Chapter Thirteen #4
The sheer scale of him folds inward until his massive shape disappears beneath the man I know, his glamour restoring the clothes he was wearing before the shift along with the rest of his human form.
A few bronze scales linger along his shoulders and throat before those disappear too, leaving Soren standing on the frozen grass, watching me with gold still burning through his eyes.
I must look ridiculous. My hair is everywhere, and my face actually hurts from smiling so much.
Soren looks pleased with himself.
I pull the blanket tighter around me and look up at him. “That was fucking amazing!”
His smile finally breaks free, and before I can say anything else, he slips an arm around me and pulls me against his side, surrounding me with his heat as we start back toward the house.
The purr starts before we reach the stairs.
We barely make it back to his rooms before we’re on each other again, and after that I lose track of how many times we have sex.
The first is frantic, still riding the flight, but it doesn’t stay that way.
We slow down, drift off for what feels like minutes, then one of us wakes the other with a kiss and we start over.
Somewhere in there the night stops being about urgency and becomes something quieter, until I can’t tell where one time ends and the next begins, his hands wandering or my mouth finding his until the purr starts up beneath my palm.
It’s sometime around three when we finally wear each other out enough to stay asleep.
I wake up warm.
Wrapped in six-foot-something of sleeping furnace with one heavy arm across my waist and his face buried somewhere behind my shoulder. I’ve slept later than I have in years, and sunlight has already made it across most of the floor toward the chair by the window.
Getting out of bed proves more difficult than expected. The moment I lift his arm, Soren makes a displeased sound and reaches for me in his sleep, dragging his hand across the empty space I’ve left behind. I bite back a laugh, ease away before he can catch me and pull on his shirt from the floor.
It hangs almost to my knees, which is good enough.
I follow the sound of voices downstairs. The kitchen is already full when I walk in, and every conversation seems to stop at once.
There’s a minotaur at the stove making enough eggs to feed everyone in the house, a werewolf leaning against the counter stealing pieces of food whenever his back is turned, and two men at the table locked in an arm-wrestle that looks considerably more serious than breakfast should require.
Someone else is reading in the corner and doesn’t bother looking up.
And then there’s Gael, sitting at the end of the table with a cup of tea and a tablet in front of her.
Her eyes flick over me, taking in the bare feet and Soren’s shirt, before she calmly sets down her cup.
“Good morning, Margot.”
“Morning.” I blush.
The werewolf grins at me.
Gael points at him without looking. “Ronan. Ignore most of what he says.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“And already you’re doing wonderfully.” Her finger moves toward the stove. “Evander. He’ll feed you whether you’re hungry or not.”
The minotaur glances over his shoulder and gives me a warm smile. “Morning.”
“At the table, Grath and Corvin. Grath is the one winning.”
“I was distracted,” Corvin says as Grath steadily forces his hand toward the table.
“You were losing before she walked in,” Grath tells him.
Gael gestures toward the man with the book. “Mikael.”
Mikael lifts two fingers from the page in greeting.
“And now you know everyone.” Gael picks up her tablet and holds it toward me. “Come here. I need a signature.”
I eye the tablet. “Why do I feel like I’m about to sign my life away?”
She brings up a document and hands me the tablet. “Revised confidentiality agreement, acknowledgment that your professional arrangement with Soren has ended, and several clauses our lawyer insisted upon after I explained the situation.”
I scroll. “There are a lot of clauses.”
“You’re dating a dragon who lives in a mansion full of supernatural sex workers. Our lawyer had feelings.”
I laugh and sign at the bottom.
Gael takes the tablet back, checks the signature and gives a satisfied nod. “Excellent. You may now continue causing administrative problems with the appropriate paperwork in place.”
“Happy to help.”
She starts to walk away, then stops beside me.
“I’m glad you came back.”
“Me too.”
She gives my arm a brief squeeze before disappearing into the noise of the kitchen, and I’m still watching her go when heavy footsteps sound behind me.
I turn.
Soren has stopped in the doorway.
His hair is a mess, he hasn’t bothered with a shirt, and there’s a distinctly irritated set to his mouth that makes me suspect waking up alone didn’t go over well.
Then his eyes find me, barefoot in the middle of the kitchen wearing his shirt.
The irritation disappears. Gold slips through his eyes, and a second later, the low rumble of his purr reaches me from across the room.
Ronan groans. “In the words of Soren, for fuck’s sake.”
Soren ignores him.
He crosses the kitchen and pulls me straight into his arms.
“You left me.”
“I just came downstairs. Don’t be so dramatic.”
“You were gone when I woke up.” His arms tighten around me. “I disliked it.”
I laugh against his chest. “You survived.”
“Barely.”
Around us, breakfast carries on. Evander tells Ronan to stop stealing food, Corvin is still demanding a rematch, and somebody slides a plate toward the empty place at the table without asking whether I’m staying.
Soren lowers his mouth to my hair, his purr still rolling through his chest.
I look around the kitchen again, at this strange, loud house and the people in it, then up at the dragon holding me like he still can’t quite believe I came back.