Page 76 of Firebird
“You kissed me first,” I teased.
She shook her head as she went back to folding, her loose hair brushing along her back, refusing to answer my question.
I stood, my muscles stretching for the first time in days. A flight in dragon form would do me good. But right now, I had to set Malina straight. “Come here.”
She frowned up at me. “What? I’m packing.”
“I see what you’re doing. Stand up so I’m not talking to the back of your head. Though it is a lovely view.”
She huffed in frustration and stood before me, chin lifted, jaw clamped. I was aware that I was smiling, which only made her frown deepen.
“Do you know how often I’ve thought of you since that night I first saw you dance?”
She shrugged a shoulder. “I haven’t thought of you at all. What of it?”
I reached toward her throat and tugged the chain holding the coin I’d given her, the one my father minted to celebrate their wedding. Gripping the coin in my fist gently, I murmured, “Not at all, firebird? Not once?”
She tried to tug back but I had her fixed in place with her necklace. Those captivating eyes softened, even while I could see she wanted to deny me.
“No, I do not regret what I said or what we did,” she admitted softly.
“Then why are you so angry?”
“I’m not angry, I’m concerned.”
“About?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she snapped sarcastically, “trying to kill Caesar, being killed by Caesar.”
“We will win,” I stated emphatically, willing it to be true.
“And then what?” she asked. “There will be years, if not decades, where your new Rome is set to order. I can’t—” She bit her lip and looked away.
“Can’t what? Tell me, Malina.”
She exhaled in frustration and turned back to me. “Julian”—she gusted a breath—“youownme. I am your slave. My heart cannot wantmorewith you while I am.”
A sickening sensation tightened low in my belly. “Then you are free. I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”
She laughed. “Right now?”
“Yes. We can find some faraway place in the wilderness. Far from any Roman province.”
Her smile dimmed. “You’d leave your position as a Roman general, as next in line to the throne? You’d leave your allies floundering, your mission to—” She glanced to the side, though there was no one else in this tent, nor did I hear anyone nearby outside. “To do away with this regime. To create a new, freer Rome.”
My spirit faltered at the thought of leaving the work unfinished, at leaving my uncle in power. Of leaving the people in pain and bondage.
“If that’s what you want. I’ll take you anywhere. But I can’t leave you there alone and return here.” I couldn’t yet explain to her that it was my dragon who would forbid me abandoning her in some wilderness, leaving her without protection. I could never do that. Not now. Not even if I tried.
Her expression tightened with both frustration and anger. “No,”she added roughly. “I could never ask that. I do not want that. It would mean that all of those beneath the clawed feet of your uncle and those like him would continue to suffer. I could never be that selfish.”
I released the coin of her necklace and cupped her face, pressing my mouth to her forehead. “Then know that you are free. At any time that you would will it, I’ll fly you anywhere in the world. Any place your heart desires.”
Suddenly, she wrapped her arms firmly around my waist, pressing her cheek to my lower chest, and hugged me tightly. I wrapped her close. As a human woman, she felt so delicate and small in my arms, reminding me yet again how vulnerable she was among dragons. I clenched my jaw and held her tighter.
“Oh, Julian. I don’t want to be anywhere else.” She squeezed me around my waist. “This is where I’m meant to be.”
Cradling the back of her head with one hand and banding her waist with the other, I rocked her in my arms and pressed my lips to the crown of her dark glossy hair.
