Page 15 of Dark Dragon’s Mate

But the more she looked at it, the more it disturbed her. The man’s mouth had a cruel twist to it, and he looked way too damn pleased with himself. His too-pretty face was pocked with scars, like he’d had super-bad acne at some point.

She wondered why the artist had painted that in.

His hands were cupped, and in between them was a ball of black fire. And on closer inspection, she could see that the “dogs” at his feet had glowing orange eyes.

Hellhounds? Who the fuck would want to be painted with hellhounds, like they were pets?

Unless…

“Please tell me this isn’t a painting of Ragnor,” she muttered.

“Yep,” said a voice behind her, followed by the unmistakable whirring sound of a blade being thrown. Trish ducked, looking up just in time to watch an eight-inch knife bury itself point-first in Ragnor’s left eye.

Thwak.

She turned to see Emon leaning against the wall, like he’d been there all along.

“Do you always have to sneak into a room like a ninja dragon?” she demanded. “What happened to just walking in the normal way?”

“What fun is that?”

He walked over to stand next to her. He, unlike her, had not dressed up—he was still wearing the dusty black leathers he’d had on in her room. Men. As he got closer she could feel the heat of his body, hotter than the fireplace. Fire and lightning, two of the most dangerous things in all the worlds, burning inside him, waiting to be ignited.

Note to self: Do not ignite the dragon. So maybe she shouldn’t yell at him? Only, her brain seemed to quit working when she was around him.

He nodded up at the painting. “That’s Ragnor, all right. The man who raised us, educated us, caged us, poisoned us, and made my sister and me into the people we are today.”

Tortured. Damaged. Half-insane.

Trish looked closer at the painting. Those weren’t acne scars on Ragnor’s face. They were holes in the canvas.

“You keep his portrait to throw knives at?”

Emon shrugged. “Kira told me that putting his head on a pike in front of the castle and watching the crows pull his face off would be uncivilized.”

Yikes. “Um, probably.”

“So there you go.” He turned to her. “Want to try? Bet you can’t hit his right eye, little wolf.”

Okay, now he’d made a mistake. “Challenge accepted, Draken Prince,” she said. “Bring on the knives.”

Chapter 8

She’d dressed up, Emon realized.

For some absurd reason, that pleased him. Especially because she was wearing black—his favorite color.

It looked a lot better on Trish than on him. It set off her hair and her skin, making them look luminescent and making him want to attack the pale column of her neck, leaving her with love bites to remember him by.

Her top was decorated with some shiny gold stuff in the shape of a starburst. As if she knew how she looked to him.

The pants hugged her curves, making her luscious, rounded ass look good enough to eat. In a non-dragony, completely sexual way.

Wolves like it from behind.

He could feel a boner popping up inside his own pants. He tried to erase the visual of watching that ass as he leaned her over the edge of the bed and drove into her from behind, but no. It was permanent.

To distract her from what was going on with his crotch, he said, “I like your shoes.”