“There’s no gray at my temples.” This with an edge of pride. Who knew he had a vain streak?
She chuckled. “Who said there was?”
Silence, then he moved to stand up. Without thinking, she put a hand out, wrapping her fingers around his wrist, a part of her—a bigger part than she was ready to acknowledge—didn’t want him to leave.
“Don’t—”
He settled again, and a warm hand brushed the hair back from her face. “I won’t.”
“What time is it?” she was slurring now. This small amount of effort, and she’d already rather sleep.
He seemed to understand. “A little after ten.”
“In the morning?”
“Night. You’ve been out for a while.”
“Safe?” She was reduced to single words now, fighting off the lethargy that was trying to drag her back to dreamland.
“As long as I’m here, you are.”
Not what she’d meant, but she couldn’t force her brain to reword. Still, the way he’d said that settled inside her like coming home. Like a promise. Almost a vow. But she had to be wrong.
“Sleep?”
The man was a machine, but everyone, even dragon shifters, needed to rest. He’d been going flat out to get them to safety for days now, and that was after flying to the mountain in Argentina on his own. The only rest she’d seen him get was on their long international flight, which wasn’t exactly restorative. Even then, anytime she opened her eyes he’d do the same.
“Yes,” he said. “You should.”
She scrunched her face up over his misinterpretation. “No…you.”
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”
“Hilarious.” She tried to make it come out irritated, but instead just sounded tired.
“I’m not sure why you think my being dead is funny. I should be offended.”
“S’not.”
A heavy sigh sounded just before he feathered a kiss over her lips, the softest sweetest touch, and she wanted to chase it, but couldn’t. Instead, she hummed low in her throat and was vaguely aware that he stilled over her.
But he didn’t speak.
The bed dipped again, and she tightened her grip on his wrist. “Stay.”
“I shouldn’t,” he said, lips suddenly close to her ear, voice a low, sexy burr. “Not with the thoughts I’m thinking.”
“Sleep.” She went to pat the bed beside her only to wince as pain lanced up her arm. “Ouch.”
“Don’t move that arm, little fire.”
Vaguely, her mind recognized the meaning of her name, but she’d think about that later.
“Won’t move.” She squirmed over onto her side, careful of the arm. “Sleep,” she murmured once more.
After a long silence, the bed dipped as he got up, then jiggled as he got in under the covers on the other side. An arm banded her stomach and the heat of a hard male body pressed along her back. Hadyn hummed again. This was nice.
“I’m a fool,” he whispered into her hair.
“Who isn’t,” she slurred. Then let sleep overtake her, her body relaxing fully for the first time in a long, long time.
Chapter Ten
Instant fear was not the way Rune usually woke up. Then again, Hadyn was involved. Opening his eyes to find the woman who’d been in his arms all night was missing jolted him out of the bed like a cattle prod had been shoved up his ass.
“Hadyn?” he called.
Nothing.
What the seven hells? He checked the clock. It hadn’t been all that long since he’d woken and checked she was okay, and she’d still been there then.
Fuck.
He stalked to the en suite bathroom to find it dark and empty. The rest of his apartment of rooms in the Huracáns’ mountain—that, oddly, the team hadn’t let anyone else use in his extended absence—remained equally empty, though a lingering trace of her minty scent filled the place. Strongest on his sheets, of course.
Dressing in haste, trying to tamp down on worry—a new emotion for him, and he didn’t like it—Rune shot from the apartment and down the curved balcony, open to the foyer below. Moving quickly, he ran down the series of winding stairs built into the rotunda wall to the ground floor and headed to the common living areas all the team shared. The massive family room, more cave than room, was empty as well, the TV a black screen.
A burst of laughter from the kitchen had him hurrying in that direction. Rune pulled up sharply at the entrance as he found Hadyn sitting on one of the stools at the large granite-topped island, her back to him…and every unmated male in residence surrounding her and grinning like fools. Hell, Hall’s eyes glinted as he leaned closer from where he sat beside her.
“Then Chaghan said to Qara, ‘Don’t look at me. You’re the one who wanted to keep her.’”
Whatever story Hadyn had been telling must’ve been uproarious, because every man in the room dissolved into raucous laughter. Which only made Rune growlier.
“Next time,” he snapped, “tell me when you decide to disappear.”
Hadyn’s back went ramrod straight, then she turned slowly, eyebrows raised. “Well, hello there Grumpilumpagus. Did you wake up on the wrong side of life?”
The shock that sent every one of his old teammates’ faces slack—no doubt because of the way she’d dared to speak to him—in combination with the worry over her and the irritation from her proximity to other males was enough to set Rune vibrating with agitation.
“Something could have happened to you.” He hid a wince at the words, because now he was sounding like one of those hovering, floating moms that humans talked about. They had a word for it, only he couldn’t remember what. Now the men glanced away, clearly equally embarrassed for him.
“Not with dragon shifters and a cave troll in the mountain,” she pointed out, and he ground his teeth at the reasonableness.
“That’s not the point,” he said. He felt her pause like an intake of breath.
“Excuse me,” Hadyn murmured to the others.
She got up and took him by the hand, tugging him down the hall and back into the family room space. “I’m sorry,” she said, sincerity shining from her eyes. “I wasn’t thinking.”
A different kind of shock skittered through him, pulling his focus from the men in the kitchen who were no doubt raising “what the hell” eyebrows at each other as they listened in to the woman in front of him. And only her.