Page 92 of Flames and Blood

I close my eyes and try to get the rest of the night back. All I get back are pieces. His skin under my palms, colder than skin should be. His mouth. My fingers in his hair.

It happened. I’m sore in every place that proves it.

And I missed all of it.

Goddammit!

Inside my chest, my dragon shifts, settles, and goes on being pleased with herself.

You took my body.

I wait for an explanation. An apology.

Yes.

That’s all she gives me. One word, nothing that sounds like sorry.

I sit up, careful not to disturb him.

I already know her side of it. She’ll say I wanted him—and I did. I’ve wanted him since the beginning and gave myself a string of reasons why I couldn’t have him. She ignored all of them, and took the decision off me.

I’m on my feet without deciding to be. I get halfway to the stove before I turn around and come back. My hands are shaking. I grip the iron frame at the end of the bed and hold it until the metal warms under my palms.

You had no right.

All I get back is a sense of smug satisfaction. Like a cat who just got all the cream.

You had no right, and you did it anyway.

She still doesn’t answer. She isn’t going to. She hasn’t defended herself once, and she isn’t about to start.

I let go of the bed frame and press both hands over my face.

The worst part of all is that I missed it.

Damn you!

I want to stomp my foot. She got my hands on him. She got the sounds he made and the shape of his shoulders and all of it, start to finish. What I have is a bite, stiff thighs, and a soreness deep inside that tells me it had to be freaking amazing.

I say it out loud, into the dark, because I’m tired of circling it. “I just wanted to be there, dammit!”

I know.

“That isn’t good enough.”

This has never happened before. She’s had the sky. She’s had every scale and every foot of wingspan on the days I gave her, and she has never once fought me for the rest of who I am. Not while I was standing on my own two feet with my own mouth working.

I held her down in that cell for over a year. Teeth together, breathing even, everything clamped. It worked every single day. Last night it stopped working. She decided she’d had enough, and stopped listening to me.

This could be a problem.

We’re going to have to sort this out, you and me.

She doesn’t think there’s anything to sort. She’s lying under my ribs, warm and unbothered, and she has already gone back to sleep on the matter.

“You’re cold.” Gideon’s voice comes from behind me, low and unhurried. “Come back under the blanket.”

I spin around, a hand at my throat.