“I never cared how we met. I just liked imagining you. Pretending Adon was—youwere here,” she admitted, speaking into the dragon’s hot skin. A tiny quake rippled through him, making her pause. Was it the fever or could he possibly be reacting to the touch of her lips on his skin? The possibilities were thrilling. A little scary, but thrilling nonetheless.
“I… I’ve been alone here for a long time. All the men I might’ve married left years ago for better jobs in the cities, or just because Birchdale has been in its death throes for as long as I’ve been alive. If I didn’t want to take Monty up on his offer or be a hunting season fling for a recreationist or become a ranger bunker, then companionship was up to my imagination.”
“Ranger bunker?”
Alashiya shrugged as much as she was able under the circumstances. “The rangers are mostly made up of shifters who know exactly how attractive they are. People are drawn to them and will hang around the barracks, waiting for a bunk to open up. The name for them in school was ranger bunkers. It’s not a bad thing, but it’s not for me.”
That was how some of her tiny class of schoolmates had found their partners, so she supposed there was a chance she’d been missing out on something, but most of the stories she’d heard had made her shudder. Contrary to popular belief, nymphs were, in general, a romantically monogamous group. Some viewed sex as being part of that and others didn’t, but Alashiya had always associated romantic partnership with an exclusive sexual partner.
She had no desire to hop into a shifter’s bunk to lose her virginity in a wild night of passion, only to leave cold and sticky the next morning. Or worse, have to sneak out not long after the act, as she’d heard a number of her classmates had to do. She had even less desire to go from bunk to bunk, searching for the shifter who’d catch the mating fever for her.
Alashiya wanted to be wed, as her parents and grandparents had been. She wanted to grow strong roots with her husband, to have a dozen fat, squirming babies, and watch a new grove flourish in the sun. She might’ve been able to make that life, too, if only she wasn’t such a coward.
“My imagination filled the gap,” she continued. “I loved getting Adon’s—yourorders because each one told me a little bit more about you. The things you liked. How you lived. It was hard for me to picture how we’d meet, but I could imagine a handsome gargoyle introducing me to his sept, or a harpy?—”
“Asept?”Taevas gripped her upper arms and put enough space between them to give her the full force of his incredulous look. “You thought I was a gargoyle and I’d share you with mysept?”
Alashiya’s cheeks went hot again. “What’s wrong with that? Septs are great.”
Taevas made the oddest gurgling noise in the back of his throat. “Do you want multiple mates?”
Truthfully, it had always sounded like a lot to deal with.“Too much upkeep,”Debbie had once commented as she watched one of her soap operas behind the register.“One Mike is enough. Imagine a stable full of ’em!”
There was certainly appeal in being the center of a wheel of devoted mates, but Alashiya had never taken the idea too seriously for herself. A sept would’ve been something of an instant replacement for her grove, but she knew in her heart that she could truly only devote herself to one person.
No, in her imagination, he’d most often been one of the rare loners, as desperate for companionship as herself. Maybe someone who could understand what it was like to have so much, only to lose it all.
Feeling exposed, Alashiya stared over his shoulder when she answered, “That wasn’t… Having a sept wasn’t my ideal, no.”
If she expected him to relax, she would’ve been disappointed. Taevas sat rigidly beneath her. His voice was tight when he pressed, “A harpy, then. That’s what you wanted.”
“All I knew was that my Adon had wings. I pictured what fit that description.”
“And you never, notonce,imagined he—Imight be a dragon? ThatyourAdon, your husband, might be a fine, strong, powerful dragon who could protect you from all things? Who’d give you the best nest, the softest life, the most—Really?”
Alashiya squinted at him. “Have I offended you?”
“You have!” he confirmed, throwing up his hands in exasperation. “I amIsand.Hundreds, maybe even thousands of people go to sleep dreaming of becoming my— beingmine.And yet the one woman who occupies every waking thought never evenpictureda dragon.”
Taevas looked away sharply. The muscles of his jaw flexed as he ground his teeth. “A fuckingsept.Honestly!”A deep, thunderous growl shook his cavernous chest in time with the rattling of his tail.
“As if any half-decent mate would share you. You’d get asliverof the attention you deserve. A fucking harpy is barely better.Good gods, what were you thinking? They like to be fought for control in bed, and they practically sleep outside, rain or shine. Don’t forget feathers everywhere! For fuck’s sake, Shiya, think of yourskin.”
There was much to process there —thousands, really? —but all Alashiya could focus on was a small, electrifying part right at the beginning of his tirade. In a tentative whisper, she asked, “I occupy every waking thought?”
“And the sleeping ones, too,” he snapped, pinning her with a glare. “I wear your magic against my skin every day. Your scent is ingrained in myroost,Shiya. It’s in mynest.Do you have any idea what that does to a dragon? I live for the essence of you. I have a fucking territory to run, a clan to wrangle, inter-territory politics to navigate, wars to thwart, trade negotiations to win. But Istillthink of you, a faceless, perfect creature, with every beat of my insipid little heart.”
“Oh, I?—”
Taevas tangled his claws in her curls, pulled her in, and crashed his mouth down on hers. Shock held her still as he pressed them together. Taevas molded their lips together andbreathed.He sucked in soft, panting little breaths through the tiny gap between their mouths, as if he was trying to sip the air from her lungs.
Chapter Twenty-One
It had been a verylong time since she’d been kissed, but her memories were vivid. It wasn’t unusual to have someone swoop down on her like a bird of prey, and it had always been swiftly followed by a wet, thrusting tongue and wiggling lips. Sometimes she liked it, other times she hadn’t.
But this… Maybe it should’ve been awkward, just sitting in his lap as they breathed together, their skin flush and eyes closed, but it wasn’t. It felt nice. Better than nice, even.
It wasthrilling.
