I take a deep breath and blow it out slowly. “I’d really like to know.”
She remains silent for a second and then says, “I mentioned before that Jeremy confessed he was attracted to me. I rejected him and fired him as my doctor.” Her tone is almost clinical. It’s a good thing, because I think if I heard even a hint of receptiveness on her part, I’d lose it.
“I remember.”
“I wonder, though, if he was being honest with me about my limitations. I wonder if he was keeping me weak so that I’d be dependent on him.”
Oh, how my dragon wants to pounce on this and rip Jeremy to pieces verbally before dissecting him physically, but I force myself to stay in control. “Is there a way you can test your abilities? See if you’re right?”
“Yes,” she says tentatively. “But not tonight. I’m tired. I should wait until tomorrow and set myself up for success.”
I move in closer, my smile returning as I recognize the hours we have ahead of us. “So…what do you want to do tonight?”
She gives me a wicked smile. “I want to meet your dragon.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
ZOE
Sometimes I wonder if I was born a thrill seeker. As long as I’ve been alive, I’ve passed up the slow and steady for any opportunity for risk-taking. Even when I was forcing myself to work at Regal, I was maintaining a side of nightlife, singing in clubs without any security, walking home or taking public transport at all hours of the night.
What is wrong with me?
I have another chance to wonder this about myself as Seb and I stand in the woods behind the cottage and he prepares to shift into his dragon self. I trust Seb and his dragon. I mean, technically, I’ve met the beast in the Gold Room. But the way Seb talks, I’m taking my life in my hands.
“Don’t be afraid,” he says. “He won’t hurt his mate, but he may want physical contact.”
“It’s okay. I can hold my own. It was fine in the Gold Room.”
“But he was smaller there, right? My dragon doesn’t fit indoors. It might be a different experience for you here.”
I look up at the moon and around the clearing we’re standing in. “Plenty of room here. Don’t worry about me, Seb. I asked for this. It’s time, don’t you think, that I know the other half of you?”
He nods and starts unbuttoning his shirt.
“I like this already.”
He snorts and toes off his shoes, then strips off his pants. When he’s completely naked, he runs both hands through his hair. “You’re sure about this?”
“Yes.” I don’t get a chance to say anything else. What happens next is like a magician’s trick, like pulling a long handkerchief out of a fist. Wings erupt from his back, and scales shingle his arms and legs. Talons sprout from his fists before spearing the dirt in front of him. His paws grow until they’re wider across than my waist.
I blink and take a step back.
It’s over.
I am staring up at a dragon roughly the size of an Airbus. “Holy shit,” I mumble. Seb’s dragon looks like he did in the Gold Room but much, much bigger. His scales may be the same deep, mahogany brown, but where I perceived them as edged in gold before, right now their reflective quality picks up the silver light of the moon. His eyes, though, are pure gold. Set in a head big enough to contain teeth as tall as me. Two beachball-sized eyes with the most beautiful irises of a luxurious, deep yellow are focused wholly on me.
From the head, the body stretches behind, to a long, whip-like tail. Seb’s dragon isn’t built like a dinosaur but like a serpent with legs, long and lean and muscular. Powerful but graceful.
I scurry back, unable to hold my ground as the scaled nostrils of the beast lower to my level. I don’t stop until my back hits a tree. Two warm blasts of air blow back my hair. He sniffs me like a dog.
Unable to go anywhere, I raise a trembling hand and pat the side of his face. “Good dragon,” I say hopefully.
He snorts and falls onto his belly, his head between his paws. I can’t help but laugh. Resting like this, Seb’s dragon looks like an enormous dog. He hears me laugh and laughs too, the sound coming out of his chest like a series of rough barks and snickers, not unlike what I remember from Scooby-Doo reruns. I can’t help being swept up in it. Still laughing, I walk around his paws and scratch his side and then his belly when he rolls to expose it to me.
“How much do you understand in this form, Seb?”
The great horned head bends around to nudge my shoulder and licks me up the side of the head.
