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He couldn’t ask for more from his obviously hurt mate.

Frustration welled inside of him as he realized the only way to explain it would ruin the surprise he’d had in store for her after the dust of everything settled.

“Give me your hand.”

Rowan held her hand out but didn’t turn to look at him

“Look at me.”

She turned even further away.

His anger dissipated. He couldn’t help but to find her annoyance amusing. And that is what it really was. She wasn’t as furious as she was trying to make it seem. Even if their bond wasn’t fully cemented, as Lilith had correctly assumed, he could feel her emotions as easily as his own.

“What the fuck is so funny?” She hissed, turning to glare at him.

He leaned down to steal the briefest of kisses before phasing them away.

Dragon City, the true home of the dragons, was in celebration mode.

On the top floor of the tallest tower, at the center of the city, were Alessandro’s quarters.

There were no windows or walls, merely partitions of sheer curtains hung across a low suspended ceiling that gave him some semblance of privacy when he stayed.

The arches and columns that held up the roof gave him the views of the ocean one way, and an expansive forest the other.

The kingdom itself surrounded the castle. White stucco sidings and orange clay roofs were the most popular builds of residential areas, all tight together in the epicenter, and growing distant the further from the castle you got. It was the true inspiration for Draconis’ architecture.

Rowan’s breath hitched as she took in the sight of dragons flying over-head.

Tendrils of fire magic put on a dazzling display of colors that rivaled traditional fireworks. Music only a notch louder than the cheers that crept up from the crowds on the cobblestoned streets below.

“What the fuck?” Her voice shook.

“Dragon City. My home.” He breathed as the magic his people offered him in exchange for protection settled in his bones.

Like in Black Cove, his magic extended over the land. He could feel the pulse of anyone tapped into the ley lines. It was so detailed that he could tell down to which spell was being cast and who had cast it. With the frenzy of celebration, he had to adjust his senses to concentrate on the woman beside him. The shadows from the fire of lit lanterns down below danced over her cheeks and wide eyes as they consumed the sight of his kingdom.

“Draconis is a front.” Rowan gasped. “This is where all the families live.”

“Yes.” Alessandro answered, “And this is where I would have sent you had you not been with your family.”

She raised an eyebrow, and he could feel her frustration growing once more.

If she had been a shifter, she would have understood him with a simple sift through their link. He had given her access to absolutely everything in his life when he’d offered his neck, while she had offered nothing.

He stamped down on his own annoyance with this. He’d accepted that this would be the case for as long as it took her to fully trust him.

Despite their undeniable chemistry and the fact that they’d crawled so far into each other, it was sometimes hard for them to tear apart; they’d barely known each other for a month.

To a shifter mate, that time wouldn’t have mattered. To him, it didn’t matter. As soon as he’d realized he could no longer disagree with what his dragon saw, he’d been completely and utterly hers.

Even with the many traits of shifters that she carried, she was an elf-succubus — he still couldn’t believe it — -angel.

As such, he knew he would have to win her over the non-shifter way, and as frustrating as it was proving at the moment, he found that the idea fascinated him.

Placing a hand on the small of her back he motioned to the kingdom he’d planned to show her when they were on more sturdy ground, “While I was in charge of my dragons in Draconis, you would have been in charge of leading Dragon City. Of getting the defenses ready in case Draconis fell, like Opal and Phineas were.”

She blinked out at the city and he felt the moment it all became clear. “You couldn’t send me here because of my family. They can’t know.”