I wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Whatever it took, whatever I had to do—I would keep Dante safe. Even if it meant facing down another dragon who wanted to use me.
Even if it meant losing everything I’d built here and walking away from my life, from the team.
He was worth it. This beautiful, stubborn, impossibly brave man who’d kissed me despite all the reasons he shouldn’t, was worth any risk.
I just hoped I could keep him alive long enough to tell him that.
“If I asked just one question, would you answer me? Not about the danger,” he qualified. I was quiet for a long moment.Could I?I was asking for a lot of trust and giving him nothing, and he’d trusted me with his body. I knew his heart wouldn’t be far behind.
“Yes,” I promised, my heart bouncing against my ribs.
He nodded and opened those gorgeous brown eyes.
“Theron, how old are you?”
Chapter eighteen
Sudden Death - Overtime where the first goal ends the game.
Dante
Watching Theron’s face was a revelation. My mind had gone through and scoffed at all the alien fantasy stories I’d loved as a kid. I mean, for starters, the aliens were usually the bad people, but I knew Theron wasn’t. I just didn’t know exactly what he was. I didn’t drop my gaze even as my mind wandered. One of my dad’s favorite films had beenHighlanderwith SeanConnery, and even better, they were doing a remake with Henry Cavill as the immortal hero, and what was there not to like about that?
I almost missed his quiet whisper. “Don’t make me answer that.”
Which was the answer itself.
“I promise I’ll tell you as soon as I can.”
I kissed him instead of answering. Pressed my lips to his in a way that I hoped conveyed everything I was feeling—that I trusted him, that I believed him, that whatever secret he was keeping didn’t change how I felt about him.
When I pulled back, his eyes were searching mine. “You’re not afraid?”
“Of you?” I shook my head. “No. Of what might happen to us? Yeah. But not of you.”
He pulled me closer, burying his face in my neck, and I felt him exhale against my skin. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Probably not,” I agreed, which made him huff out a laugh. “But you’re stuck with me anyway.”
We stayed like that for a while, tangled together in his enormous bed, and eventually exhaustion pulled me under. When I woke up, early-morning light was filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows, and I was alone.
I sat up, momentarily disoriented by the unfamiliar space. The bedroom was huge—probably bigger than my entire apartment—but it looked almost unlived in.
I found my briefs on the floor and pulled them on before following the smell of... burning?
I made my way to the kitchen and stopped in the doorway, trying not to laugh. Theron was standing at the stove in nothing but sweatpants, his hair still messed from sleep, frowning at a pan that was producing an alarming amount of smoke.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
He looked up, and something in his expression was almost sheepish. “Attempting to make breakfast. It’s not going well.”
I crossed to the stove and peered into the pan. Whatever he’d been trying to cook was now a blackened mass that might have once been eggs. “How long have you had this on?”
“Ten minutes? Maybe fifteen?”
“On high heat?”
