“Told you what?” An icy finger of unease dragged up Ari’s spine. This close to her, he should be burning up with the need to take her, pleasure her. They were still in the frenzied twelve-hour mating fire period. Sexual hunger should be controlling their very actions, enslaving them.
Instead, rage broiled within him at Garrison. And a dull emptiness, where once he’d experienced the inferno of his and Jilly’s fated desire and lust for each other.
Sucking in a slow breath, he wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. The distinct coppery tang of blood slicked over his lips. Garrison, it seemed, had landed more than one blow.
“What did he do to you, Jilly?” he asked, taking another step toward her.
She retreated again, shock swimming in her eyes as she met his gaze. “He told me I came from an ancient pagan bloodline, and because of that, I was some kind of…of…I can’t believe I’m saying this. Some kind of dragon shifter who couldn’t shift. He told me he was going to fix it so I wouldn’t be…” She faltered, catching her bottom lip with her teeth.
“Wouldn’t be what?”
Jilly hugged herself again, her gaze flicking over him. “You know you’re naked, right?”
He couldn’t stop his dry chuckle. “It happens when you shift without undressing first.”
She frowned. “Does it happen a lot?”
“Not until I met you.”
Her frown deepened. “Is that a compliment?”
“Strangely, it is.” Risking the tenuous moment, he stepped toward her again. “What did he do to you, Jilly? And what did you do to him?”
She stared at him. That she didn’t retreat made his heart sing. The unnerving absence of the mating fire’s burning urgency dampened his elation, however.
What had Garrison done?
“I kicked his arse,” she said, flicking Garrison’s motionless form a quick look. “Well, tried to. I obviously need to go back to karate lessons.” She sighed and turned back to Ari, her smile shaky. “As far as best friends go, he wasn’t really doing the job well.”
Ari swallowed. She hadn’t answered his first question. Was it too traumatic for her to tell him what Garrison had done to her?
“Did he…” He stopped, unable to finish the question. He didn’t want to cause her any more pain.
Jilly studied him, her expression guarded. “He didn’t rape me.” Her eyebrows knitted and she hugged herself tighter. “I think he would have if you hadn’t arrived. I think that’s what would have happened.”
Ari drove his blunt nails into his palms. The need to destroy Derek Garrison, to tear him apart, damn near overwhelmed him.
A soft noise drew his attention back to Jilly. She watched him, as if waiting to see what he’d do next.
“Do you want me to kill him?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No. But I’d be totally good with you making certain he never has anything to do with me again, if that’s okay?”
“Totally okay.”
She let out a sigh, that shaky smile on her lips again before it faded away. “Ari, he made me drink something. Told me it would destroy the magic binding us together. He said it would free me of you.”
Ice sank into Ari’s heart.
“Did it?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
The question was pointless. He already knew the answer.
“Do I feel the sexual hunger for you that I felt back in my apartment?” she asked.
He dipped his head in a single nod.
“No. I don’t.”
Ari closed his eyes as the words cut into his soul.
“But maybe,” Jilly said, “if you kiss me…I might?”
6
It was insanity, of course. All of it.
What Derek had done to her, what Ari was about to do…
Ignoring the fact Ari had turned into a freaking dragon right in front of her—a massive creature at once terrifying and exquisitely beautiful—that she’d asked him to kiss her, that she wanted him to kiss her, couldn’t be described as anything but insanity.
And yet she stood still, her heart fast, her stomach fluttering, and watched him close the small distance between them, keeping her stare locked on his face.
A gazillion questions swirled through her head, a goddamn hurricane of them. Questions like what did it mean to be a non-shifting dragon shifter? Was it true? Or had Derek just been trying to get in her pants? If it were true, how would she ever prove it? Did she need to?
What exactly was a Fire Mate? Why was Ari “hers?”
Why couldn’t she sense him anymore? Where had the urgent sexual hunger she’d felt for him gone? Had Derek destroyed that part of her completely? And if he had, why was she so…so…unsettled now by the notion of Ari standing so close to her? So affected by the thought of his lips on hers?
Questions. Questions. Some serious. Some scary.
She’d get to them all. She had to, for her own sanity. Perhaps she’d chosen to complete a Master’s in Norse Mythology because, deep down in her very soul, she had a connection to it all? Perhaps being a dragon shifter explained why she’d been so drawn to the study of that time and mythology?
Mythology? Huh. Maybe that term wasn’t the right one. The Norse had believed in dragons. Had worshipped them. It seemed they weren’t as deluded as the twenty-first-century scholars believed them to be.
“Jilly,” Ari murmured, smoothing his palm over her cheek.
Her breath caught, her thoughts scattering at his touch.
She gazed up into his eyes. Her pulse pounded in her ears like canon fire. “Your eyes are blue,” she whispered. “They were green when you were a dragon.”
A low chuckle fell from Ari. He gently touched his thumb to her bottom lip. “Most of me is green when I’m a dragon. Including my blood.”
“My blood is red.” The lame declaration fell from her in a husky rasp.
“Red and green are complimentary colors,” he answered, lowering his head closer to hers.
“How do you know that?” Her ravenous, desperate lust from earlier may no longer be there,
