Page 23

Some of the ice leeches out of my blood, but I shake my head, not fully comprehending. “Why? It would have been well within your rights.”

Her eyes narrow, and she takes a step closer to me, close enough to touch if I were foolish enough to reach a hand out and feel the heat of her. “Is that what you want me to do? Get you arrested? Would that be preferable to actually talking to me about what the hell happened on Friday?”

How can I talk to her about it when I hardly understand it myself?

She’s still watching me, eyes sharp and keen on my face as if she can read me just like I read everyone else. It’s unnerving, her inspection. Like she’s cutting through the layers of distance and protection I’ve kept wrapped around myself for years, decades, centuries. Like she can see the man and the dragon beneath.

“So are you going to?”

“Going to what?” I ask, realizing I’ve forgotten the question.

“Talk to me about it.”

Her tone is different now—lower, softer. As she speaks, she takes another half-step toward me until there are only a couple of inches between us.

From this distance, I can see flecks of gold in her green eyes, the little crinkles at the corners that show how often she must laugh and smile.

“I don’t know what to say, Kenna. Other than I’m sorry.”

“Just sorry?” There’s a hint of challenge in her voice now. “That’s all? You’re not going to admit why you took me in the first place?”

That challenge tugs on something deep and dark in the far corner of my psyche.

Gods, this is madness. The same madness that made me take her on Friday. The same one that made hers the only face in a sea of hundreds I could see that very first day.

I need to step away, to move back, to reclaim some semblance of sanity and self-control. But as the silent seconds tick by, I don’t. I can’t. Not with her question and that challenge lingering between us. To retreat would be unthinkable. A defeat my dragon can’t allow.

“Why, Blair? Why’d you do it?”

“Because I wanted to.”

She inhales sharply, and I smother the sound with my mouth.

Kenna tastes just like she smells—citrus and ginger and a dark note of desire. She freezes for half a second before melting into the kiss, hands shooting up to clutch at my shoulders as she parts her lips for me. The harsh sound I let out is one of pure want, pure pleasure as I savor the taste of her, stroking my tongue deep and swallowing her own little moan when I wrap my arms around her.

She presses closer to me, body soft and yielding beneath my hands.

Perfect. Just perfect. Like I knew she would be.

Still, a moment later, she pulls her mouth away from mine. Her eyes are glazed, breath coming hard and fast, and she takes a few seconds to gather her thoughts enough to speak.

“What are you doing?”

“I don’t know. Fuck, Kenna. I don’t know what this—”

Kenna isn’t gentle when she kisses me. With her hands fisted into my hair and her sharp little teeth nipping at my lip, I groan into her mouth and surrender.

12

Kenna

New-Kenna has left the building.

I’m kissing a dragon. Full-on making out with Director Ewan Blair himself.

This isn’t what I intended when I marched up to his office to demand an explanation for Friday, but any thoughts about what I meant to happen fly out the window as soon as his lips and hands are on me.

I tug at his hair, fit my body into the hard contours of his, and he groans into my mouth before pulling away slightly.