Page 50 of Blood Singer

Leila was quiet for a long moment. Then she asked, "What does my blood smell like to you?"

My dragon stirred, and I took a slow breath before I answered.

"Wildflowers and sunshine," I said, my voice dropping. "Alive and bright and so intoxicating I can barely think straight when you're near. Marion's blood sang to me in a gentle melody. Yours is a full orchestra. Complex and layered, the kind of music that doesn't repeat, the kind that changes every time you hear it." I stood and moved around the table toward her. "Marion's scent was sweet and innocent. Yours is fire and life and everything I didn't know I'd been waiting for."

She stood too, and suddenly we were inches apart, the candlelight making shadows flicker across her face.

"I caught Marion's scent on you because you're her descendant," I continued. "But that's not what drew me to you. That's not why I followed your scent to the gardens, why I haven't been able to stop watching you since the day you walked off that shuttle." I lifted my hands and cupped her face, her skin warm beneath my palms. "What draws me to you is you, Leila. Your courage. The way you talk to my people like they're worth knowing. The way you never let me bully you even when I tried." She laughed at that, a surprised, genuine sound. "The way you challenge me. The way you call me out on my own nonsense. The way you make me feel like something in this world is worth getting up for besides duty."

"Kavan," she breathed, her pulse quickening at the base of her throat in a way I could clearly hear.

"I don't know exactly what this is," I admitted. "I don't know if it's fate or something either of us chose or some impossible combination of both. But I know it's real. I know it's you I want. Not an echo of a female I never truly had. Just you."

She rose onto her toes and kissed me, and the world narrowed to the feeling of her lips on mine. Soft and warm and tasting faintly of the wine we'd shared. I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her closer, deepening the kiss, and felt her hands come up to tangle in my hair.

This wasn't like the desperate collision in the alcove. This was deliberate. Chosen. Both of us with clear heads, open eyes and admitted desire.

When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing harder, and the shift in her scent made my dragon practically vibrate. Arousal sweet and unmistakable.

"Come here," I said, taking her hand and leading her to the balcony railing.

We stood looking out over Argia as the last light faded and the city lights appeared below, one by one, like something lit from within. I moved behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist, and she settled back against my chest with the ease of someone who'd decided to trust a thing completely. She fit there in a way that felt almost architectural, as if my body had always had a space for exactly her specific dimensions and warmth.

"It's beautiful," she said softly.

"It is," I agreed, though I was looking at the way candlelight caught in her hair, turning individual strands into threads of copper and gold.

She turned in my arms, and we were face to face again, the space between us charged.

"Kavan," she said, and there was a question in it.

"Yes," I said, answering the one she hadn't asked. "Yes to all of it."

She kissed me again, and this time there was nothing tentative about it. Her hands slid under my shirt, her fingers tracing the hard lines of my abdomen with a deliberate slowness that made my breath catch. She was taking her time, which I hadn't expected, which wrecked me more thoroughly than urgency would have. I groaned against her mouth. A sound that came from somewhere deep in my chest, somewhere that'd been silent for a very long time. The touch of her hands on bare skin was like a smoldering ember, and I felt my control loosening notch by notch. My dragon pushed forward with a hunger that wanted to skip straight to claiming, to permanence, to teeth and venom and the irrevocable.

I pulled back just enough to breathe, to remind myself that she was human and deserved better than a dragon's feral need overwhelming her.

I scooped her up, and she laughed. A bright, startled sound that bounced off the stone walls and made something in my chest expand.

"I can walk, you know," she said.

"I know," I said, carrying her through the balcony doors. "But you're small and the chamber is large, and I've been waiting to do this for approximately three weeks."

"Three weeks," she repeated, amused. "Very precise."

"I've been keeping track," I said. "It's been torture."

She was still smiling when I set her down beside the bed. The candlelight moved across her face, and what I saw there struck me somewhere more fundamental than attraction. Trust, desire, that particular quality of wanting that didn't flinch or second-guess itself.

"Are you sure?" I asked, because I needed to hear it clearly.

"I've never been more sure of anything," she said, reaching for the fastenings of her dress.

I caught her hands. "Let me."

I worked the fastenings slowly. My fingers, which had held swords and signed treaties without trembling, were not entirely steady now. I noticed this with a distant kind of wonder. Each hook I released revealed more of her. The elegant line of her collarbone, the swell of her breasts, the soft curve of her waist. The fabric whispered as it fell, pooling at her feet.

She stood in nothing but a thin chemise, and through the sheer fabric I could see the outline of her nipples, her chest rising and falling with quickening breaths. Her scent was thick in the air now, surrounding me completely.