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Chapter Eight
“Meeting you has broughtso many new adventures into my life, dragon.”
Sorin glanced at the slim woman next to him, her jaw locked tight.
“Tonight, we’ll sleep in a musty old cabin with empty stomachs while the wind howls like banshees. So cozy.”
He couldn’t stop his smile. “It sounds divine, does it not?”
In truth, to him, it did. He was with her, after all.
It had been several days since he’d first laid eyes on this woman, half human, half Fae, all attitude. In the hours since they’d met, he’d learned more about her stubbornness, her strength and found himself drowning in a smile so familiar to the woman he’d lost centuries before, it left him aching.
Yet there was so much he didn’t know about Gia.
She wasn’t as easy to read as Adela had been.
Adela had been young, though. While her life hadn’t been what anybody could call easy, she’d loved, had known love.
He hadn’t asked Gia’s age. She was young in comparison to him but so were redwood trees, the Liberty Bell—the real one, not the fake one they kept on display—and the Guttenberg bible.
Her age didn’t mean she hadn’t lived. There was a world-weary wisdom in her vivid green eyes that made him want to steal her away and protect her from the world.
Yet the strong set of her shoulders and firm line of her lips promised hell should he try.
A vivid pain, old but still strong, closed a fist around his heart and squeezed, the memories of how he’d lost Adela almost as fresh as they’d been nearly five centuries earlier.
Gia’s sigh drew his attention back to her.
She noticed this time and a flush painted color on her cheeks, tempting him to reach out and touch that soft skin. He was mad to do it, desperate for it, ready to trace a finger down her neck, along the color of a faded grey t-shirt, lower, as he investigated if she was the same luscious shade all over; he imagined she was, thought he’d find the skin on her belly and thighs that delicate gold as if ivory had been dusted with a fine powder of the precious metal.
“Why do you keep staring at me like you’re debating the best way to prepare me for dinner?” she said, her voice sour. But the fluttering pulse in her neck told him she was well aware of his interest.
He almost told her that he had another darker, more personal appetite in mind, but held back, strangely uncertain how to move forward with her.
Uncertain. Him, the great golden dragon of legend.
But this was his love, returned to him.
He felt that keening knowledge reverberate throughout his being and knew he’d walk on eggshells for the next five centuries if that was what it took to gentle her to his side.
He doubted it would take that.
Gia was a warrior, through and through, just as Adela had been, likely even harder. She’d known precious little love and far too much loss. She’d faced too much violence, had been forced to take lives again and again—and would likely face such choices again.
And although he knew she had to be weary, it didn’t show in her face or her voice as she said, “Well, old and musty it might be, but it looks solid enough. And dry. Thank Underhill, we’ll be dry.”
Sorin eyed the old cabin he’d spied from the skies an hour earlier and wondered what she’d think of his home cut into caverns miles and miles away.
It wasn’t the palace he’d once been so proud of, where he’d taken Adela.
He’d lost his taste for riches and excess after her death, although he still craved luxury and comfort. Somehow, he knew Gia would feel far more at home in the caverns than she ever would in a castle and he found himself aching to show her.
But it would have to wait until she was ready to come of her volition.
Never again, he told himself. He’d never again rush a choice on his beloved.
“It’s definitely better than that hole in the wall the first night,” he said.
