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“I do.”

“Then I will endeavor to help her, whether she wishes my assistance or not.”

“Cas,” he says, a warning. “I don’t want you to strong-arm her. If she wants you to back off—”

I chuckle. “If one of us is going to strong-arm the other, our history suggests it would not be sweet Ophelia on the receiving end.”

Blair’s golden eyes gleam with interest, but he stifles his curiosity and changes the subject.

“We can speak with human resources about payment before you—”

I brush aside the question with a wave of my hand. “You know I do not take payment for these matters.”

“I know. And you also know I’ll always offer.”

A creature of honor, this dragon.

Ever since I first met him—on the hunt for a very valuable emerald attached to an even more valuable ducal coronet that found itself bartered away and in his hoard some three or four hundred years ago—it’s been clear he’s one to stand by his word and at the side of those he counts as friends. A fact which never fails to compel him to offer recompense for my services, even though he knows my own dubious honor would never let me accept.

I have no need to make our arrangement about anything other than loyalty and the unwavering friendship we’ve shared these last centuries. For him, and for Elias, there are no favors too great.

Conversation at its close, I stand and roll my shoulders in an attempt to release some of the tense, restless energy that settled over me the moment I caught Ophelia’s scent.

It’s no use.

Even after all this time, she still has the power to unsettle me.

I’m not sure whether to be irritated or amused, but knowing we’re all but guaranteed to cross paths again soon in Boston leaves an unexpected sensation in the center of my chest.

I wouldn’t call it hope, or anything resembling optimism for how this little partnership of ours will play out, but it’s a spark of interest I can’t remember feeling in a long, long while.

Seven years, at least.

“You’ll have more information about this assignment for me?”

Blair nods. “Yes, in the next couple of days, actually. If you’re sticking around Seattle?”

“I am,” I tell him with a smirk. “I fully intend to terrorize Elias and his delectable little mate for a few days. The kraken still hasn’t learned what a mistake he’s made by offering me free admittance into his home.”

Blair chuckles and shakes his head. “Tell Nora I said hi.”

“You can’t tell her yourself?”

A flash of some emotion on the dragon’s face. One that looks very much like guilt. “Just send my regards.”

“Send them yourself,” I insist. “Join us for dinner this weekend. Unless there’s a reason you’ll be tied up here in the city? Something that might have to do with the way you smell like you’ve been dipped in a vat of orange juice and… ginger?”

Unable to stop myself from pressing him just a little further, I lean in and get a whiff of the scent clinging to him like a second skin. Opening my mouth to comment on it, he cuts me off before I can.

“Not this time.”

Another flash, this one of something much more powerful and ancient—a deep, roiling energy in his golden eyes I’ve never seen there before.

It’s one I can’t help but think has something to do with that scent and whatever human it comes from.

Gods, how I don’t want to envy him.

Or Elias, either, with the charming little human he’s claimed for his mate.