Page 33 of Dragon Kissed
“Nowhere. My arm. That’s all.” He caught her wrist and turned it gently. The cut was shallow, ugly but not dangerous, and the breath left him all at once. Then he pulled her against his chest, hard. His heart hammered against her cheek, too fast, his body burning, both arms locked around her as though he could put her inside his own ribs where nothing could reach her.
“I am fine,” she said. His hold tightened. “I’m fine.”
“He touched you.” The words vibrated through his chest. “I should have killed him.”
Nica lifted her head, and Demetri looked down at her with no apology, no civilized denial — hemeantit — and a chill moved through her that had nothing to do with fear. Not entirely. “You stopped.”
“Because you asked.” The simplicity of it hollowed her out.
Paramedics filled the corridor.Margaret woke swearing and tried to refuse the stretcher until Nica threatened to resign,which worked. Demetri stayed beside Nica through all of it — close, silent, bleeding through his shirt — and let no one examine him, so that by the time they reached the estate the fabric at his side had soaked dark.
Nica followed him through the entry hall. “Sit down.”
“I am fine.”
“That word is banned.” Demetri kept walking. She caught his arm, and he stopped, and the contact sent fire through her palm. “Your room. Now.” She pointed toward the stairs. “Do not make me ask Caelen where you keep the first-aid supplies.”
Something dangerous moved in his eyes — not anger, interest — and he led her upstairs.
His suite was all dark wood and gray stone and windows facing the sea — no photographs, nothing personal but books and an old Russian saber above the fireplace. A room like the inside of the man: guarded, beautiful, giving almost nothing away. Demetri removed his jacket, the shirt beneath clinging to his side. “Take it off.” His gaze lifted to hers, and Nica heard her own words one second too late. “For the wound.”
“I understood.”
“Good.”
He unbuttoned the shirt slowly — far too slowly — each button revealing another inch of heated skin: hard chest, dark hair narrowing below his navel, old pale scars crossing his ribs that should not exist on a man his age, scars that should have killed him. He pulled the shirt away from the wound, and Nica stepped closer, her mouth gone dry, her professional detachment nowhere to be found. The blade had cut from his lower ribs toward his hip, deep enough that she should have seen muscle — and the edges were already drawing together. She watched the flesh close, and her breath stopped.
“Tell me I imagined that.”
“You did not.”Finally.Not an explanation, but truth.
She touched the skin beside the wound, and his stomach contracted under her fingers. “Does it hurt?”
“Yes.” She looked up, and his eyes had gone dark — not red, hotter somehow. “Why wouldn’t you let the paramedics look at you?”
“They would have questions.”
“I have questions.” Her fingers traced the edge of one pale scar, and she felt him go rigid under the light touch, felt the effort in his stillness. “What made this?”
“A sword.”
“This one?”
“Claws.” Her hand stopped.
“Animal claws?”
“No.”
The room tilted, and every impossible thing she’d seen aligned into a shape she wasn’t ready to name. Nica pulled her hand back. Demetri caught her wrist — gently — the broken Chain resting against his skin, the blackened links beside her pulse. “You are frightened.”
“Yes.” His grip loosened. She could have moved. She didn’t. “I should take you back to your rooms.”
“Do you want me to go?”
“No.” The answer scraped through her, low and raw and more honest than anything he’d said all day.
“Then stop deciding for me.” His gaze sharpened. She remembered him lifting the attacker with one hand, and she remembered him stopping because she asked. Dangerous. Everything about him was dangerous. But the danger had bent around her. Protected her. Obeyed her. That should not have been erotic, and her body did not care in the slightest what should have been. She stepped closer, and Demetri released her wrist as though it cost him blood. “Nica.”
