Page 50 of Dragon Kissed

“I am protecting your life.”

“By refusing to tell me why it’s in danger.”

“Yes.”

“That makes no sense.”

“I know.”

“Then break the law.” The plea came raw, torn out of the part of her that wanted, desperately, to be given a reason to stay. Demetri’s hand lifted and stopped beside her face, hovering, not touching. “If I tell you what I am before you meet the legalcondition for knowing, the penalty is death.” Nica forgot how to breathe. “Whose?” His eyes burned red. “Yours.”

The room fell away. “My death. Because you tell me the truth.”

“Yes.”

“That’s insane.”

“Yes.”

“Who would kill me?”

“The king’s executioners.”

“And you would let them?” Fire flashed behind his eyes, sudden and total. “I would burn every kingdom on earth first.” The certainty in his voice frightened her more than the threat had — because he meant it, meant it the way other men meant nothing, and she had no framework for being loved by something that would raze the world for her. Nica stepped back. “What is the legal condition?” He could not answer. Of course. She laughed, and this time it sounded broken. “You love me. You won’t tell me why. You won’t tell me what you are. You won’t tell me what I have to do to earn the right not to be executed.”

“That is not what it is.”

“It sounds exactly like that.”

“Nica.”

“No.” She picked up her laptop. Demetri did not block the door. He’d promised. She hated him for keeping that promise — hated that the one time she wanted him to override her, to be the tyrant she could righteously flee, he stood aside and let her go and made her do the leaving herself.

Lirien waited in the gallery,her eyes moving over Nica’s face and understanding immediately, the way she seemed to understand everything. “Let me speak to him.”

“No.I need to leave.”

Caelen appeared at the far end of the gallery, the tie gone, exhaustion marking the skin beneath his eyes, grief still raw in the set of his shoulders from the photograph of his brother. “Your vehicle is ready.” No argument. No manipulation. Respect. Nica almost cried at it, at being handed her own choice without a fight by people who had every reason to keep her. Instead she hugged Lirien, and the elf froze, then her arms closed around Nica — cool, strong, smelling faintly of green growing things. “Come back,” Lirien whispered. Nica could not promise.

Demetri stood in the entry hall, fully dressed now — black suit, white shirt, no tie, the perfect image of a billionaire who had not killed men with claws before dawn — and he held her coat. She turned and let him place it around her shoulders, his hands not touching her skin, careful even now to give her nothing she hadn’t asked for. “I have secured a suite at the Fairmont,” he said. “Eight men. Four in the hotel, four rotating outside.”

“Margaret? The manuscript? Caelen and Lirien?”

“Safe.”

“And you?” The question escaped before she could stop it, and she despised how much the answer mattered. Demetri looked at her, the broken Chain beneath his cuff. “No,” he said. Nica’s heart clenched. “Then tell me.”

“I cannot.” She nodded. There it was. The wall neither of them could cross, standing between them as solid as the stone the house was built from.

He followed her as far as the steps. She turned before entering the vehicle, the cold morning air off the cliff pulling at her hair. “I don’t regret last night.”

“I do not regret any moment with you.”

“That isn’t the same as trust. I need the truth more than I need protection.”

His eyes held hers, ancient and certain and sad. “I hope you never learn how wrong that is.” Nica got in. The vehicle pulled away, and she watched him through the rear window until fog swallowed the house, until the pale stone and the copper roof and the man standing motionless on the steps all dissolved into gray, and only then did she let herself cry.

The driver’sname was Lewis — late forties, close-cropped hair, calm voice — and a second security vehicle followed. Her phone showed three messages from Margaret, all variations of CALL ME. She didn’t. Not yet. She needed ten minutes without explaining why she’d left the safest house in California after discovering that the man who lived there had been alive since before the United States existed. Ten minutes to put herself back together, the way she always did, alone, in a moving vehicle, watching a place she’d almost belonged to disappear behind her.