Page 23 of Dragon Kissed

“That was not a helicopter.”

“No.” The admission cost him.

Her breath caught, and the dragon pressed closer.Tell her.

I cannot.

She is ours.

She has not chosen us.

She will.

That is not enough.

Nica crossed her arms again. “What did I see?”

Demetri took one careful breath. Magical law lived inside the question, and the answer could kill her. If he told an unbonded human the truth, the Secret Kingdoms would demand her execution; his authority might delay it, his wealth might hide her for a time, but neither would erase the law. And he’d already decided he’d burn the continent before he let an executioner near her. He had crossed two hundred years and never once meant a vow the way he meant that one.

“I cannot tell you.”

Her face went blank — not calm, closed — shutters coming down over all that brave, burning curiosity, and Demetri hated it instantly, hated that he was the one who’d caused it.

“You can’t,” she repeated.

“Not yet.”

“So I’m supposed to pretend I didn’t see a dragon flying over your house?”

The word struck through him.Dragon.Her mouth had shaped it; her voice had given it life; and the creature inside him surged toward the sound of it like a beast toward its own name in her mouth. Scales flashed across his chest, ruby-red, one violent sweep over his ribs before he forced them back beneath his skin, the effort tearing a low sound out of his throat.

Nica saw. Her eyes widened. Demetri’s control fractured, and he reached the balcony wall and gripped the stone with both hands before the claws could emerge, the granite groaning under his fingers.

“Nica. Go inside.”

She did not move. “Your chest.”

“I know.”

“What the hell was that?”

“Inside.”

“No.”

CHAPTER 8

Nica: he made me breakfast. a FORMAL breakfast. with a view.

Margaret: did you get the provenance files

Nica: he watches me eat like it’s a competitive sport

Margaret: Veronica. the files.

Demetri’s fingernails darkened, lengthened. The stone cracked beneath his palms. Nica looked at the fracture, then at his hands, and fear entered her scent — light, sharp, unmistakable, and it went through him worse than any blade — and Demetri stepped away from her as if the balcony had opened beneath his feet.

“Lock the doors.”