“I know. I get it, I really do, but I’m not going to be alone. Ellie promised to look after me.”
He let out a long, slow breath. “Okay.”
“And later… you and I can finish what we started.” I gave him a wink.
“Yeeess,” he snarled as his lips pulled back to reveal his fangs. Fangs, I desperately wanted to feel again. Along my lips, my throat, my thighs, everywhere.
“Go!” He gave me a little shove toward the door, making a laugh pop out of me. I knew it was his way of keeping control of the situation, of not giving me exactly what I wanted right then andthere.
“I’m going, I’m going.” I scooped up my messenger bag and climbed the few steps to the living room.
“And come back!” Rudy roared behind me. A wide grin stretched my lips at that. I found a stack of my clothes on the coffee table that absolutely had not been there before. I half-expected Rudy to come into the room and pull me back against him, but when he didn’t, I imagined he was keeping himself in place so he wouldn’t stop me from leaving. Bless that man. I was going to kiss him so thoroughly later that neither of us knew the difference between up and down.
Bowen
Rudy had certainly gotten medownthe flights of stairs the night before a lot quicker than it took me to climb them. My legs weren’t used to doing so many stairs each day. Even more now that I was going up to the roof. To the roof to meet a dragon after leaving my werewolf boyfriend-lover-person behind. I had to laugh to myself. When did this become my life?
Hopefully, that was what I was going to find out.
When I walked onto the roof, Aurelia was sitting on a stone wall, the highest point on the rooftop observation deck. Her golden wings were stretched wide, shimmering in the sun’s light. She was truly stunning.
I approached carefully, not wanting to interrupt her bask, but she greeted me in my mind while she kept her eyes closed, soaking in the sun.
“Thank you for joining me up here. There is so little sun on Malterra, I hate to miss it.”
“Yeah, of course.”
Myhands tightened around the strap at my chest as I tried to think of what to say. “Shit, I have so many questions, I don’t even know where to start.”
“You want to know what you are.”
That about sums it up, I suppose. “Yes. What can you tell me?”
Aurelia stretched her neck, lifting her chin to the sky, letting the sun hit her throat and upper chest. “You come from a long bloodline, Bowen. It branched off in different paths through time, though, so few have revealed the talents you have.”
“Talking with animals, you mean?”
“Mmm. Yes, that is how it tends to make itself known.”
“Is there more to it?” Wasn’t that enough, though? It had already set me apart from every single person I’d met, but what more could it be?
“Mmm. Yes, it depends on the individual, but your gifts are strong. You are special, Bowen.” Aurelia closed her wings and rolled onto her back so her belly was exposed to the waning sunlight. “I knew your ancestor many, many years ago.”
My ancestor? I looked at the leather bracelet on my wrist and thought of when I received it. “You mean, my great-grandfather? He was like me, wasn’t he?”
“Perhaps. I did not know him, though. The one I knew was called Gwrhyr.”
“Gwrhyr? I’ve never heard the name. You’re sure he’s my ancestor.” I’d looked into my family history in the search for answers, and had traced our family nameback a couple hundred years, but had never come across that name.
“Oh, yes. Your likeness is unmistakable.Though it has been fifteen hundred years since I last saw his face, I will not forget it.”
“Fifteen hundred years? Are you serious? How old are you?”
Aurelia glanced over at me before hopping down off the rock wall. She came to one of the lounge chairs and indicated her head toward it. “Have a seat, Bowen.”
I did as she suggested and sat in the chair. She jumped up to sit beside me, placing one foot on my lap, and looking up at my face. “Do not be afraid. You are here on this roof, and I am with you.”
“Afraid of what?”
