Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 69119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 346(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 346(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Silence stretched. Then, wary and gravel-voiced, he asked, “What kind of game?”
“Twenty confessions. Similar to twenty questions, but we’re gonna share our deepest, most personal secrets.”
He tensed, but I felt his heartbeat quicken beneath my palm. Then he finally spoke. “What are the rules?”
“We take turns. No lies allowed. And,” I added with a half-smile, “we cuddle on the cot the whole time.”
A beat. Then he shifted to face me. His eyes searched mine. Ancient wild flames swirled in his irises, the amber now lit with a thousand different hues of color. My chest clenched. As much as I wanted the dragon back, I had to admit those flames looked good on him.
He reached for my hand and guided me toward the narrow cot resting against the cold stone wall. A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. “I see my sisters have been here.”
They’d left their mark: a scarlet pillow, a woven rug in my favorite rose-gold hue, forest green, gold-trimmed blanket, and a wall tapestry of an ocean shore at sunset. An island of rest amid the dungeon’s gloom.
We lay down together carefully, testing the sturdy frame. His arm slid around me with surprising gentleness. He avoided my bandages, holding me as if I might shatter. Maybe I already had. My cheek found its place against his chest, where his heartbeat thudded like a war drum. I splayed my hand over his abs, feeling the raw power coiled beneath it.
“Mmm. You’re so warm,” I told him.
“This is your game, baby. You go first,” he murmured, brushing a kiss against my temple.
I took a deep breath, and although I ached to say the next words, the weight of them lay heavy with hope. Confession number one. “I love you.”
The silence that followed weighed on my lungs, thick enough to drown me. He froze for several long beats before crushing me closer, burying his face in my hair. A groan tore from him, low and wrecked.
“I love you, too.” The words scraped out of him. “So much. I started falling the first moment I saw you in this palace. This impossible, fire-blooded fantasy made real. I tried to fight it. But when you kissed me, it was over. Every quip. Every act of kindness. Every bit of your fury and fire. All of it. Daggers shoved straight into my heart. That must count for at least six secrets.”
His confession unleashed an ocean of delight. Grinning, sheepish, I brushed my lips over his chest, a soft and reverent show of my adoration. “Ready for my confession number two?” I asked, voice low as I curled my fingers against him. “It’s a big one.”
He tightened his hold on me, his voice rough with conviction. “I am beyond ready.”
“Good,” I whispered, lifting on my elbow to study his expression. “Because I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
His grin unfurled, all slow, toothy and unfairly adorable. “Are you asking me to marry you, Lyssa?”
“That depends on your next secret.”
His grin deepened into something infinitely tender. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
“Then ja.” My lips quirked in kind. Time for number three. “I’m asking you to marry me…but only if you burn me.”
The smile dropped. Hard. “No,” he said, a fierce growl behind the word.
“I’ll die if you don’t.” The words cut my tongue on the way out. “A little detail I skimmed over when you asked me to burn you. For that, I apologize with every fiber of my flame-stripped, now deeply vulnerable being.”
“You will not die,” he roared, as if sheer willpower could decide my fate.
“It’s not optional, love. If not by aging, then by enemies who live only to torment me. If not by enemies, then by the next power-hungry dragon who wants my crown.”
“I’ll be your shield,” he snarled, fists clenching.
Sweet, infuriating man. “You can’t fight challenges issued to me.”
“I can. Battles issued to you are battles issued to me. As my wife, you’ll be mine, and I’ll be yours. We’ll be one.”
Oh, but his stubbornness had come out swinging. So adorable. So irresistible. So mine.
His shoulders stiffened. “That look,” he growled.
Something must have given away my thoughts. Time to bare scale and flame. “I can’t live that way, Taron. I’ve never known weakness, not once in all my centuries. But this? This mortal fragility?”
“Fragility is not weakness, Lyssa. It’s meaning. Every breath, every action costs something, and that’s why it matters.”
A shudder tore through me. “Please don’t make me stay this way.” I lowered once more and pressed my cheek against his chest, his heartbeat hammering into me. “I allowed fear to stop me before. Don’t do the same. Please. I’m not afraid anymore. Not of you. Not of the future.”
“I can’t, baby,” he rasped. “I can’t risk you.”
“You must. Cedric and Lorik march with an army. You’re new to your dragon. Raw and untrained. And my people—our people—are without an active queen. They need me. Just like you do. If I stay human, I will lose the throne, and Ashmorra will bleed for it.”