11. Aries #2
“Yes,” she insists as if I’m being slow. “You’re not just an escapee from a story; you’re the main character! The fucking hero of it all! If I fuck this up... No, not an option. I have to get you back before anyone realizes...”
“Paige,” I say, watching as she spirals inward, muttering to herself words I don’t understand about destruction and stupidity. “Paige,” I say again. “Paige!”
“What?” She breaks off from her tirade, blinking at me impatiently.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say.
“Right.” She sighs, but her expression tightens, and I know whatever she’s about to tell me isn’t going to be good news. “So, remember how I told you about a thing called the Extrication?”
“Yes. You said the escapees were hunted down and destroyed. That’s why we have to lie low.”
“Right. Well, what I didn’t tell you is that it wasn’t just my book that was destroyed. There were quite a few that suffered the same fate as mine.”
“This is why the escapees were trapped here.”
“You don’t get it. As the main character of your story, your life, while here in the Athenaeum, is tied to the life of your book. To the life of your very world. The books, and the worlds inside them, were destroyed at the moment of the escapees’ death.”
She watches me, waiting for me to understand. I run her words through my mind again, and then it clicks. Her concern makes perfect sense. Perfect, horrific sense.
“If my book is destroyed, or if I am killed, my world perishes with me.”
“Yes.”
I can feel my dragon rising, ready to meet any and all threats with the flames of its wrath, but I force it back.
This is no place for that kind of rage. Not with Paige staring at me with those round, innocent eyes and the walls of her tiny bedroom closing in on us both, and nothing has changed, anyway.
My beast would protect Paige at the cost of its own life. I know it as well as I know my name.
She watches me, clearly waiting for a reaction.
“We’ll need to be careful,” I say finally and settle back against the headboard again.
“That’s it?” she asks, still eyeing me. “That’s all you have to say?”
“What else is there? I’m here now. The damage is done.” She winces, and I regret my word choice immediately. “That’s not what I meant.”
“It should be,” she says. “I really fucked up. I’m sorry. You’re important in your world. I’m sure people are losing their minds looking for you right now.”
“My mother, yes,” I admit. “But only so she can parade another potential mate before me. Leo probably thinks I’ve run off and hidden from her attempts.”
“Your mother is helping you look for a wife?”
“Against my better judgment, yes.”
Her expression shifts into something I can’t quite read, her scent—though— that I understand perfectly. Jealousy . My beast hums at the thought. “And—how’s that going?”
“Not well,” I admit. “Every female she’s brought has been excruciatingly wrong. Though, I understand my mother’s determination. Without a mate, I can’t take the throne.”
“I see.”
Her jealous scent intensifies, and I bite back a smug smile. Still, her eyes are strangely unreadable. I can’t take it. I have to put her out of her misery.
“The last woman was a flamingo shifter. Arrogant to the core, her kind is.”
“A flamingo?” Paige chokes on a laugh. “As in, pink bird with super long legs?”
I grin. “You have them here, too, then.”
“Not the marrying kind, no. The flamingos here remain birds as far as I know.”
“Well. Esma had a personality as ostentatious as her inner creature. She certainly believed she was worthy of being queen.”
“After a title, then,” she says sadly. “I imagine that gets difficult. Trying to find love when all anyone sees is the power.”
“Exactly.” I feel oddly honored that she understands. That somehow, this woman sees straight through to my soul.
“No matter, though. I’m sure my mother will switch her focus to Leo in my absence; it’s only fair that he suffer for a while instead.”
“Leo is …?”
“My younger brother. A thorn in my side at times, but I trust no one more.” A smile graces my lips even as my insides churn with fear. What if I never get back? What if—somehow—my life ends in this library, and my entire family pays the price?
She cocks her head, studying me. “You sound close.”
“We are.”
“You miss them.”
“I do. And I worry for my kingdom. Without a dragon on the throne, the hoard grows bolder in their attacks.”
She lays a hand on my arm, and I nearly jolt at the unexpected touch. My flesh warms beneath her palm, a shiver of awareness spreading up my arm.
“We’re going to find a way to get you home,” she says solemnly.
Our eyes meet, and I inhale the scent of her arousal.
My own desire flares immediately, and I find myself straining to go to her, to close the distance and kiss her until she can’t remember why she stopped it before.
I want to hear her moan my name, to beg me to touch her and to let herself touch me.
Her scent tells me she wants it too, but she doesn’t move closer.
Instead, she withdraws her hand and lies down, resettling herself beneath the covers with enough space between us to remind me of the boundary she’s put there.
I exhale, my own need battling for control, but I force it aside.
What she needs now is protection. And as long as my dragon draws breath, it has sworn to give it to her.
I lie quietly, unsure what to think of all the problems that presents until, eventually, Paige’s breaths slow and become even with sleep.
Long after she’s nodded off, I remain awake and aware of the threat hanging over us now.
The dark energy I sensed earlier worries me.
It’s like nothing I’ve ever encountered before, and if it truly is nothing more than a shadow, no weapons will work against it.
Not a flail and not even a dragon. My beast huffs at that, but I ignore him, my thoughts inevitably drifting back to the sleeping woman beside me.
Her shoulders rise and fall with the steady breaths of sleep. Seeing her lying beside me does strange things to my head, and it hits me then:
The figure Paige saw earlier is nowhere near as dangerous as my feelings for the woman beside me.
What I feel for her is improbable.
Impossible, even.
We’re from different worlds, different times, and yet my dragon calls to her as he would his mate. I’m not sure I have the strength to leave her behind when the time comes for me to return home,
Because, impossibilities aside, Paige is mine .