawdust if that is all you feed me, but that’s not what I want. I want all of you. I want forever.”
Chapter Twenty-One
FIONA
Starving for me. He’s starving for me.
I reach for him in the dark, my fingers finding buttery-soft flannel. “In that case, I wonder if you can help me with something.” My voice trembles and my heart stutters.
“Anything,” his deep voice rumbles.
I pull Roman’s engagement ring out of my pocket and hold it between us. “Get rid of this for me. I don’t want it anywhere near me.”
His mouth twists into a grin and he plucks the ring from my fingers. Turning away from me, he draws a deep breath into his lungs. When he exhales, his breath ignites into a blowtorch of fire that jets across his palm. The blaze is intense enough that I feel its burn against my cheeks. My mouth falls open as the gold melts, dribbling through his fingers. When all that’s left is the diamond, he hurls it into the woods, the garish stone whistlingthrough the air until it plunks, with one last moon-reflecting twinkle, against a tree in the distance.
I can’t restrain my laugh. “I had no idea you could breathe fire in this form.”
His expression turns wolfish. “Just one of my many useful tricks.”
Relishing the moment— the lightness and the warmth between us— I run my hands up his soft plaid shirt and encircle his neck, pressing myself against him. This close, I can feel his fever, the heat coming off him like hugging a radiator.
“You’re burning up.”
