Dragon Bound (Elder Races #1)(92)

A gentle touch on her shoulder woke her. Rune squatted by her armchair, his eyes kind. She sagged back in the chair and yawned. “Time’s it?”

“After two,” he said. “You look beat. Why don’t you go to bed? Better yet, Dragos said he’d stay in telepathic range. You could call him back if you wanted.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to do that. He needed some space. He’s had a tough day. And I don’t want to go to bed without him.” Her eyes started to drift closed and she forced them open. “Unless you guys need to go to bed?”

He smiled. “We’re up until he gets back. Don’t worry about us; we’re fine.”

She nodded and felt soft warmth as he tucked a cashmere throw blanket around her. “Thank you.”

“Thank you, Pia.”

He walked back to the chess table and Graydon. She closed her eyes again. Soon she was walking in a very old forest, breathing in its fresh loam scent. A small, pearly, luminescent dragon lay draped around her shoulders like a stole. She stroked a graceful sinuous leg, and the dragon lifted up his head to look at her with beautiful, dark violet blue eyes. She was full of emotion as she looked into his wide-open innocent gaze.

I love you, said the little dragon.

She kissed his delicate snout. I love you too, peanut.

She came full awake with a start and sat up, looking around. For a moment she felt disoriented and abandoned as she put her hand to her empty throat and shoulders.

Graydon and Rune watched her from across the room. Both men were wide-awake and alert. Graydon said, “What is it?”

She shook her head. “Just a dream.”

They stood. “What kind of dream?” Rune asked, eyes sharp.

She frowned at them, not wanting to share it. “Nothing happened. It was just a dream.”

They both looked toward the ceiling. “Dragos is back,” Graydon told her. “He’ll be right here.”

“Okay,” she said, hurt that Dragos hadn’t reached out to her telepathically and determined not to let it matter. Now was not the time to develop a thin skin. In fact, as long as she remained in the Tower she ought to jettison any delicate sensibilities she might have altogether.

Dragos entered and the atmosphere in the room turned electric. He looked invigorated. He glanced at the gryphons and jerked his chin toward the door, and they slipped out as he strode over and squatted in front of the armchair. She gave him a tentative smile as he leaned his forearms on the chair’s arms and regarded her. His gaze was moody, his mouth tight.

“It’s almost four A.M.,” he said. “If you wanted to avoid my bed that much, you should have crashed in one of the other rooms.”

Her smile vanished. She struggled to sit upright and pull the jewelry box out from under the open book. She threw the box at him. Impossible to miss at point-blank range. It smacked him in the chest.

“I was waiting up to thank you for the gift,” she snapped. “That you, oh, by the way, didn’t give me yourself. Move.”

He stayed crouched in front of her, eyes narrowed.

She stuck her face up to his, giving him a full-on glare. She bared her teeth. “I said move out of my way.”

He snatched her against his chest and drove his mouth down on hers. She struggled, managed to get one arm free and smacked him on the shoulder. He grabbed her by the back of the head to hold her still as he devoured her. She mmphed against his mouth and gave him another, weaker smack. He wedged her lips open and drove his tongue in deep.

Damn him! She wound her free arm around his neck and kissed him back furiously. All the electricity in the room shot into her body in one thunderous strike.

After a moment he eased up, turned gentler. She sucked his lower lip between her teeth and bit him hard.

He jerked back, gold eyes flaring. He touched his lip, looked at the smear of blood on his fingers, and his face creased with laughter. He said, “You liked me kissing you.”

She didn’t try to deny it. “Well, there’s a whole lot happening over here besides that. I’ve got quite a bit of angry still going on. Not that you asked. Did you come in here looking to pick a fight? How do you expect me to trust you when you act like such a pig?”

He didn’t like that and glared at her. Struck by the strength and ferocity of the expression, she stared at him. If she were meeting him for the first time and he looked at her like that, she would be spinning on her heel and on the run before you could say Kentucky Derby. How things had changed.

His hold loosened on her. He eased back on his heels. She straightened and inspected the open book that had gotten crushed between them. Some of the pages had gotten creased. She smoothed them out and then set the book on a nearby table. All the while she was focused on him crouching too close in front of her.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Her anger wasn’t so quick to die away just because he knew how to say the word “sorry.” But she didn’t want to start escalating things again, so she just nodded. Maybe waiting up to talk to him had been a mistake. She avoided his gaze as she folded the throw blanket and draped it over the arm of the chair.

“Pia.” She looked at him. He held the jewelry box out to her. “I have a present for you.”

The starch keeping her spine ramrod straight melted. Damn him again. “Do you?”

He opened the box and lifted out the necklace. Gold and rainbow fire glittered in his dark fingers and was reflected in the gleam of his eyes. “I wanted to see how the opals would look against your skin.”