“I know.”
“Don’t ruin it.”
“I will try not to.”
“You’ll fail eventually.”
“Likely.”
She looked down at her hand on the sheet, her thumb tracing the fabric while the thought settled, harder now. “I haven’t decided whether I’ll make this public.”
“I know.”
“I’m not deciding today.”
“I know.”
“And you aren’t going to push for it.”
“No.”
Her gaze lifted back to mine. “And if I never do?”
The dragon hated the question.
“Then I remain privately claimed by you,” I said, “without asking you to stand in front of anyone and call it law.”
For a moment, the only sound in the room was her breathing. “That sounds painful.”
“It will be.”
“You said that very calmly.”
“I have had several hours to dislike it.”
That almost got the laugh.
I would take almost.
“You’re very inconvenient, Dominic.” There was warmth in her voice, and the line between us answered it.
Her hand rested over my chest, and the mark she had left on my shoulder burned with quiet recognition.
I had been holding information because I thought that was protection.
Last night made that harder to defend.
She had claimed me back. I no longer had the right to decide alone what dangers she was ready to know. I had planned to wait until she had eaten, until the morning had become less bare and less new. The plan had been made before the bite.
“There’s something I haven’t told you.”
She did not lift her head. “Of course there is.”
I deserved that.
“Three staff rotations in the last two weeks have not matched the published schedule,” I said. “A man at the seventh-floor service door. A kitchen aide. A courier whose face I saw once, twenty-six years ago, at an American consulate desk.”
Her body went still under my hand.
