His fires finally began to ebb, and he stood on his hind legs, stretching his wings high. He roared loudly enough to shake the concrete and steel building, sending more people down below fleeing.
Sasha turned to face him, and he thought she would run to him. Instead, she grinned and took one long step… back, over the edge and into the air.
Instead of fear consuming him as she disappeared over the edge, he was expectant and playful. He opened his wings and dropped after her, following her fall. They were not even halfway to the ground when he flew beneath her and collected her on his snout.
“Shaa kouvi…” she whispered, hands stroking his midnight scales.
“My love,” he tried to speak, but it came roaring out of his throat, nothing like a word at all, but an outpouring of love and devotion.
He circled the building, rising back to the roof where he shifted, the massive layers of reptilian bulk slowly melting until he was in his two-legged form once again.
Sasha was in his arms, pressed to his chest, their naked bodies aligned in the most perfect of ways. They kissed, lips still warm from the fires. Whelon could feel her skin beneath his hands, no longer cold but lit with inner flame.
My fires saved her.
She put her arms around his neck, pressing her body more tightly to his, and the kiss deepened as Sasha struggled to tug him closer.
“Okay, okay, let’s keep it PG for now. I’m still rolling.”
“Penelope?” He furrowed his brow and glanced around, searching for a speaker or some other device the AI could use for communication.
“Yup, thanks for the great angles, Whelon! Let me show you what’s going on downstairs.”
Sasha left him and walked to the far side of the roof, that portion untouched by his flames as he’d concentrated his fires on his mate. She strode over to a cellphone and picked up the device before returning to him. The screen flashed to a live feed from the cameras in the lobby. There were a lot of them, as every news crew in the city had been called to cover Sasha’s story.
“I guess Mother really did launch me into super stardom,” Sasha murmured wryly. Then she laughed and laughed until she was chuckling so hard she had to hold her stomach.
“What is it—oh.” Whelon soon caught on to what his mate found so humorous.
The women in the lobby screamed, but not for Preor blood. Every single female in the area who had seen the display was going mad looking for her own dragon savior.
“Pick me! Please pick me!” The screams rose above the crowd and women began throwing punches and fighting to get into the lobby.
“Now, everyone wants their own pet dragon.” Penelope giggled. “Honestly, it came together better than I planned. I hoped to make the other women jealous, but that step off the roof was a master stroke. Making him catch you? Ahhh…” Penelope released a drawn-out, lovesick sigh.
Sasha laughed again. “It will be pretty hard to stop the treaty now. The women would go to war against the government if they don’t get a chance to catch their own dragon!”
Whelon was amazed at the events. He was still too caught up in the idea that he had his mate in his arms—his arms—to truly understand what was happening below.
“Okay!” The camera flipped around on Sasha’s phone and Whelon was presented with his slightly shocked face coming into the view.
“Take it home, Sasha. What does it take to be a Preor bride?” Penelope acted as the interviewer.
“Well, you have to be chosen.” She grinned. “And not by the dragon. The ancient process of the Knowing, that has been grossly misrepresented I might add, is genetic. It means that our genetic code has to match.”
“Whelon, what does that mean for you boys?”
“We spend our entire lives—centuries for some of us—looking for our mate.” He explained simply.
“Come on, give me a bit more than that.” Penelope laughed and it sounded as if she was really warming up to the role of TV presenter. “Why don’t you tell us how promiscuous all you dragons are?”
“Huh?” Whelon murmured with true confusion. “We aren’t—we cannot be. We cannot breed with any who is not our mate.”
“Say it again, Whelon, one more time,” Penelope asked softly.
Whelon straightened and addressed the camera. “Preor warriors cannot mate—ah, breed—”
“Fuck,” Penelope supplied.
“Yes! Fuck. We cannot fuck any who is not our mate. It is our one and only, or nothing.”
Sasha reached for him and they shared a deep, passionate kiss—one filled with want and longing and so, so much promise…
“That’s right, folks. You heard it here first. The Preor dragons can only have one woman—ever—and one woman only! I ask you, citizens, does media darling Sasha Dane look unhappy about any of this?”
The screaming of the females below intensified. People still shouted against the Preor but those were being attacked by angry girls. A lot of them were still trying to get into the lobby while others hailed cabs demanding to be taken to Preor Tower or Choosing Station Tau.
“The next Choosing is going to be interesting,” Penelope murmured.
Whelon chose not to listen to her any longer. His entire world had narrowed to his lips on Sasha’s and nothing else in the whole world could distract him.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“I suppose we should get off the roof at some point,” Sasha murmured lazily. She rested in Whelon’s arms, her cheek pressed against his warm chest. She expected to feel awkward over their shared nakedness, but being naked with Whelon wasn’t anything like being nude with a human man.
Her mate’s body was all kinds of hard in all the right places, and her curves seemed to fit against him perfectly, smooth skin sliding over smooth skin with no tricky places. They were skin to skin, belly to belly, his arms tight around her shoulders while she clung to his waist.
His cock was rock hard, there was no denying that, seeming to have
