“Shocking revelation.” But she was still smiling. Still standing close. Still looking at him in a way that made his dragon want to pin her against the nearest wall and finish what they’d started. “Here’s the thing. I don’t need you to be good at this. I don’t need pretty words or smooth declarations. I’ve had plenty of smooth men in my life, and they all ran the moment things got intense.”
“They were fools.”
“They were scared.” Her smile turned wry, something exposed beneath it.
“I’m not most people.”
“No.” Something soft entered her expression. “You’re really not.”
“I won’t run.”
“I know.” Her hand slid up his chest to rest against his neck. The contact was gentle, grounding. “That’s kind of the point. You showed up at my door at dawn to deliver the most awkward confession in the history of supernatural romance, and you’re still here. That matters more than eloquence.”
His dragon hummed with satisfaction.She understands. She sees us. She’s not running either.
“I should fix your porch,” Aero said, because he needed to say something and everything else felt too enormous. “And your window. And?—”
“Later.” She rose up on her toes and pressed a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth. Soft. Safe. Nothing like the conflagration of before. “Right now, I’m going to make coffee—terrible coffee, but that’s all I have—and you’re going to tell me everything you know about siren magic. Because we have a villain to catch and approximately zero time to waste.”
“Coffee first. Villain later.”
“Coffee first.” She smiled at him—wild and beautiful and completely unafraid of what they’d just unleashed. “Villain later. And at some point, we’re going to practice that kissing thing until we can do it without structural damage.”
His dragon purred again. Louder this time.
“That,” Cassia said, leading him into her damaged cottage, “is still adorable.”
“It is not?—”
“Utterly adorable. The terrifying dragon elder purrs when he’s happy. I’m never letting you live this down.”
He should have been annoyed. Should have felt exposed, vulnerable, all the things he’d spent centuries avoiding.
Instead, he followed her into the cottage—stepping over scattered papers and shattered ceramics—and let the warmth spreading through his chest be exactly what it was.
Hope.
Finally—hope.
The coffeeshe made was terrible. Burnt and bitter and nothing at all like the precise brew he preferred. He drank it anyway, sitting at her kitchen table while she pulled charts and data printouts from the chaos of her living room, organizing their evidence against Nerissa.
His dragon was quiet. Not dormant—he didn’t think it would ever be dormant again—but settled. Content. Watching Cassia move through her damaged home with something that felt uncomfortably like devotion. It tracked her every movement, cataloged every gesture, memorized the way morning light caught in her tangled curls.
Finally, she’s ours.
Aero didn’t argue.
And for once, he didn’t want to.
TWENTY-SEVEN
CASSIA
Cassia stood at her weather station desk, staring at data she’d already memorized, and tried not to think about the way Aero’s hands had felt tangled in her hair. The way his mouth had tasted—like coffee and ozone and something darker, something ancient. The way his dragon had purred when she’d called him adorable.
She failed. Spectacularly.
Outside, a gust of wind rattled the station’s windows.
