Hektor paused, thrown.Thank who? Why?
Before he could ask, Zara grabbed his arm and tugged him out of the courtyard, down the stairs, and into the dim parking area where a line of basilisk taxis waited like sleeping serpents.
She rounded on him.
“What,” she hissed, “inthe name of every dead deity, are you doing?”
Chapter 10
Zara
It was happening.
It wasactuallyhappening.
She kept her glare sharpened because if she didn’t, if she let even a fraction of her stupid, starry-eyed, heart-melting grin show, Hektor would shut down, go silent, hide behind Drakkon stoicism and duty and professional boundaries.
So she folded her arms and scowled up at him.
“Well?” she demanded. “I’m waiting.”
Hektor stood there, broad shoulders tense, jaw clenched, eyes flaring with that molten Drakkon heat she’d only seen once right before he kissed her.
His voice came low, uneven. “I couldn’t.”
She arched an eyebrow. “You couldn’t what? Watch someone be nice to me without combusting?”
“Drekhar,” he winced. That was a yes.
“You dragged me away from a date,” she went on, words sharp, “because?”
That got him.
His eyes snapped to hers, gold deepening, pupils thinning to slits for one vulnerable heartbeat.
“I couldn’t let him kiss you,” Hektor bit out.
Zara’s stomach flip-flopped, but she held her expression, practiced boredom layered over adrenaline.
She tilted her head. “And why is that?”
He stared. She waited.
Any other creature might’ve sweated, fidgeted, or cracked. Drakkon didn’t crack; theybrooded harder.
Finally, his voice tore out of him, raw and too honest:
“Because I haven’t stopped thinking aboutourkiss.”
Her breath caught, but she only blinked once, slowly. And he wasn’t done, she could see it. She could feel it, his certainty snapping into place.
“And,” she said softly, “what else?”
His throat worked, and she watched each micro-twitch.
She knew he had to say it, completely, out loud, without it coming from her.
He stepped closer, shadows and heat wrapping around her the way his arms had once, briefly.
