Corin
He had almost kissed her.
Even now, he couldn’t blink without seeing the stars that had filled her eyes as she stared up at him. Her lips parted and soft. An invitation in mile-high letters.
He shifted into dragon form and chased the dying sunlight over the water, as though putting distance between himself and Maya would help.
Her words echoed in his mind, mocking and tempting.
Try to behave?
He’d tried to behave since the first time he set eyes on her, god damn it. Himtrying to behavehad gotten them both into this hell of a situation.
One more unwary moment, and he would have had her in his arms.
And from there, it would be all too small a step to taking everything he wanted. Bestowing upon her all the jewels that were already hers in his heart; decorating her, worshipping her, and claiming her as his true mate.
Shadows burned along his dragon’s outstretched wings. He hissed a curse and swung higher over the cove.
He should not have even thought of kissing her. He should have kept his focus where it belonged: on protecting her.
She was frightened. She’d done a good job playing it off, but the flashes of vulnerability he’d glimpsed during their conversation dug deep into his heart and stuck there. She was frightened, and that meant he was failing her.
His dragon hissed, chasing away the thought before it could cut as deeply as her expression had. He held onto it.
His only purpose was to protect her. If he couldn’t do that, what was the point of any of this? If she was hurt because of him—
His dragon hissed, and an image flared in his mind: Maya, as he pulled away from kissing her and away from the brink of disaster. Her eyes had widened; her mouth, already slightly open, had dropped, then pinched tight…
And she’d hidden the pain and disappointment so quickly it needed his dragon to remind him of it.
He was already hurting her. A different sort of pain to the one he’d sworn to keep her safe from—but pain, nonetheless.
He gritted his teeth.
He’d hurt her—and if he followed the clues to find the thief who’d broken into his family vault, he would hurt her more.
She had accused his people, and he accepted there might be a mole within his organization. But there was another option. One she had shied away from acknowledging as though the thought burned her.
Another dragon who would have an interest in Maya Flores, and her child.
Tomás’s father.
But that was a subject they had never spoken about. And he might be an asshole, but he wasn’t an idiot. Whoever Tomás’sfather was, he’d abandoned Maya and the child both. Bringing him up would hurt her.
And he didn’t want to see her in pain ever again.
Far below, childish voices rose in excitement. He might not have noticed except that the voices were joined by the sizzle of telepathic shouts.
*There! See! I told you!*
*Another dragon, huh?*
The second voice was adult—male, calm, and deliberately sent up into the clouds for Corin to hear. He looked down.
The man had dark tousled hair and sun-burnished skin from which his eyes shone unexpectedly bright blue. There were two children walking with him, a boy who was bouncing with excitement and a younger girl.
The man’s voice was patient, with a hint of warning for the strange dragon flying overhead. *Don’t worry. Pol wouldn’t have let him into the town if he was going to cause trouble like the last one.*
