Page 44 of Dragon Cursed
Alsander pressed his face into Poppy's hair.
"We cannot stay here another night."
She lifted her head.Her eyes were red.Focused."We?"
"Yes."
"Oh."Her voice cracked."Oh, Alsander."
"You thought I was going to send you away alone?"
"I thought —" Her voice broke."I thought you were going to do the thing brooding immortals do.I thought you were going to tell me to go, that it was for my own good.I thought —"
"Not tonight."His hands tightened on her."Not ever.But especially not tonight.He came through my wards because of you.He will come through them again.I am not letting you walk out of this forest alone with that thing in it.I am not letting you out of my sight."
She made a weak sound that might have been a laugh but seemed more like a sob."Good.Because I wasn't going to let go."
He kissed her.Briefly.The kind of kiss a man gives a woman when he doesn’t have time to linger but needs to know she is still there.Still with him all the way.
She kissed him back the same way.
"Then tell me."His voice steadied."He spoke about your line.Tell me what you know."
"Nothing."Her hands were still in his chest."I —"
She stopped.
Her brow furrowed.
"I have books, Alsander.I have my mother's books and my grandmother's books.There is a chest at the foot of my bed I have only opened a few times.There is a journal.There is more than the journal."Her voice steadied."There is a smaller chestinsidethe chest.There is a key.I have never used it."
He looked at her.
"You have a chest of your foremothers' writings in your own bedroom.And you have never used the key to the inner chest."
"I wasn’t ready."
"And now?"
"Now," she said shakily, "that thing just told me it has history with my grandmother’s grandmother’s — you get the idea.It has history — dark history — with my ancestral line.I think the time for not being ready isover."
Alsander’s heart swelled with pride.The strange, fierce pride a man feels when he sees the woman he loves decide to step into the path of the very thing she has been avoiding her whole life.
"Then we go to your cottage," he said.
"Yes."
"We read everything.Every page.Every margin.We start with the smaller chest you haven’t opened.We don’t stop until we know what you are.What was given, every gift, to your line.And how we are meant to use it."
"Yes."
"And you don’t leave my sight, Poppy.Not in the cottage.Not in the garden.Not in your own bath.He hasseenyou.He knows your face.I will not have him near you again.Do you understand?"
"Alsander."Her voice was soft."I wasn’t planning to leave your sight."
He kissed her again.Longer this time.He let himself.
He stood.Pulled her up with him.She swayed once, steadied, and he watched the small white tightness around her mouth that hadn’t been there before the fight.
