Page 14 of Dark Dragon’s Wolf

Mikah elbowed him in the ribs.

Emon seated Trish to his right, and Cazbek patted her shoulder as he walked by. “You must really love him,” he said sympathetically. He dropped his voice. “I won’t play that banana porno in front of him anymore. It will just make him feel bad.”

Tristan went into a sudden coughing fit, and Mayah had to pinch herself hard to keep from laughing again.

Emon, smoke trickling from his nostrils and his dragon in his eyes, called for the first course.

Chapter 6

Sunday dinner went about the way it usually did. Stilted conversation, bad attitudes, growing tension, emotional explosion, table on fire.

Mayah watched, impressed, as Tristan managed to rescue two plates of cheesecake before the rest of it got melted—along with half the silverware.

Somebody was going to spend the rest of the evening doing a restoration spell on the dining room. But not her.

She was following the cheesecake. And the super-sexy butt of the wolf who was carrying it.

He ducked into one of the seldom-used reception rooms down the hall. Mayah reached for her cheesecake. Tristan held it out of reach.

“Promise you’ll hear me out,” he said. “And you won’t dump water on me.”

“No promises,” Mayah said. “What if you say something incredibly stupid?”

Tristan sighed.

“I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. I didn’t mean to. It’s just, the kiss took me by surprise.”

“See, already with the stupid,” she said. Why did having a penis make people into idiots? It was like all the brains just got morphed into testosterone. “Because, of course it did. You went totally catatonic for a minute there. I really only did it to bring you out of it. You just took it the wrong way.”

Tristan looked like she’d slapped him. “I did?” He bit his lip. “Oh.”

Nowhe was disappointed? He didn’t want her, but he didn’t want her not to want him. Asshole. He might be her wolf, but she didn’t have to let him get away with that shit.

“Of course,” she said, widening her eyes in fake shock. “You’re my healer. We can’t—you know. That would be wrong.”

He looked at her suspiciously. She tried to look even more innocent.

“Of course,” he said finally.

But now she had her opening. “I was worried about you, you know. I’ve been worried about you ever since you started ripping people open with your mind. And then you just went blank, like a robot whose power bank shut down or something. It was kind of scary.”

“I didn’t realize. When you touched me—”

If he said anything that implied her touching him made him freeze in disgust and horror, all bets were off. She wasn’t going to drop icy water on him—she was going to flame him.

Instead, he said the last thing she expected.

“When you touched me, it was like I was transported. I was with your dragon.”

For a second, it didn’t compute. “You were—wait just a frickin’ frackin’ minute. You were where?”

“I was with your dragon. In the spirit world, I think.”

Mayah had to sit down on the nearest hard, uncomfortable bench sofa. No wonder nobody ever used these rooms.

“Is that where she’s been hiding?”

Tristan handed her one of the plates of cheesecake and a fork. “I think so. It was a dark cave—so dark I could hardly see anything except her eyes. With a barred gate on the entrance. But somehow I was inside, with her.”