An image of Ari filled Jilly’s head, naked and towering, his long blond plait hanging over one broad shoulder, the dragon tattoo inked into his exquisite arm somehow greener, more vivid, more real…
“Yes, Nadine. I met a guy,” she answered, her pulse pounding. “An incredible guy. And nothing will ever be the same again.”
“Whoa.” Nadine’s eyebrows shot up her forehead. “Is it love?”
Jilly swallowed at the thick lump in her throat. “It could have been. And then I drank something that didn’t agree with me.” She scrubbed at her face with her palms. “I really need to go home. Sorry.”
Sure, her home was trashed, but it’s where she wanted to be. If nothing else, beginning to clean up the mess would give her time to think, to process it all.
Meditation via cleaning.
The first flush of heat washed over Jilly halfway down the block.
A prickling heat that pooled in the junction of her thighs.
Her nipples beaded. Her breath caught in her throat. She gasped, her clit throbbing with a sudden rush of blood.
“Oh God,” she whispered, pressing her thighs together. Her head swam. “St-stop, Nadine.” She waved a hand at her friend, her breath shallow. “I need…”
Nadine hit the brakes. “What’s wrong? Are you going to throw up?”
The intense sexual flush intensified, grew feverish.
And then vanished.
Jilly blinked, the familiar empty sensation that had numbed her after drinking Derek’s concoction once again returning.
“Jilly?” Worry threaded through Nadine’s voice.
Disappointment welled inside Jilly, thick and undeniable. Not at the loss of her unnatural sexual desire for Ari and the ancient magic he’d told her about, binding them together. She longed for him on a normal human level. She wished more than anything for a reason to go back to the warehouse and see him, hear his voice and chuckle at his slightly twisted sense of humor.
But now they were no longer magically connected, and the reason for him to want her no longer existed. She knew there was no future for them.
Why would there be? He was a hunk of epic proportions, and she was…was…well, she was just Jilly Parker. Chubby, boring Jilly Parker. The chances of him turning up at her apartment on Thursday were slim. Unlike her.
Hot tears prickled at the back of her eyes. Damn it, she needed to get a grip.
“Jilly?”
Looking at Nadine, she gave her friend a shaky smile. “Sorry. I’m okay. Won’t throw up in your Jeep. Promise.”
Nadine didn’t look convinced, but she did start driving again.
Jilly slumped in the seat and closed her eyes. As painful and pathetic as it was, she needed to get away from Ari.
This whole thing had been a surreal adventure, but it was over. The farther away from the warehouse, from Ari, the more she realized whatever insanity she’d somehow been caught up in was over. There was no need for Arriman Drake to see her again. There was no need for him to even think of her again.
The adventure, if that’s what she was going to call it, was over.
Time to get back to reality.
Boring reality.
Damn it. For one brief moment, maybe ten minutes after Jilly had left, the undeniable heat of the mating fire ignited in Ari again. For barely a heartbeat, a powerful hunger for her consumed him, so absolute he crumpled to his knees. And then it vanished again.
In severing Jilly’s connection to her dragon side, Garrison also—somehow—severed the mating fire’s effect on Ari, and while its absence made dealing with the obsessed prick easier, now its loss gnawed at Ari’s soul. Haunted him.
How could something so fundamental to who he was, what he was, be extinguished? It had to be because the mating fire only ignited when Fire Mates found each other. Remove one Fire Mate from existence—as Garrison had done when he’d destroyed Jilly’s croi—and the reason for the mating fire was also removed. Without the need to mate, the carnal compulsion had no reason to exist either.
A cold knot twisted in Ari’s gut.
Sucking in breath after ragged breath, he pushed himself to his feet and hurried out onto the footpath, willing Jilly to be there. To be walking back to him.
The sidewalk stretched before him.
Empty.
A good thing, really, given Ari stood naked as the day he was born.
He cursed, glared at the empty street and hurried back into the warehouse.
Bleak satisfaction snaked through him at the sight of Garrison still unconscious on the floor. He stomped over to him, fighting to control the desire to tear the defenseless man apart. He’d promised Jilly he wouldn’t hurt the bastard, and so he didn’t.
Tying Garrison’s ankles and wrists together, he hauled the druid’s dead weight over his aching shoulder—damn it, the bones still hadn’t knitted properly—carried him to the exploded remains of the internal office and dumped him unceremoniously on the one chair still remaining upright.
“You’re lucky I promised not to hurt you,” he grumbled at the unconscious man.
Turning away, he went looking for his mobile phone. He needed to let Tyson know what was going—
“Fuck,” he muttered, his gaze falling on the remains of his shattered phone on the floor. He dragged his hands through his hair. “Fuck.”
Narrowing his eyes, he scanned the area around him. There had to be a phone in here somewhere.
He studied the motionless Garrison slumped on the chair and, with a wry grunt, crossed the warehouse. A few moments later—after digging about in Garrison’s pockets—he tapped out a message to Tyson from the druid’s cracked-but-functioning mobile phone, informing the apex alpha where he was and what had gone down.
The low, electronic whoosh of the text being sent filled the silence.
“Alright.” Ari headed for the warehouse door. “Let’s see how long it takes him to get here.”
Ten minutes later, the alpha arrived.
He looked at Ari, opened his mouth to say something and closed it again without a word.
Ari
