This was my chance.
She fumbled with the quilt, securing it beneath her arms and around her torso like a towel. Enough of her faded gray shift was visible beneath it to make her look ridiculous, yet she simply straightened and raked wild crimson tresses back from her face. Her eyes were bloodshot when they focused on me. They narrowed, dipped to the mattress between us, and then went wild with outrage.
“Why the fuck are you in my bed, you creep?” she asked.
I struggled to come up with an answer, but words abandoned me. She thought I would sleep here?
She stabbed a finger in my direction. “If you magicked me into some dream world hoping to score some pervy action, I gotta tell you, I am not the one. If any part of your body comes anywhere near me, I will bite it off.”
Pervy action?
Understanding hit, and I ground my teeth.
Her face wrinkled in disgust as if I had confessed to having designs on her person, when she could not have been further from the truth. Huffing indignantly, I pointed out the obvious.
“My bed was built for a dragon, not a dog.”
A little of the snarl eased from her expression. “What?”
“Had I imagined a bed, it would not be so humble. It would be grand, like the bed I sleep on every night. This pathetic mattress came from your mind, thief.” I returned the divisive look she had given me. “Perhaps you are the one hoping toscore some pervy action.”
She shuffled her feet, and the blanket nearly took her down again.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“Obviously not to execute you since you have given me ample opportunity.”
Then there was the price Clymene had demanded. No harm could come to Ziara in the dream world—such actions invited consequences even the centaur would not speak of—and I had been forced to accept the limitation. Her fee, however, troubled me more. An unnamed favor, to be called upon at her discretion.
I was her manor lord. She should have been honored to serve. Instead, she had reminded me that all magic came with a cost, as though I could ever forget.
Regardless, now I owed the centaur a favor, and I had to resist the temptation to end the thief.
Ziara glared at me. Her eyes betrayed her intention an instant before her hand flew to her mouth, but I would not lose her so easily this time. I lunged, closing the distance between us before her teeth couldfind flesh.
Midway through my leap, reason intervened. Pain was her escape. If she struck the floor too hard, the shock could release her from the dream. I adjusted, caging her arms with mine and twisting so my back absorbed the impact. My shoulder struck the concrete first, and Ziara landed on top of me, her body flush against mine in a manner that was immediately and profoundly distracting.
She struggled to free herself, which only worsened my predicament considerably. A curtain of crimson hair blinded me. I inhaled before I could stop myself, seeking her scent, but the dream world was a hollow imitation of reality, mocking my most primal instincts. I could smell nothing.
White-hot agony detonated across my chin.
The back of her skull slammed into my jaw. An improvised weapon I had not anticipated.
She cocked her head for another strike, and I rolled us. She bucked and struggled like a feral animal refusing to be caught. I flipped her onto her back and straddled her, capturing her wrists and pinning them above her head. With my face inches above hers, I met her venomous gaze and grinned.
“There. Much better.”
Her glare threatened to set me on fire. “Get off me, you sick bastard,” she spat.
Her blanket had become dislodged during our struggle, and her thin, gray shift did little to hide the swells of her heaving breasts or her taut nipples. The warmth of her core pressed against me, only worsening the situation in my trousers.
Desperate to distract myself from her alarmingly enticing body, I asked, “What happened to you?”
Confusion flickered across her features before she stiffened. “That’s none of your business.”
“Have you been injured?”
“Give me one reason I shouldn’t bite my tongue and end this,” she said.
