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I’ve never been one who believed in soulmates, so I’m not suffering from some kind of crisis of faith or conscience for being attracted to two men. But comparing what I felt for Gideon to what my body is doing when I kiss Axel in this moment would be like comparing a gentle breeze to the gale force of a hurricane.
Axel’s body flexes around me, his hands fisting against the leather of the sofa and his arms expanding. His neck cranes and his lips tilt me upward toward him as he takes control. But he does it slowly. He does it lazily, almost, like we have all the time in the world.
Which can’t be true. Because I’m literally catching fire.
I know that human temperatures run at 98.6 degrees. Everyone knows that. But there’s no way that I’m anywhere near that right now, and where our lips touch, heat sears its way through me, and I love every second of it.
My right hand slides up the side of his face and slips into his hair, while my left hand grabs the front of his shirt and pulls him down. Since he has no idea what he’s doing, I wonder whether my yanking and pulling might confuse him. It might irritate him, even. But then he growls deep in his chest in a way a human never could, and my insides melt like steel in the center of a freaking furnace.
That’s when I smell it—a roasting scent, almost like turkey legs being turned on a spit at the Houston Renaissance Festival. I pull back just long enough to see that where his fists are planted against the sofa, it’s smoking.
“Axel,” I whisper.
He shakes his head, and bites his bottom lip.
“We need to?—”
“Don’t say stop,” he snaps. “If you say stop?—”
I release my grip on his shirt and spread my hand out, moving it slightly, so slightly, so that I can feel the ridges of muscle underneath his shirt. “I wasn’t going to say stop. I don’t think I could say that.”
His grin is wicked.
“But now that we have hit pause.” I draw in a breath sharply. “I’d rather not burn this building down.”
His laughter’s high and bright. “I couldn’t care less about that.”
“I would,” I say softly.
He frowns, as if he’s not sure what I’m saying.
“I’d hate myself for it, but I would kill someone for you. I’m terribly worried that I would kill a great many someones, if it came to that.”
Axel’s eyes widen, and he stands, and something in our bond shifts, shuddering, shaking, and then dropping into place yet again.
At first, our bond was like shackles around my ankles, dragging me, weighing on me, pulling at me. I hated it and wanted it gone. Then after we entwined, my bond became like a climbing harness, keeping me from falling to the ground.
But now it’s different in another way.
For the first time since that day on the playground by my house, the bond feels like a buoy, keeping me afloat in a storm-tossed ocean. I press my hand against my own chest, and I draw in a very full, very relaxed breath.
“What just happened?”
“I think our bond is settling in,” he says. “I know it’s late and you need to sleep, but tomorrow, I want to test flying farther away. I bet you’ll manage a lot better alone.”
I know he’s hoping he can fly home to see his dad without me, and I should be grateful. The last thing I want to do is confront the leader of every single dragon on their own home planet. He’s basically the destroyer of all things, as far as I can tell. But. . .
“I don’t want you to leave me,” I say. “Even if now you can.”
And that’s the real change. This morning, I was desperate for us to have a little space to exist independently, but now, I don’t want it.
If anything in the world has the power to keep me away from Axel after that soul-consuming kiss, it’s this truth: the more time I spend with him, the less able I seem to be to go without him. I may be the only person on earth who can save us from the fate that’s hurtling our way, and when the time comes, I’m afraid I won’t be able to do it.
8
Axel
Liz is sleeping.
