Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 117336 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117336 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
"It's a rose bush," he tells me. "So you can have something beautiful to enjoy."
With a gasp of surprise, I glance over at him. "It is? Really? I haven't seen roses since…the Before." I touch the plant and sure enough, there are tight little buds, waiting to bloom. That elevates this from a decent gift into something magical and special. "This is wonderful. Thank you so much." I put a hand to my throat, touched. "It might be the best thing anyone's ever given me."
"Is it? Then I am pleased."
I turn to him, and he's got such a delighted look on his face at my pleasure that I'm filled with a stab of warmth for this strange, prickly man. Impulsively, I reach up and kiss his cheek, tugging him down to my height. "Thank you. It really does mean a lot to me."
When he pulls back, Azar's eyes are whirling a thick, deep gold as he gazes at me. Something tells me that's an arousal color, and I worry I've gone too far. But he only smiles, as if making me happy is enough for him.
Chapter
Eleven
AZAR
I am winning her over.
I lie in bed that night, staring up at the ceiling of our shared room. I am pleased. Melina is opening up to me. She no longer watches me with wary distrust, but something else, something speculative. As if I am a puzzle she must figure out rather than her enemy. It is progress, and that pleases me. Tonight, she even murmured a “goodnight” as I climbed into bed.
I want to smile with satisfaction, but I keep my expression bland. Instead, I stare at the ceiling of our room and contemplate our conversation earlier. How she moved her chair next to mine and touched my arm. Twice. And she asked about my health. Thinking of that makes my mood darken, because she probed at a sensitive spot. I cannot tell her that I am not entirely certain how I made it to her fort. I cannot tell her that in the dark recesses of my memory, I suspect I shifted into battle-form and flew here, only to collapse, injured, just outside their fort.
A Salorian does not use his battle-form. To do so is to give in to the crude, animalistic side of himself. We are not the same as the drakoni. We are not. If one of my people found out that I had—perhaps—switched to battle-form, I would be shunned. I would be reviled and stripped of my rank, cast out to live in the deserts like the wild drakoni that were not yet tamed.
I am not entirely certain this happened…but I have my suspicions and I am concerned.
If I lose control and switch forms again, not only will I lose control of the six drakoni on the walls here, but I might never return to my normal form. The drakoni here are crazed, lost, and trapped in their battle-forms. They are unable to change back without some sort of tether—such as a mate—and I fear for myself if I do the same. I cannot take a mate. Not truly. Melina might play at being mine, but she cannot take my seed. She cannot take my cock into her body because my spend will burn her. I would have to bite her and give her a portion of my fires, as the drakoni do to their mates, in order to blend her scent, her essence with mine.
But if I do that, there is no going back. I will not be able to leave her behind…nor can I take her with me. A Salorian does not take a mate, and if they smelled my fires on her, they would know me for the deviant I am.
It is a fine mess I have trapped myself in.
Melina shifts in the bed next to me, making a soft noise in her throat. Her light, enticing smell drifts through the air, and my body responds. I am trapped…and yet I keep willingly sticking my hand inside the trap.
Irony.
Weeks pass.
They are difficult, torturous weeks. Weeks in which I obsess over Melina. I'm tempted to send a spy over to her clinic to report back her every move, but I know that will make her angry. It's not that I don't trust her. I'm just…besotted. If she laughs, I want to hear what caused it. If she sighs, I want to know why. I don't sleep at night, because I'm too busy drinking in her scent, focusing on her even breathing. Imagining her touch again, the way she circled my cock with expert fingers.
At night, when I lie there in bed, shaking with how badly I want her, I am weak. I am weak because I would gladly bite into her soft neck and give her my fires, linking our spirits forever. I would give up my chance to go home simply to have one satisfying plunge into the wet heat of her cunt. I hunger for her, aching, my cock making a tent under the blankets.