She should be terrified out of her wits with his hand circling her neck.
As tall as he was, several inches over six foot, he could probably dangle her in the air by one hand. Only the grip he had on her was almost…gentle…even as his expression remained harsh.
Instead, awareness had her body prickling with anticipation. Same reaction she’d had to him calling her “love” in the indecently sexy voice. And it hadn’t been a kindly meant endearment, which made the shiver skating down her spine even more dumb. A foolish reaction at best, cataclysmically stupid at worst.
According to her adopted father, he might be an honorable man, but most other dragon shifters considered this man the most treacherous of their kind. His reputation as a ruthless kidnapper and killer was known even to the rogues who lived apart. Kill on sight were the orders from the Alliance, the council of dragon shifters the kings had formed to govern in the colonies in their stead.
Rather than a normal, healthy response involving her pulse thundering with mortal fear, she found herself ridiculously glad of the thick, weatherproof jacket she still wore, because it covered the evidence of how her nipples were currently puckered and straining against the inside of her sports bra.
What is wrong with me? To react like that. Not that she’d ever done things in the typical way, whatever “typical” was.
Would he believe her? Or had she crossed some kind of sacred line, speaking of Kip in that way? She didn’t speak of her dead mate in general. Not because it hurt. She’d been too young when he was killed to understand what she’d truly lost. His death had been more like losing a best friend or older brother who had always been a part of her life.
But her dragon parents had warned her of telling the truth to any unmated male dragon shifters, on the possibility that they might try to claim her themselves. A risky prospect on both sides.
But she’d had no choice in this instance. She needed this man to (a) not kill her, (b) figure out she was telling the truth, and (c) decide to help.
Which meant explaining her truth.
“When?” Rune asked, voice turning darker, rougher, eyes obsidian glass reflecting back her own pale face. His dragon must be near the surface to sound that way.
“I was ten.”
“Ten,” the word burst from him. “Impossible. Dragon mates don’t show sign until they are mature enough to mate.”
He was speaking of how a human woman destined to be turned into a dragon shifter by her fated mate’s fire would start giving off different identifying signs once she was exposed regularly to his kind. Shifting small parts of her body, like her eyes, was one. Smelling of smoke was the most common. Setting fires, too. That had been how hers had started.
She allowed herself a small, bitter smile. “Kip thought so, too, but spontaneous combustion is hard to ignore.” She clucked her tongue. “Fire appearing out of thin air and all that.”
Black eyes blazed with fire the color of night tipped in silver sparks as he stared at her hard and long.
“Fuck,” he muttered, releasing her so suddenly that it took her a second to regain her balance, wobbling like a toy she’d played with at bath time as a child. A strange, unnerving sensation.
“We didn’t get that far,” she tossed at him. “Clearly.”
He jerked his head to glare at her with narrowed eyes. “What you claim is no laughing matter.”
“Am I laughing?”
An eerie sort of calm settled over him, like a mantle. Except now that she’d seen the fire underneath, he wasn’t fooling her. Emotions ran deep with this one, and he didn’t like it when he couldn’t keep them contained.
“Show me,” he said.
That sweet shiver of awareness from a second ago turned to a chill of dread at the absolute lack of inflection in his voice. As though he were discussing the weather or what to eat for dinner.
She knew what he was asking.
“I can see why you’ve survived on the run as long as you have,” she said.
Because what he was asking was incredibly personal. If her adopted dad had been here, he might have challenged Rune for even suggesting it. Kip, if he were alive, wouldn’t have been able to stop his dragon from mauling the man, or so she’d been told over the years.
But helping her parents was more important than her pride or what she knew would happen next.
Without a word, she unzipped her jacket, shrugging it back so that it hung from her bent elbows, then repeated the gesture with several more layers until she turned and presented her exposed neck to the man watching every move with intent scrutiny.
She didn’t hear Rune cross the room. Didn’t hear the telltale rumble of sound in his chest, like an old-fashioned forge bellows, drawing his fire. So Hadyn jumped when he suddenly blew a stream of black and silver-tipped flame across the nape of her neck, the fire curling around in front of her face.
Rune controlled the fire to keep from burning her skin but could do nothing to assuage the sensation the flames instantly yanked from her body.
Like being plugged into a damn light socket.
Hadyn buttoned her lips around an involuntary moan as pure, unadulterated need swamped her. The heat of his fire, sinking into her skin, then deeper, into her very blood to travel south where it pooled, pulsing and insistent at the juncture of her thighs.
A chemical response triggered by dragon fire. That’s all. She repeated that again, for good measure.
It didn’t take. Because she’d had three different dragons perform this little ritual and none, not even Kip, had elicited a response quite like this.
The disloyal thought had her jerking away from him a step. “That should be plenty,” she said.
What was wrong with her body, aching like that? Responding in such a blatant way? She may have had no time with Kip as a grown woman, but she’d been raised by a pair of mated dragons. Her chance at that was gone, and anything less was…not worth it.
Who says this has to be about a relationship? Sex for the sake of pleasure isn’t taboo, an insidious, seductive little voice whispered inside her. She swatted it away like an annoying gnat. Sex only ever made things more complicated, so that was off the table.
The fire stopped and silence settled in the massive cavern in a way that struck her as unnatural. She knew why. She knew what he was looking at.
“I can hardly see it,” Rune said behind her.
No emotion in his voice, but she managed to interpret it anyway. The man was bewildered. She didn’t blame him. Everyone who witnessed Kip’s family crest—brought to life by dragon fire and the ultimate sign of a dragon mate and whom she was destined for—reacted about the same way the last few years. Because the sign was fading. The last time her adopted mother checked, she could hardly make out the pale green outline of it.