Page 61 of Dragon Cursed
"We have enough."Her voice was steady now."Enough for Dublin and back.The elves can wait until we have a person to vouch for us.They haven’t gone anywhere in five thousand years.They will wait two more days.We cannotrun into a hall of strangers with a book we can’t read.We go to my aunt.We learn what we can.We come back armed."
He looked at her for a long, tense moment.
She watched him fight the part of himself that had spent three hundred years refusing to ask anyone for anything — the part of himself that had decided that if he was going to ask now, he was going to ask the oldest and most powerful source available.
She watched him fight and lose.For her.Because she asked.
"Your aunt."
"My aunt."
"First."
"First.And if she cannot help us, the elves."
"Agreed."
"Alsander —" her voice almost broke — "thank you."
"Don’t thank me.You are right.I don’t like that you are right.But you are right."
She set the elvish book down on the table beside her grandmother's journal and Saoirse's book and the cracked teacup.She put her arms around him.He held her against his chest with one hand at the back of her head and the other flat against her spine.
They stood in the firelit dark with the books of her foremothers on the table behind them and the dead garden beyond the window.After a moment he pressed his face into her hair.
"I hate that I love you," he said quietly."I hate it.It would be so much easier if I didn’t."
"I know," she said into his throat, a small smile spreading across her lips.“I feel the same way.”
"I don’t know how I am supposed to do any of this without losing you."
"I know.We’ll figure it out."
She let go of him long enough to walk to the hearth, kneel, and slide the brick carefully back into place.The seam closed.The hearth was as it had always been.She rose.Dusted off her knees.Looked at her own kitchen, which was no longer entirely her kitchen.At her own life, which was no longer entirely hers.
She held out her hand."It’s too late to go tonight.Come to bed.”
He didn’t have to be told twice.He scooped her up and carried her to the bedroom, where he spent the remainder of the night alternately watching his mate sleep and making her scream his name.
15
Poppy’s garage.
4:00 am the next morning.
"Is that—" Alsander scowled.
"Yes."
"Is that thecar?"
"It is."
"You intend that we both fit inside that."
"I do."
"Poppy."
