As if he were preparing himself for a blow?
As if her need for distance from him was because he was expecting Sephie to refuse him.
Right mind or wrong mind, Sephie was never going to do that.She loved this strong and resourceful man.Loved him deeply.She had a feeling she had started to fall in love with him the first time she saw one of his carvings.
“How can you be so certain I’m your mate?”she pressed, needing to know he felt the same way about her.
“The moment I first saw you, colors, which over the long years I’ve been alive had started to fade for me, once again took on a fresh vibrancy.Your scent of strawberries?—”
“I told you I don’t wear perfume.”She shook her head.“Or use any other products that smell of strawberries.”
“It’s your natural scent that only my dragon can detect.Belle’s is honeysuckle, and Zoey’s is Lily of the Valley.”
“You can smell their scent too?”A surge of jealousy told Sephie she found that possibility unacceptable.Ranulf washerlover.
Herdragon!
No matter how many times she said that in the future, she knew it would never get old.
Ranulf smiled slightly, as if aware of her conflicting emotions.
Which, if he really was her dragon mate, maybe he was?
He shook his head.“Lachlan and Hunter told me about the unique scents of their mates.I believe so that I might know to seek out my own mate’s scent.”
“Which you did?”Sephie prompted, still needing that affirmation.
“I smelled strawberries before I even met you.A scent that became even stronger once I was in your presence at Ben’s funeral.I know without a doubt that you’re my mate, Sephie,” he assured gently.
The sincerity in his expression was indisputable.“Where are your brothers and their…mates now?”
“Inside caves in the mountain behind the castle.It’s where we keep our hoards of dragon treasure.”
Sephie’s brows rose to her hairline.“Edgar Wallis was right that it exists?”
Ranulf’s jaw tightened at her mention of the other man.“Yes.”
“About everything else too?”
“Yes.”
“But why—how could he know any of this when no one else seems to know you really do exist?”Her eyes widened even more when Ranulf threw back the duvet and calmly got out of bed.
She had seen him naked when they made love; of course she had.But seeing the sheer magnificence of his muscular body now made her mouth dry.
His chest was so broad, with what looked like tribal—dragon kin?—tattoos covering most of his shoulders and torso.His abdomen was clearly a ten rather than an eight pack, his thick cock aroused, his thighs strong, as were his long legs.
Because he needed that strength when he was a dragon?
That thought alone was enough to renew the heated awareness she now had of Ranulf.
“Are you going to shift into a dragon now?”Her tone was a mixture of excitement and disbelief.
“The rooms in the castle are big, but not big enough for that,” he dismissed.“The church could have accommodated my dragon, if needed, but not the rooms here.”
She gasped.“How tall are you?”
“We are all thirty feet high, with an even wider wingspan.”
