By the time I’d opened him up, he was panting, his broad chest gleaming with sweat as it rose and fell. God, he was the most gorgeous thing I’d ever seen. And he wasmine.
“Please,” he said. “Alex.”
I pushed inside him, and he groaned. I leaned down to kiss him before I began moving, holding his gaze as I did so. Neither of us lasted long after all that teasing.
Afterwards, I held him and marvelled that I could have this. That I could havehim.
The rest of the morning passed in a haze of loving and laughter, with an occasional annoyed bang on the wall of our room when Nate got loud. I didn’t care if the whole world heard our love, though I was kind of glad I lived in a detached cottage. One where Nate, too, was going to live if Aunt Margaret was right.
Turns out, she was.
Epilogue
ALEX
Six weeks after Nate first came to visit, he was still here. He’d gone back to London after a couple of weeks, just long enough to hand in his notice at the bank, speak to his grandfather, and bring some of his belongings back to the cottage.
I’d gone with him, and at his flat, he’d shown me his treasure. When I’d finished admiring the diamonds because they were beautiful, he put them away again and turned to me, tenderness in his eyes. “I treasure you,” he told me, and I thought I might cry.
I didn’t, of course. Instead, we tumbled into bed together, and I showed him that, though I couldn’t use those words and have them mean the same thing, I treasured him just as much.
Despite Margaret’s words, I worried he was uprooting his entire life for me when this thing between us was still so new. I just couldn’t find a way to say it. Thankfully, he broached the subject far more tactfully than I’d have been able to.
“Whatever the future holds, I don’t want to be in London any more, and I don’t want to be a banker any more,” he told me as I gleefully opened up his Porsche on the motorway. “I guess I have more of my great-uncle in me than I knew. And I’m thankful for it.”
We went to Oxford on our way home, and I met Rufus. I liked him. More than that, I loved how he brought out such gentleness in Nate, even as Nate teased the crap out of him. Rufus was shy, though he began to relax a little when we talked about Arthurian legends. Once Mark started speculating on the Arthurian myths’ relationship to Celtic Christianity, Rufus’s awkwardness faded. Our conversation ranged for hours over a series of subjects, and Nate sat and watched us, a smile in his eyes.
Mum and Dad loved Nate. It took them a few days to warm to him—they were thrown off at first by his posh accent, clothes, and impeccable manners. He’d been on edge, trying to impress them, so he’d been even more the big city socialite than usual. But after a while, everyone relaxed a bit, and something changed. “That boy needs mothering,” Mum told me at the end of his first week with us.
I looked at her suspiciously, not sure if Nate needed mothering or if Mum needed to mother. “You know he’s a full-grown man.”
“That full-grown man needs mothering,” she declared, and I knew there was no stopping her. And maybe she was right, because Nate seemed to blossom when she took him under her wing. Metaphorically speaking, of course. She was the only one of us without wings.
Mum had also, much more cautiously, mothered Ella, who’d come to stay with Margaret. Despite the circumstances in which we’d left Bath, it appeared the Fortescues were willing to have contact with anyone who’d recognise them. Ella had been distantwhen she encountered Nate. That hurt him, but neither of us could blame her. I didn’t think she’d ever forgiveNate for infiltrating her family, though I hoped she’d respond to the more normal family around her here and not turn out like her parents. She had a chance, at least.
I loved falling asleep in Nate’s arms and waking up with him in my bed. I loved the days when we explored the countryside and Nate met more of my family. Best of all, though, were the nights we swam together in the sea. We’d tumble in the currents for hours, playing, or find a cove and float together, listening to one another’s heartbeats and knowing this was meant to be.
Margaret had spent some time with Nate since he’d moved here, and now, she’d given me permission to share our family’s last secret with him. Tonight, I’d take him to our treasure.
NATE
I made up the bed in the spare room in Alex’s cottage. Rufus and Mark were coming to visit for a few days. I hoped they’d love the place the way I did.
Cornwall had enchanted me. The only explanation for the way I felt was what Alex had said about it being the dragons’ spiritual home. It wasrightto be here. When we swam, I half-expected mermaids and mermen to appear alongside us. I still hadn’t given up hope they would, one day. This place felt like the last bastion of magic.
No one knew where dragons came from. I’d never wasted time speculating; I’d had money to make. But now, I wondered if we’d originally been creatures of magic.
My decision to leave London and the banking circles that had been my world had been surprisingly easy. It wasn’t onlyaboutbeing with Alex—I could have kept my career and joined the queue of Londoners who slogged down the motorway to Cornwall each weekend. But my time in Bath, and Alex’s perspective, had helped me to see my life and family more clearly.
Although I’d never need to work again if I was a little more modest in my outgoings, I was thinking about starting a practice as a financial analyst. Cornwall had its share of wealthy residents. Working with them would both please my dragon and subsidise the pro bono advisory work I’d like to do with other locals.
I hadn’t been cast out of the family for leaving the bank, possibly because of my connection with the Teagues, whom Bim was eager to cultivate. He was considering James’s idea of convening a moot for dragon families. Apparently the Fortescues hadn’t beenquitebanned from dragon society, although the families who mattered were making no secret of their distaste for them. I expected everything would settle down again in a few years’ time, once the Fortescues had something to offer that other families wanted. It was the way of dragons.
I put aside all such thoughts when Alex said he had a surprise for me. “Notthatone,” he added, with an exaggerated leer. “At least, not until later.”
He took me to Margaret’s house, which had once been an inn. In the cellar, he opened a cleverly concealed door in the wall. “Smugglers,” he informed me. “They used these passages to hide their brandy from the excisemen.”
The tunnel was carved out of solid rock. It twisted and turned for what felt like miles, with occasional branches leading off. There were electric light bulbs at intervals, casting just enough light to see our way and for me to check for spiders.
