I looked down at my crotch and then back up to Luca for help. “What is she talking about?”
He gave a slow, tired blink. “Don’t ask.”
Lila shrugged. “Come tomorrow, and we can talk.” She pointed to Melina. “Let’s go and leave the boys to be Ivan’s wing men.”
I sighed in frustration. It was like she was speaking a different language. “What does this mean? I need no man for my wings. I don’t even have them showing.”
Aaron snorted, giving me a pitying look as if I should have known what it meant. “It means we are going to help you fly to love.”
“Sounds stupid,” I muttered, slumping down in my seat like a petulant child.
Melina kissed her husband on the cheek and patted his head. “It does sound stupid when you describe it like that, honey. I still love you, though.”
He looked up to her as if she were his goddess, shoulder length black hair falling back and silver eyes glazed with that look of love I’d seen on him often with her.
I waved at the women, urging them to hurry along. “Okay, bye.”
Melina cut her eyes at me. “I’ll remember this.”
I bared my teeth. “I hope you do. I still have love for you though.”
She gave me a dismissive wave of her hand, but her mouth turned up in a slight smile. I looked to Lila and Luca who were still kissing each other goodbye. “You see him every day!” I shouted, arms shooting up in the air.
She slowly pulled away from him. “Tonight was his night.”
Like I cared. Lila and Luca were part of a four-person pack, and she was the center. Pack relationships weren’t exactly my thing, sharing and being shared felt like work, but I could respect the arrangement for them.
“He’ll be coming home to you later. I won’t have him out late.”
She slowly backed away, and Melina grabbed her by the arm as they looked forlornly at their mates. I rolled my eyes. “We aren’t going off to war. You’ll see them again, ladies. I appreciate you.”
I looked back at my friends, and both were giving me annoyed faces. “What? Is hanging with your single friend such a torture you can’t endure without your mates? Aaron, I thought we were like brothers?”
Aaron softened his face. “You are my brother. Sorry if we’ve been neglectful friends. We shouldn’t have brought them here tonight.”
I looked at Luca whose turquoise eyes widened, a depth of contrast against copper skin. “What? Am I supposed to say sorry? I don’t feel sorry.”
Clueless as ever. I clapped my hands together and stood up. “I’m going to take a piss. One of you fuckers can get the next round.”
I headed to the back of the room toward the bathroom and immediately paused when a familiar scent reached my nose. The scent I had been searching for. The real reason I was so willing to move this kingdom. The sweetest cherry mixed with buttery almond. A compliment to my senses that made my mouth water. My chest tightened before I could even reconcile the source, my memories. Flashes of laughing brownish hazel eyes, a smoothbrown leg tossed over my thigh. I felt the phantom tickle of cool breath on my neck, an echoing sound of sultry laughter in my ear.
And then there she was in real life, facing me. A look of shock on that gorgeous face. She was the same as my mind allowed me to remember. A cloud of reddish-brown coils framing an almost artful face of large eyes, high cheekbones, and pouty lips. I’d dreamed of her for so long, I thought for a split second that this too might be a dream. However, this was real. I’d broken for her, cried for her, yearned for her. And here she was, mere steps away from my touch. I felt delirious.
She’d said words I didn’t hear at first.
I finally blinked, my eyes feeling so dry from fear of losing sight of her for only a millisecond if I closed them. “I’m sorry?”
She tilted her head and walked over to me. My heart pounded in my ears as she came closer. And then she touched me. Laced her fingers between mine as I kept my eyes on her, unable to breathe. “I said I was explaining to this man, who I was arranged by the court to marry, that we couldn’t marry because you and I are in love and deserve to get this second chance. Right?”
Her eyes seemed to plead with me to agree. I looked over to the stranger who glanced at me with a look of confusion and disbelief. I didn’t like the look of him. The snootiness to his sharp features. But more than anything, I didn’t like that Jalisa Evenbright would get married to anyone else but me. We were meant to be together. Even if I tried to forget, my dragon nature would not. I had claimed her in my mind before she was mine. I’d wanted to horde her like a treasure. Bring her back to my lair and never let her go. However, I’d kept that part of me buried, pushed against my dragon nature. Perhaps too much because I’d lost her.
To see her again was not coincidence. I came here to find her. She was right, this was our second chance. A chance to right the mistakes of our past.
I squeezed her hand, and the connection rippled through me like a heated wave. “Lisa’s mine,” I began, purposely using her nickname to show how familiar we were with each other. “Sorry the court arranged you two, but I can’t let that happen. We’ll ask them to find someone else.”
The male narrowed his eyes, still not believing us. “Who are you?”
I playfully slapped my forehead before offering my own. “Names, Ivan Icetower. And you are?”
