“A beautiful girl is dressed in very little clothing and you don’t notice.”
“Briony,” I say, stepping towards her and taking both her hands in mine. “I used to notice that stuff. I used to notice all the pretty girls. I used to notice when they were flirting with me. Iused to notice when they weren’t. But seriously, since you came along, things have been different.”
“Different how?” she asks suspiciously.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I just haven’t noticed those things anymore. My attention has been focused elsewhere.” I smile at her. “On you.”
“That might change though, eventually, don’t you think?” she says, tilting her head. “It can’t always be like this. That kind of thing fades, dies, withers away. There might be a time when you do start noticing all those pretty girls again.”
“I don’t think so,” I say. “I’m all yours now, Briony Storm.”
She grins at me. “And talking of which…”
“Talking of which?” I repeat, wondering where the hell this conversation is going next.
She keeps smiling at me and tugs up the sleeve of her coat, revealing her bare wrist. Across the skin are the dark patterns of a fated mate mark. I stare at it in disbelief.
Then I pull up my own sleeve and hold out my wrist too. The patterns aren’t identical, but it’s clear they’re matching. No one and no thing could ever convince me that Briony Storm is not my fated mate. It’s as clear as the sunshine falling down onto our skin. Destiny has chosen us to be bound together.
“It’s beautiful,” I mutter, my voice catching in my throat. “So damn beautiful.”
I pull her closer to me until she’s flush against my chest.
“You see now, Briony. You see, you belong to me.”
“Yes,” she admits. “But you also belong to me, Beaufort Lincoln.”
“Absolutely,” I tell her, curling my arms around her waist. “I’m yours. All yours.”
That confession has her biting down on her lip, and that does something to me. I kiss her mouth. A long, hard kiss that tells her she will be mine forever, that I will never let her go.
She kisses me back, moaning sweetly into my mouth. And if it wasn’t freezing out here – if we didn’t have hundreds of obligations and the weight of the whole realm resting on our shoulders – I’d be dragging her into that forest and pressing her up against the nearest tree.
But the dragon, as usual, has other ideas.
He snorts, thick puffs of black smoke blowing right at us, and we’re both choking, coughing, and spluttering in the next few moments.
“He’s really not a fan of public displays of affection, is he?” I mutter.
“He is – if they’re directed at him.” She giggles.
And I catch her hand again, wanting to admire those marks.
I cradle the back of her hand in my palm, trace the fingertips of my right hand over the pattern, drawing it, tracing it, making her gasp as if the skin here is tender and sensitive. I lean down and press my lips to the marks next, kissing her there.
And as I do, it happens.
A flash of light in my brain.
And I’m somewhere else – some place different – seeing something that fate wants me to see.
Slate Quarter, I’m sure of it. Snow on the ground. The sky thick with smog. Bitterness in the air. And a forest. Something is calling to me. I let it lead me through the trees, racing after its tugging force.
And then I find them, hidden beneath water.
Two jet-black firestones.
I crouch down, reach out my hand to touch them?—
