“It doesn’t matter,” he growls and dips me, then pulls meupright and spins me out and away while he takes several steps backward and crouches, hands held forward and waiting.
The lift. Sweet fudging fudge, the lift!
We’ve never done it outside of the pond, and we certainly couldn’t do it inside of the book.
But all our practice has given me a confidence I’ve never had before.
And this is the real Luke, a strong and capable dragon with centuries of wisdom and life experience. When he gestures me forward, I can’t help but trust him.
I run, my heart in my throat. I run, my body filled with light and hope. I run, my feet hitting the mark and launching me up, up into the air where Luke’s strong hands catch my hips and lift me high overhead until I’m flying for the entire town to see.
Flying at his touch, flying at his faith in my abilities, flying with the dizzy joy of loving him.
Those huge hands of his lower me slowly down the front of his body in a dizzying display of strength while the couple in the song croon to each other one last time that they had the time of their lives.
My feet touch the ground, but I still feel like I’m flying when Luke growls, “I’d dance in front of millions to make you happy. You’re all that matters.”
Then he sinks onto one knee, his wings spreading behind him.
My heart leaps into my throat. I can’t think, can’t breathe. Is he going to…?
Luke reaches into his invisible pocket and pulls out atiny box from Bling It On covered in dark-pink velvet. He opens the lid to show a massive heart-shaped pink sapphire set between smaller diamonds on a lovely gold band.
It’s so amazingly perfectlymethat I feel as if he peered into my soul in order to tell the gnomes what to make. But it’s still not as perfect as what comes next.
“Skye, I love you. Will you marry me?”
My aunts gasp louder than anyone else, twin sounds I’d know anywhere, but I can’t look away from the man kneeling in front of me.
Shock locks me in place. I thought I’d become so good at reading his resting grumpy face, but all I did was fool myself into not looking deeper. I can see it now. The warmth of the intensity in his eyes, the softening of his lips.
Luke loves me!
A million fireworks go off in my chest, an explosion of joy brighter than any sun.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Lukendevener
Skye stares at me, her forget-me-not eyes blown wide, her hands covering her rosebud mouth. Is she smiling? By the goddess, I hope she’s smiling.
The silence of the waiting crowd fills the air with tension, the feel of so many eyes on me an itch between my shoulder blades that makes my wings stir. I thought dancing with Skye in front of the entire town and the pixies—the worst gossips in Faerie—would be the most difficult part of my grand gesture.
I was wrong.
Why is she so quiet? Is my grand gesture not grand enough? I planned it so very carefully, every decision tailored to her and what she likes best. The ring came easily, pink and hearts and romance so closely intertwined all I had to do was look at any shop downtown to recognize how much Skyewould love it. The dress, on the other hand, tookforever. Yet I refused to settle for anything less than perfection. I thought my grand gesture superior to the ones in the romance books I studied, but Skye’s read so many more that I might not have researched enough.
Or is the problem, once again, me? The broken dragon. The one who’s not quite right, my shifting magic a fractured mirror instead of a whole.
The weredragon who can never be a man for her.
Only a few seconds have passed, but they feel far longer than all my centuries of life. Impatience finally gets the best of me.
“Skye,” I growl. “Answer me.”
Murmurs flow through the crowd like storm winds shaking the leaves of trees.
Damn. That was too direct, too unromantic. I’m a beast to the end. She’ll never want me now.
