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She’ll still give me hell, though. She’s Aya, my precious fierce wolf, and I would be disappointed if she ever quit fighting. I hope she never stops making me chase her. I love every stubborn, infuriating bit of it.
When I break the kiss, her silver eyes are glazed and her lips are puffy from mine. I walk her backward until she drops onto the edge of the mattress and sits there blinking. My dragon is real proud of himself.
I grab my sweatpants out of the dresser and step into them. “Stay here. Don’t come downstairs.”
She buries her face in her hands. “Oh, this is so embarrassing.”
I snort at her dramatic ass and yank on a shirt. My knees wobble on the stairs. At the front door, I brace a hand on the frame and steady myself before I open it.
Aaron knows me. We grew up on the same stretch of Wintermoon and ran the Academy halls together when we were young. He was one of the few outside Ash Clan who treated me like more than the stigma of being a dragon shifter.
I step onto the porch as Aaron comes out of the tree line. He smells calm, with Mara’s scent all over him. The last time I stood this close to him, he was a bloodshot, unwashed mess on the community lands. He was torn up over a lioness who thought he’d rejected her and a biological father who’d abandoned him again. None of that is on him anymore. He takes his time crossing the clearing with his hands in his pockets. The rumors about him being happy must be true.
I smile to myself, because I get it. Having your mate beside you will do that to a man. I had no clue until tonight. Now Aya’s upstairs with my bite on her neck. I can still smell her on my skin.
He stops at the bottom of the steps and glares up. “Please don’t tell me you threatened my mother.”
“I didn’t.” I lean against the railing. “I threatened Levi. Told him I’d burn House of Zorah to the ground if he tried to take Aya from me.”
Aaron drags a hand down his face. “Man. My mom is so pissed off at you, Ezra. You have no idea. She called me in the middle of the night through the communication crystals and spent forty-five minutes telling me to come handle you before she did it herself.”
I wince at that. My dragon whimpers. Even he wants no part of Angie.
“Look, man,” he says as he rubs the back of his neck. “I’ve got a pregnant lioness at home who doesn’t sleep when I’m gone. I missed most of Lucian’s birth, and I swore to Mara I am not missing a single minute with my daughter. And instead of keeping that promise, I’m standing in your yard in the middle of the night. So what the fuck is wrong with you?”
Smoke curls out of my nostrils. I stare him down. “What do you mean, what the fuck is wrong with me? You know better than anyone why I’m acting like this.”
Aaron huffs and glances around the clearing. “Go to House of Zorah tomorrow and bow before Jacob. Give a formal apology. That’ll smooth all of it over.”
I shrug. “That was my plan all along.”
He nods. “Good. Because I was gonna have to kill you if it wasn’t.”
I laugh, but I kind of believe him. He’s a warlock-king now with magic in his bloodline more powerful than the Bailey witches. He wouldn’t hesitate to put me down if I brought harm to his family.
He eyes me up and down. “You enjoying yourself?”
I frown. “I am not having that discussion with you about Aya.”
He throws his hands up. “Oh, hell no, I do not want to know what you’re doing in the bedroom when it comes to my cousin. I’m just asking you as a man.”
I snort and wave him toward the door. “Come in. Let me show you the planetarium floor plans.”
He climbs the stairs. “The one you’re working on with Amari? And you aren’t freaked out about the spiders? I know how you dragon shifters feel about them.”
“Ash Clan is creeped out,” I admit as I open the front door for him. “My father and I have been coming around.”
He follows me down the hall to my office. I spread the floor plans out across my desk. He leans over them, losing himself in the architectural details.
My dragon stirs at a creak from upstairs. Aaron glances at the ceiling and raises a brow at me.
“I can leave if I’m intruding on something.” His smirk is insufferable. “By the looks of you, you’ve been busy.”
I’m about to tell him where he can shove it when the window frame slides open above us with a careful squeak. What the hell is she doing?
Aaron traces a finger along the curved glass panels of the planetarium dome. “These floor plans are amazing. You’re working with Levi on this too?”
I can’t focus on a word he says with my dragon pacing. Overhead, Aya’s scent drifts away from the bed and across the room. She’s trying to sneak out on me.
