“Why not?”
“The kraken is mindless violence forged into a living thing. It destroys everything in its path, and what it cannot reach with its tentacles, it can tear and strangle with its psychic abilities. We are only to call on it if there is no other choice.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “What?” she asked bluntly. “How did you come to that conclusion?”
“I might not be a great scholar, but all shadow dragon children know about the kraken.”
“You just told me the kraken held the Soul-Eater still while your ancestors made the prison around it. That doesn’t sound like uncontrolled violence to me,” she retorted.
He stared at her.
He’d never questioned the story before, but…
He forced his lips to move. It was like speaking through concrete. “I do not believe—”
Francine let out a heavy breath. “But that was before it exiled itself beneath the sea for—how long? Hundreds of years? Over a thousand? Who knows what it’s like now.” She rubbed her eyes.
“Imprisonment,” he said, the words sounding like they came from someone else, “can do strange things to a person.”
Francine’s attention was like the full blaze of the sun. She stood up, sending her chair slamming to the floor behind her, and was in front of him in an instant. Her eyes never left his.
And when she placed one hand against his cheek, it was with a raw possessiveness that made him catch his breath.
“You’re not Harper’s prisoner anymore.”
There was no slow passion this time, only a clash of desperate desire as she kissed him and their bodies came together again.
39
Francine
The glint of silver on oilslick scales woke her. She glimpsed it out of the corner of her eye, and then like any dream, woke and found it gone.
Instead, she was lying in bed with Julian.
And that scrap from her dream was the only trace of a mate bond between them. She put a collar on her thoughts, locking away her memories of the joke that flashed a connection between them, the unfamiliar, soft, yet strong feeling that—
Silver flashed in her heart.
So that was the trick. They could fuck all they liked. Catching feelings was the dangerous part.
He stirred. A frown creased his forehead.
That soft feeling again. Silver wove between them, a gleaming thread caught on an unseen breeze. Would it be so bad, if they let this happen?
Would it stop him from sacrificing himself to save the world?
Should she tell him she knew what he was planning?
He muttered something, flinching in his sleep.
She reached out to him and shook his shoulder. “Julian—”
“She’s coming.” His eyes opened, wide with shock.
“Who’s coming?”
He sat, his gaze wild. “I thought we’d lost her. I thought she was an enemy coming for us. That’s why I agreed to come with you so quickly—she felt dangerous, I thought that when she caught up with me—”
