Morgan flinched at that. He thought that perhaps he should take his hand from hers. He felt as if he didn't deserve it for how shamefully he had acted, but instead she turned so that he could hang on to it.
“You are being kind,” he said, eyeing her. “I suspect that I was rather more than upset.”
Now it was her turn to look down.
“You were in pain,” she said quietly. “I'm not going to hold that against you.”
It felt like getting punched in the gut. It had been a secret, his secret, for so very long, and then Harper simply said it out loud, as if it were as self-evident as the color of his eyes, the smell of her citrus lotion.
Mine, he thought helplessly, but the emotions were too much for him, warring in his chest as his dragon growled. Things were easy for his dragon. His dragon saw his true mate, and his dragon wanted her as close as possible. His dragon didn't understand the humiliation of being too broken to fix.
It was too much. Morgan ended up on his feet, pacing the small space in front of the table.
“Did you tell me some kind of big secret?” she asked. “Are you not supposed to mention the dragon thing?”
He uttered a sharp laugh, utterly humorless.
“It is not considered ideal, no, but you were bound to find out sooner or later.”
“At any point, a woman might be confronted with the weird paranormal world that lives alongside her own?” Harper actually laughed at that. “I could buy it.”
No, because you are my true mate.
He might have just blurted it out then, but she raised her gray eyes to his.
“Who was the dragon who attacked you? Is that just a normal thing? You're lucky we're on the edge of town, and everyone's probably home already...”
Morgan's lips tightened over the urge to bare his teeth.
“It was likely a dragon from another clan. It's a thing that happens sometimes, though usually not so close to civilization or with witnesses.”
“What, you just…try to kill each other?”
“Not usually. It's a feint, a way to assess the strength of the other clans, to test their guardians. These little tests are ways for us to find out if other clans are weak and if their treasures can be claimed and taken.”
“Do you do that?” she demanded, and Morgan laughed.
“I know it sounds barbaric, but it really does save on the bloodshed and warfare that we engaged in before we came up with this system. And no, it's not something I've done. Not in the last hundred years or so.”
It was true, and Harper relaxed.
“Good,” she said, and there was just a little tremble in her voice.
“You were afraid for me,” he said, surprised enough that he couldn't resent it.
“Of course I was.”
“You would be as afraid for anyone,” he offered.
He thought she would seize the excuse, anything to gain her feet in what must surely be an incredibly strange moment in her life, but instead she met his eyes squarely. With her silver hair and the strong bones of her face, her lips set in an uncompromising line, he was struck not just by her beauty, but by how tangled it was with her strength.
Remember, oh remember, his dragon whispered. This is who your mate is.
“No,” she said, her voice clear. Morgan could sense the confusion there, the way she barely understood what she was saying. She didn't understand, not with her mind, but her heart understood just as his did.
“No, not for anyone. Just for you.”
Morgan couldn't stop himself from crossing the room and dropping to his knees in front of her. He was tall and she wasn't; they could see eye to eye, and Morgan paused. Everything in his body was telling him to reach for her, to take her and to never let her go, but somehow, he pulled himself back from that precipice.
“Tell me I can,” he whispered. “Tell me you want me.”
in the light from the single lamp in the corner, her eyes were dark pools of ink, her lips parted. He was ready to hear a no. He was ready for her to tell him he needed to earn it and to make up for what a goddamn mess he was.
“Morgan,” she whispered, and a full-body shiver went through her as she spoke his name.
“Morgan, yes…Yes, I want you.”
Chapter Seven
∞∞∞
All that Harper knew, all that she understood, was that she needed to be in Morgan's arms. She needed it more than almost anything she had felt in her life. She had known it from the moment he had touched her in the back room of her shop. The last few hours, from that moment until this, she had been resisting the utter madness of it.
He was a dragon, an actual-facts, fire-breathing dragon, and then when he fell down at her feet, all she could think was that she needed to help him. The urge to kiss him had faded while she dumped him on the couch and then heated up again after some badly-needed food.
Then he knelt down in front of her, and the moment his eyes met hers, she could see clear to the bottom of him, the pride, the hurt, the heart that she somehow knew was beating as fast as her own was. Then there was absolutely nothing she could do about it but give in.
With a soft cry, she opened her arms and wrapped them around him, drawing him close. At the last moment, Harper remembered how jostling his right arm had made him wince as she laid him on the couch, and instead she put her hand on his hip . She was just starting to revel in his warmth when his hand came up, cupping her cheek, and then he was kissing her.
Harper liked kissing well enough. She had always figured it was like getting a cheeseburger. It was nice, but she privately thought
