And so fucking elusive.
Even more so because the keeper’s face and body are changing, his shape shifting.
His body is like a dark shadow within the waves. Or maybe, more accurately, like the wraith he was when I first met him. The moonlight filters through the surface of the water above us and seems to stream through his form, stopping only when it reaches the ring on his finger.
For a moment, I experience a strange fear because it’s as if…
He doesn’t exist at all.
As if the ring could slip off his finger and nothing else would remain.
I grip him even harder, pressing forward, finding his lips, needing the crush of them, even if it means I lose my breath.
Air bubbles around our mouths as he kisses me back, a hungry kiss, his tongue flicking over mine, one arm closing across my upper back while his other hand wraps around the back of my head.
It’s a desperate kiss, filled with all the heat and desire and longing that I need.
He is, once again, solid and strong within my arms.
I groan against his mouth, a sense of relief filling me, but it’s a mere taste.
With a rush of movement, he lifts us up toward the sky.
Our heads break the surface and our kiss breaks at the same time, snatched away from me.
Dragon wings burst from his shoulders, black scales rippling across his skin as we burst upward, sending water spraying around us. He beats his wings, suspending us in the air above the water, moonlight streaming across us while his eyes transform. Fierce and reptilian and uncompromising. A dark beast with primal intentions.
My wet hair drips down my back and sides, water sloughing off my legs where they’re wrapped around him, my sudden shiver so violent that I shake in his arms.
I don’t know if it’s anticipation or a strange sort of terror or even a deep relief after my moment of fear in the water.
“My Veda.” He growls, a deep rumble that feeds my shiver. “My Veda, who gave me her heart.”
Warmth rushes over me and with a flicker of his magic, every droplet of water evaporates from my body, my skin instantly dry and my unruly hair wafting around me.
I don’t second-guess it. The air is awash with dark light and the reflections off his dragon scales—reflections that don’t hurt my eyes.
He beats his wings and soars toward the building, landing lightly at the bottom of the steps before he carries me across the porch and through the doorway surrounded by softly billowing white curtains.
We enter a rectangular room that’s large enough to be some sort of meeting room. The soft scent of grass wafts up from the floor, which is confusing because there isn’t any grass in sight.
The floor is covered in very large, square-like mats of some sort of woven, beige-colored ribbons. Each mat has a dark edge, and they’re all fitted neatly together so there are no gaps between them.
There’s another doorway toward the far-right corner, but I’m not sure where it leads because the keeper turns in the other direction.
It’s a little hard to tell in the dark, even with my sharp eyesight, but it looks like the walls are similarly beige-colored and made of large, but smooth, plaster panels, all meticulously put together.
With a flick of the keeper’s fingers and a flash of emerald light—his warlock power rather than dark magic this time—he sends four little glowing balls of energy into each corner of the ceiling, giving off the merest hint of golden light through the room.
At the far left side of the room is a low-lying table—a large one with a top surface that looks wide and deep enough for eight people to sit around it. Assuming they were sitting on the floor, since it’s so low to the ground.
He carries me toward the table, stopping directly in front of it, where he extricates my legs from around his hips, firmly placing me back on my feet.
His wings retract fully, but his dragon scales remain and his eyes are dark and beastly.
He wraps a hand in my hair again. “Take or deny?” he asks me, searching my eyes once more as if he’s looking for me and uncertain if he’ll find me.
The water did nothing to lessen the need within me.How could it?
