My name? For a moment, my mind blanked. She didn’t know my name? Had I not told her that when I let her into my cabin during the storm yesterday? No. With shame burning my mind, I knew I hadn’t. I’d been so focused on how dangerous it was to let her in that I hadn’t once remembered my manners. I had those once—I knew that—they were buried somewhere deep in the recesses of my mind.
“It’s Ísarr,” I said, voice husky and gruff. “Go inside before you catch a cold.” When I took a step toward her, snow and ice crumbled around me, losing more of the shape it had formed around my dragon body. I thought she’d flinch or retreat, but she waited for me until I reached the porch, chin tilted up, eyes surprisingly calm and placid. They reminded me of my favorite pond in winter, when it was frozen over.
I reached past her head to put my hand on the door behind her. She did flinch then, but just with her eyes, blinking. I inhaleddeeply, and her scent struck me: floral, silky, sweet. My cock hardened in my pants, eager to touch her, eager to taste her. She tilted her chin up, staring at me, and the passion sizzled out when I realized she was looking at my horns. “So those are real?” she asked, and my breath froze in my chest. This was not going right, was it? This was so far outside of my comfort zone, I had no idea what to do or say. So I just grunted a half-assed yes.
She still did not step back, didn’t get herself out of the cold and into my home. When I pushed the door open, I realized the cold air rushing out, while definitely warmer than outside, was still far too cold for her fragile human body. I’d forgotten to tend to the fire throughout the night.
“Did I really see that? What are you?” she insisted on asking. Did she have no sense of self-preservation? Why was she asking me these questions when she was starting to shiver from the cold on the spot? I took another step, our boots touching on the snow-covered porch. Why wasn’t she responding like she should? Now I was looming over her, and she had to tip back her head to keep staring. All she could possibly see was the edge of my chin, but that did not seem to deter her.
“Get inside, Bianca,” I said to her, not certain why that was so important. Possibly, she didn’t want to go because it would feel like getting trapped, and I started to reconsider. She didn’t act scared, didn’t smell scared either, so what was I supposed to do? Her mouth tilted in a smile—one that only grew wider—and I really didn’t know what to make of that. I did know that she was cold, and if she would not help herself and get indoors, I’d have to help her.
For what was possibly the first time in years, I made an attempt to wrest my powers into some semblance of control. No, control wasn’t the right word—I’d never managed that—but it wasn’t because I couldn’t make them do what I wanted. It was just that they did whatever they wanted, even when I didn’t want to use them. Particularly during a snowstorm like the one we’d had during the night.
On an inhale, I drew cold air deep into my lungs, pulling it away from Bianca’s body right in front of me. I could not heat the air around her exactly, but I could take the ice out of it and keep the brisk wind from touching her. It helped, I could see that the tremble she tried to hide eased up. Now, if only I could believe that I wouldn’t turn her into an ice cube by accident down the line. I needed to call Jackson again, make him come pick her up. Then she’d be safe.
Safe? There was a niggle at the back of my mind that reminded me she had not been safe last night. There had been danger in our dreams, and the danger had been far greater to her than to me. My instinct was to pull her close, to get her into my cabin and behind the protections where I kept my hoard. My rational mind kept telling me that was a terrible idea. I needed her safe, but safe from me, or safe from everyone else?
The woman in question crossed her arms over her chest, chin up in a stubborn way that set my blood on fire. “I’m fine. Just tell me what I saw was real, please?” I shrugged helplessly, then nodded, but it was not what she wanted, apparently. Her brow furrowed over her eyes; her smile had slipped away, and I missed it already. Enough, she had me all twisted up, and we’d barely had a conversation. My fault, not hers, obviously.
If she wouldn’t do the smart thing and move inside where I could light a fire for her, I’d move her myself. It was rash, it was impulsive, but I had her by her arms before I could think better of it. “Go inside,” I said again, and I turned her bodily, then gave her a gentle push, and finally, she started walking. I followed closely—perhaps too close—but it was instinct to herd her where I wanted her to go.
Then I pulled the door shut on the cool, fresh wind, circled around her, and hurried for my stove. Fire, a hot drink, blankets. She was probably going to need all of that. Focusing on tasks rather than my screw-up helped, and this way I could pretend she wasn’t still staring at me. I couldn’t imagine what she was feeling, scared, confused? I should smell those things, but her scent was so sweet and pleasant, distracting. It didn’t hold the heavy notes of the more intense emotions I’d expect. Maybe I was out of practice. After all, I hadn’t really been around people for so long, let alone humans. Had I forgotten what emotions smelled like?
At the stove, I piled kindling and wood the same way I’d been doing for centuries. Then, before I could think better of it, I leaned in and blew a spark of flame into the wood. What did it matter, anyway? She’d already seen my dragon and knew that I had real horns growing from my damn forehead. Might as well let her see that, like any respectable dragon, I could manage to blow a spark.
When I rose and turned to look at her, I realized the room was rather dark. The shutters were still closed all around the cabin, and I hadn’t flicked on any lights, my eyes didn’t need them. Bianca stood by the door as if she were still waiting for her eyes to adjust. She might not even have seen my trick with the fire,and now I wasn’t sure if I was upset about that or not. My head was a mess; she was making it spin just by being here.
Right, Jackson. I needed my phone so I could call him and take her away. Then this would all be over, and things could return to my quiet, normal life. Only… it wouldn’t be the same for Bianca, not after I messed up and she saw the other side of me. She couldn’t leave knowing that, could she? Sure, we didn’t live in the whole pitchforks-and-burning-at-the-stake era any longer, but that didn’t make the knowledge of what I was any less dangerous. Did it?
Then, incongruously, the scent of fear finally hit me. It wafted from her—bitter and sharp—and made my gut twist with guilt, certain it was my fault she feared what she’d seen. It was finally sinking in. I froze by the crackle and pop of the burning fire, unwilling to make it any worse. Then her trembling voice rose in the air between us: “Ísarr, the darkness… I know it’s silly, but I had this really bad nightmare last night.”
She wasn’t scared of me. That fear was about what had happened to both of us in our sleep. The darkness. Those words erased any doubt about how I was supposed to keep her safe. I was across the room in seconds.
Chapter 7
Bianca
I didn’t want to go inside, and I couldn’t explain why. The cabin door loomed in front of me, heavy and unyielding, and when Ísarr pushed it closed behind us, the darkness seemed to fall like a curtain. My breath caught tightly in my chest, in the beginnings of a panic that hadn’t fully set in yet. There was no glow of the fire yet and no window-light seeping in; the shutters kept everything locked away. It shouldn’t have bothered me; I knew, logically, he was moving around the hearth, stacking wood, lighting the fire. My chest squeezed tight anyway.
It was too much like the dream—the darkness that pressed in, suffocating, filled with whispers I couldn’t quite remember. The sensation made my hands tremble, though I clenched them into fists to hide it. I forced myself to breathe in deeply and get it together. Out of everything that had happened this morning, this was what got to me? Really? But it lasted longer than I thought it would, and even when flames began to lick at the logs inside the wood stove, I did not feel better.
“Ísarr,” I whispered, giving in to the need for more light. “The darkness… I know it’s silly, but I had this really bad nightmare last night.” My voice cracked as I said it, betraying my weakness. Damn it, I felt like I was six years old again, wishing to crawl into bed with Mamma for comfort.
He was there in an instant, faster than I expected, his presence cutting through the dark like a torch. It was so unexpected when he wrapped his arms around me—hard and sudden—pulling meinto his chest. The shock of it melted into something else: heat, strength, safety, all the things a hug should offer, and more.
His body was firm, solid as the beams of the cabin, and all around me was his scent: smoke, snow, pine, and a wild crispness that filled my lungs until it felt like I could finally breathe again. My forehead pressed against the warm skin at the base of his throat, and for one dangerous heartbeat, I didn’t want to move. Who was I kidding? It was easy to linger there as long as he wanted to hold me. Why was he holding me? That was the last thing I ever expected my most ungracious host to do.
Then my mind flashed to earlier that morning, to the sight of the dragon who, at first, seemed just a sculpture of snow and ice. Then he’d blinked, and I’d learned that either I was crazy, or the world was crazy. He was a dragon. He wasn’t just the grumpy, flannel-wearing hermit who scowled at me like I was a stray cat he couldn’t shoo away. No, I had seen the truth: the massive ice dragon crouched in the aftermath of a storm, wings spread wide, scales glinting with frost. I’d seen him fold that impossible shape down into this broad-shouldered man, horns no longer badly hidden under a helmet, his breath curling misty in the morning air.
What was bigger than seeing the truth was the fact that he hadn’t denied it. He hadn’t tried to trick me: a dragon. A real dragon, and I was in his arms.
I should have been terrified. My mind screamed it, cataloging every reason I was intruding, every reminder that I didn’t belong here. But my body betrayed me. I wanted to burrow closer, wrap myself around him, stay in his arms forever. Forever? Thethought jolted me. Whoa, that was too much, and way too fast. Yet my heart whispered that it was right.
His voice rumbled low against my cheek, and it shot a shiver down my spine, a pleasurable one. “I had the same dreams,” he said, words tight, rough. It was the same voice from before—the one who told me no, who grunted at me—and yet, it was kinder somehow. “Something was whispering in my sleep, calling to me, but I chased it off. You have nothing to fear. I’ll protect you.”
The words should have sounded ridiculous, but instead, they sank into me like a vow. I felt my lips curve despite myself, a shaky laugh breaking free. I believed him, but I was struggling to make all of this fit into my world, fit with what I knew of this guy, which was frighteningly little.
“Sure, okay, you had the same dreams. That’s not any weirder than the fact that you turn into a giant blue dragon...” My throat bobbed as I pulled back just enough to look up at him, his pale eyes catching what little light filtered through the shutters. “I need to get back home. My mom must be worried sick.” He was probably eager to get rid of me, considering the way he’d acted last night, and yet his arms tightened around me, holding me just a little closer.
