Page 55 of Dragon Kissed

“No.My dragon’s choice is absolute. Yours is not.” He said it clearly, because it was the whole architecture of his restraint, the reason he’d stopped the fire twice, the line he’d have died on. “So you’re trapped.”

“You are not a trap.”

The dragon rumbled agreement so hard it hurt.

“And if I don’t choose you?” The honest answer was death — not hers, his — and Demetri chose another truth, because the Chain could not become part of her decision. “I will respect it.”

Her eyes narrowed; she’d caught the shape of the thing he wasn’t saying, the way she always did. “What happens to you?” He did not answer. Not yet. Nica moved on, filing it, and he knew she’d come back to it. “What does bonding involve?”

Demetri explained, keeping his voice level, clinical, because if he let any heat into it she’d hear how much he wanted it and mistake the wanting for pressure. The first stage: sex, dragon fire entering her body. The second: his breath over her skin, the mark, silver after the glow faded. Telepathy. A shared life. Longevity. Nica listened without interrupting, her cataloger’s attention turned on the terms of her own future. “Permanent?”

“Yes. It cannot be undone.” He would not soften that. She of all people needed the permanence named honestly.

“Would I stop being human?”

“No.You would remain yourself. But you would live as long as I do, if the bond settles fully. And you would hear me. And him.” The dragon lifted his head.Tell her yes.“Yes.”

“What happens if I say no?” The room went silent. Demetri stood, because this was the one he could give her without a flaw in it. “You leave. And the executioners will not reach you. Because I will stop them. Even if it starts a war.”

Nica stared. He did not soften the truth; she deserved to know the exact scale of what she meant to him, measured in the only currency ancient creatures respected. “What if I choose the bond because I’m afraid to die?”

“I will refuse it.” The dragon howled at the very possibility. The man did not waver.

Her face changed. “You can refuse? Even if that means war? Why?”

“Because fear is not consent.” He had waited two hundred years to have something worth wanting this badly; he would not take it counterfeit. The dragon objected to the very possibility, thrashing against the principle. The man held it anyway, the way he’d held every line since she fell into his arms.

Nica touched the manuscript, her gloved habit surfacing even now, even here. “When I read the rite at WMS, you already knew. Did it affect you?” Demetri laughed once, surprising them both. “I nearly shifted beside you.”

“You sat there looking bored.”

“I have had practice.”

“With women reading your mating ceremony?”

“No.” The corner of her mouth lifted, and for one heartbeat the terror and the law and the failing Chain all stood aside, and there was only a woman almost smiling at him across a book, and the dragon went very quiet, as though it too understood the value of the moment and did not want to frighten it away.

Then Caelen entered carryingthe broken blade from the bunker, dark green light moving beneath the markings on his arms, Benedikte behind him with a case of six more weapons. Caelen drew a small silver tool and touched it to the spiral sigil, and the mark illuminated — not blue-green, gold — additional symbols appearing beneath, too fine for human eyes. He inhaled sharply, and Demetri heard the catch of grief in it. “My brother’s true mark. He embedded two spells. The first made the weapon lethal — Crowe would have demanded it. The second is a resonance.” He touched the next weapon, and its sigil answered, gold light passing between them in thin threads.

Benedikte went still. “I have felt that. Every time I used one blade to locate another.”

“You have been reading Faelar’s map,” Caelen said, and there was wonder under the grief now. “He knew someone would find the weapons. He made every blade call to the others.” Even in torment, in a stone cell, Faelar Aldrith had reached forward twenty years to hand his brother a trail. Caelen placed both hands over the nearest weapon, and gold magic expanded, and a map formed in the air above the table. Points of light. San Francisco. Vancouver. New York. London. Paris. Warsaw. The hunter network laid bare. And one point burning inside the estate itself.

Demetri’s dragon roared. The light moved — approaching the house — and a vehicle crossed the outer gate. Lirien checked the display, her face going still. “King Ryker.” Behind the royal convoy, two winged shapes descended through the fog. Elven executioners. The dragon lunged at the sight of them, andDemetri, Chain-less, held it by will alone, and felt exactly how little will he had left.

Another light appeared on Faelar’s map, inside the king’s second vehicle. A weapon. Caelen’s face hardened. “Someone in that convoy carries my brother’s blade.”

Benedikte moved toward the door. Demetri blocked him. “Not yet. We need proof the king will accept.” Nica stepped between them, small and unarmed and bruised, and both dragons froze. She looked at Benedikte. “You spent eight years finding the truth. Don’t ruin it eight minutes before the hearing.” Slowly the blue faded from his eyes. The dragon gave a pleased rumble, thoroughly besotted.Our mate commands old kings.

Footsteps approached. The doors opened, and King Ryker Draquonir entered with two council representatives and the executioners behind him. His gaze found Nica, then Demetri, then the glowing map. “What,” Ryker said, “have you done?”

Demetri stepped beside his mate, close enough that his shoulder brushed hers, every ancient instinct in him arranging his body between her and the swords by the wall. “Found the war your council buried.”

CHAPTER 16

Lirien: The king is here.

Nica: is that bad