I don’t move.
“It can’t be anything.” The words seem to hurt him. His jaw is tight. His free hand is balled at his side. Everything about his body language screams restraint—a predator holding itself back through sheer force of will.
“Why not?”
“Because.” He releases my wrist. Steps back. The sudden absence of his heat feels like a physical blow. “It just can’t.”
My wrist feels cold. Empty. Wrong. I resist the urge to rub it, to chase the lingering warmth of his touch.
I stare at him. At the way he’s holding himself—rigid, controlled, as if one wrong move will shatter something fragile. At the way his hands flex and fist at his sides. At the rapid rise and fall of his chest.
He felt it too. Whatever that was—whatever just passed between us—he felt it as strongly as I did.
And he’s terrified of it.
“Drayke—”
“Pack your things.” He’s already moving toward the door, putting distance between us with every step. “I’ll return at dawn to escort you out.”
“I’m not leaving.”
He pauses at the door. Doesn’t turn around. “Then you’re a fool.”
“Maybe.” I stand my ground even though my knees feel weak. Even though my wrist still tingles where he touched it. “But I’m a fool who makes her own choices. And my choice is to stay.”
He’s gone before I finish speaking. The door swings open, letting in a rush of cool evening air, and then he’s through it, disappearing into the tree line with that fluid, predatory grace.
I’m alone.
I sink onto the couch.Press my hand to my chest where my heart is still racing.
My wrist burns. Not painfully—more like an echo, a memory of heat that won’t quite fade. When I look down, there’s no mark. No sign that anything happened at all.
But something did happen. Something I don’t understand. Something that felt like being struck by lightning and drowned in honey all at once.
Dragons are real.I stare at the door he just walked through.One of them saved your life. You’re apparently some kind of magical fire-witch. And now you’re attracted to him.
Attracted. Such a mild word for whatever is happening inside me.
The way he looked at me. The raw hunger behind his eyes. The way his whole body seemed to strain toward mine even as he forced himself to step back.
It can’t be anything.
Why? What is he so afraid of? Is it because I’m human? Because I’m a Fire-Bringer? Because of whatever happened to the last one—the one who burned because she refused to be protected?
I pick up one of Grandma’s journals. Flip through the pages without really seeing them.
Fire-Bringers and dragons are drawn to each other,one passage reads.It is the nature of our blood. We carry the flame that calls to their fire. When a Fire-Bringer meets her dragon, the pull is undeniable. Inevitable. Dangerous.
Her dragon.As if ownership goes both ways.
I close the journal. Set it aside.
This is insane. You’ve known him for two days. He’s a shape-shifting immortal with anger issues and a pathological need to give orders. This is not the foundation for a healthy relationship.
But I can still feel the ghost of his touch on my wrist. Still smell woodsmoke and something wild in the air he left behind. Still see the way his eyes glowed when he looked at me—not with anger, but with want.
He wants me. Whatever barriers he’s putting up, whatever reasons he has for pushing me away—underneath all of it, he wants me.
