Chapter Eight
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For once, Morgan wasn't thinking about his shoulder or the convocation or what might lie ahead in the uncertain time to come. He wasn't even thinking about the dragon that had come out of nowhere to attack him and what that might mean for him or his family
Instead, the only thing that mattered, the only thing that mattered at all, was the woman in his arms. The slight smile on her sweet face mattered, the gentle rise and fall of her breathing mattered. The way she snuggled close to him mattered, and the way her hand rested lightly on his chest mattered.
All right, he thought with some wry amusement. I suppose I can understand why Uncle Wilf once claimed an island for his true mate.
Dragons were known to be possessive, perhaps even greedy, at least according to their detractors. Right now, he knew that anyone who tried to take Harper away from him was going to have some serious, fiery problems on their hands.
“So,” Harper said finally. “Clothes.”
“I hate them,” Morgan told her solemnly, and she laughed, kissing his bare chest.
“If I looked like you, I probably would too,” she said. “But you didn't Hulk out of them when you turned into a dragon. Why?”
He shrugged.
“We just don't, and thank God. If we had to end every fight naked –“
“Maybe you wouldn't fight so much?”
“Or maybe we would stay in our dragon forms. Terrorize the countryside. Abscond with likely-looking princesses.”
He nuzzled the side of neck, making her laugh, but then she sat up, shaking her head when he would have reached for her again.
“We. Um. Need to talk.”
“We do?”
Morgan gave her a surprised look, and then of all things, it was his dragon that made an understanding sound deep inside his head.
Harper had no idea about true mates. A member of one of the other shifter clans would know the truth without being told, would sense it immediately, but Harper was pure human. She had no hint of shifter blood in her, let alone dragon blood.
“Yeah,” she said, her voice carefully neutral. “Or maybe this is something that you do a lot and it doesn't need a lot of talk?”
“No!” he said, vaguely shocked at the idea. “I've not. That is. It's been a while since –“
He trailed off because there was no way he could finish that sentence without being crude. Harper grinned, and it occurred to him with a warm feeling in his chest that his mate had an excellent sense of humor.
“Well, it certainly doesn't look like you need the practice,” she said generously. “But seriously. This isn't something I do, or have done. I'm usually Miss Monogamy when I'm in a relationship, and it's been a while for me. This isn't normal for me at all.”
“The – sex or the dragon part?”
Morgan wasn't intending to be funny, but it made Harper laugh anyway.
“All right, neither. And I mean, I don't know where we go from here, do you? Or rather, where we decide to go from here.”
“You're my true mate, we go together,” Morgan blurted out, because of course they would. It hadn't occurred to him that she would do anything else. Now he realized that it was something that was nowhere near as clear-cut as he had thought.
Harper stared at him.
“Um. I was thinking more along the lines of we could get some coffee. It sounds like you have something else in mind.”
“We…we could start with coffee,” he offered, but she could obviously see the difficulty he was having. To his surprise, instead of drawing away, she reached up to brush her hand over his cheek, looking straight into his eyes. It occurred to Morgan that he hadn't been meeting people's eyes very much in the last few years. This much direct eye contact should have been uncomfortable, but when it was with Harper, it calmed something jagged and rough in him.
“It's all right,” she said gently. “Just say what you're thinking. I can tell there's something else on your mind, and I doubt it's coffee.”
Morgan gestured helplessly in the air between them. They had always said that there were no words for what happened when a shifter found his true mate. Apparently there had to be, because he doubted that she would simply take another kiss as his explanation.
“It could start with coffee,” he said.
“I told you –“
“They make amazing coffee in Istanbul. Istanbul is one of my favorite cities in the entire world. It's beautiful, and you can feel the history there living with the present and the future. It is not always comfortable, but sometimes, you come around the corner, and you feel that the entirety of the past and the future could be waiting for you. It has bookshops, and cats, so many street cats that own the place almost as much as the people do.”
Harper watched him with wide eyes, and he took the opportunity to pick up her hand, bringing it to his lips for a soft kiss. The connection between them felt so new that there was a gossamer sort of delicacy to it. He felt as if it was something that he could shatter if he went too fast, pushed too hard.
He had ruined so much. He couldn't afford to ruin this.
“After Istanbul, perhaps I could take you to Wales. My family, the Castells, came to what would be the United States during the 1600s, but we're from Wales, originally. The Marraks, a larger branch of the family, are still there. They're old-school in many ways, but they're kind, very kind. They would love to meet you.”
“Why would they love to meet me?”
The look she shot him was confused, but she wasn't angry or afraid. He decided that that was very good. He could deal with confused.
“Because…once they realize that I have found my true mate, they would be thrilled.”
it seemed as
