Page 10

Damian

B ad. That’s what it was. Very, very bad.

“You can freshen up in there,” I said, pointing to the little powder room off my sitting area at the front of my quarters.

“Thank you,” Aurora said, picking her way through the seats and closing the door behind her.

The door to the bathroom. The bathroom in my quarters.

What have I done?

She closed the door, and the instant I heard the lock click , my shoulders sagged. This was not how it was supposed to go. Not what I was supposed to be doing or how I’d been told to do it.

The sovereign told you to ensure the laws were upheld with respect to the humans. What is your justification for removing Aurora from Janus’ care?

I groaned through clenched teeth. That was the problem! I didn’t have one. Not a good enough one. Admitting I’d caved to my dragon’s insistence was not enough. Not when Janus wasn’t committing a crime.

Was he being an ass? Yes.

Being a dick, however, violated no true law. Yes, I could probably argue that I’d acted preemptively because Janus broke the spirit of the agreement he’d committed to. But it was a weak link, and I knew it.

Nor was that the worst of my sins.

The countertop of my kitchen groaned as my fingers clamped down on it.

I, in one day, less than one day even, had gone against everything I stood for not once but twice. I still had yet to tell the sovereign about finding Aurora in the restricted area.

You have to get a hold of yourself. You can’t let this woman control you. She’s only human.

The response from my dragon staggered me. I wavered, nearly bending a knee before the unending wave of fury that poured out from the bestial half of my mind. A furious cascading range of emotions that could be boiled down to one inescapable thought.

Mine.

“But she’s human!” I hissed to the empty room, reduced to talking to myself.

The beast took my protest and bathed it in fire, melting it away. It did not care. Human, dragon, there was no difference. It wanted what it wanted and screw anything that stood in its way.

Including me.

“Damian?”

I whirled at the tentative voice, forcing my features into a cool, neutral temperature. The last thing I could afford was to give away anything to Aurora.

She stepped closer but stopped short of entering my bubble. “I just wanted to say … thank you.”

“For what?” I tried to be dismissive of her. To pretend I didn’t care.

“Caring enough to listen,” she said. When I didn’t respond, she half-shrugged and turned away. “Anyway, that’s all. I just wanted to thank you. Maybe not all dragons are total assholes.”

As she retreated back to the bathroom, I watched her go the entire way, memorizing the sway of her hips beneath her pants, much to the approval of my dragon.

“ Stop it ,” I said, scolding myself for getting caught up in watching her. I could ill afford the distraction of a woman right now, let alone a human. There wasn’t time. The Scepter of Anaris was still missing, and I was no closer to having any leads.

She didn’t do it .

Despite my inner turmoil over the sudden intrusion of the human into my life, I was fairly certain it was the impartial magistrate within me that was confident Aurora had nothing to do with the lost scepter. Her confusion was too genuine, her denial too heated.

Besides, she couldn’t have had it on her.

But the problem was I couldn’t prove it. If anyone else deduced she’d been down there, the immediate suspicion would fall directly upon her. Jair would toss her in a cell without a second thought.

Picturing Aurora in a cell, alone in the four stone walls, did not amuse my dragon one bit.

I took another deep breath, trying to calm it.

Aurora chose that moment to exit the bathroom. She looked at me, and I looked at her, once more admiring her.

Despite all the uncertainty and change, she managed to radiate an aura of strength and determination that anyone, dragon or not, would be hard pressed to match. Her hair shimmered auburn in my apartments lights, falling freely past her shoulders and framing her face with a few loose strands.

Her skin was slightly tan, a product of sunlight, not genetics or a booth, if I guessed correctly. It served to emphasize the dusting of freckles across the middle of her face, bringing them out in a contrast that gave her a wild, fiery kind of gaze.

Then there were the eyes. So green and strong, they demanded attention, even when I was looking at the rest of her. Nobody could look into those eyes and not wonder what hid in their depths, what the sort of person who possessed them could be like.

“Can I help you?” I asked as I sensed myself getting pulled toward her orbit. I needed to stay in control.

“Who are you? Who have I become stuck with?”

It was not a question I’d anticipated.

“You know who I am,” I said, again trying to be standoffish, to keep her further at arm’s reach.

“Damian. Magistrate. That’s about all I know. What does that title mean? Are you a police officer?”

“No.” I shook my head. “To my knowledge, there is no equivalent to who, or what, I am.”

“Not a police officer?”

“More than that. There is a phrase, however, that is particularly apt, I have found.”

Her face invited me to explain.

“I am the judge. I am the jury. And if need be,” I said softly, “I am the executioner. I am the law, and it is my duty to enforce it equally and punish those who defy it. I am the right hand of the Sovereign of All Dragonkind.”

There was a long pause. I watched her eyes, seeing them shift through several shades of green as she parsed everything I’d said.

“So, if the law is the right hand of the sovereign … what’s her left hand?”

“None of your business.”

Aurora had no need to be aware of the sovereign’s personal assassin, her Shadow, the dragon who carried out her will when the spirit of the law was broken and used against our people.

Nor did I like that such a person existed to operate outside the law. But that was politics.

“I understand,” Aurora said, looking down. “Sorry I asked.”

Without thinking, I crossed to her and broke every rule in my own book by taking her chin and tilting her head upward.

She inhaled sharply at my touch, and I nearly backed off, but it was too late now. I had done it. I’d given in to the intrusive thought.

“Don’t apologize for asking questions, Aurora. That’s how we learn. And learning is a crucial thing that far too many forget how to do.”

“Okay,” she said in a very tiny voice, all at once looking nothing like the confident, brave woman of a moment earlier.

You’re scaring her. Good job.

I dropped my hand from her jaw, pushing aside the reluctance from my dragon. It was not the time for that. I was already screwing everything up royally. I couldn’t afford to do more. I needed to be fixing things, not making them worse.

“Are you refreshed?” I asked, glancing at the bathroom to make sure she felt fine.

“Yes, thank you.”

“Good.”

“What now?” she asked, sensing I had a reason for asking.

“The scepter is missing,” I said, still uneasy discussing it with a human. “I must go into town and visit the marketplace, make some inquiries, to see what is being said outside the ears of the palace.”

Her face brightened considerably. “Great. I love markets.”

I frowned. It hadn’t been an invitation.

“You weren’t planning on taking me,” she said, again demonstrating her sharpness.

“No,” I admitted. “I wasn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because to get there, I have to fly.”

“So? Big deal. You can carry me, can’t you? Let’s go.”

I watched her go to the door, where she waited, looking back at me expectantly.

Frowning, wondering why I was even entertaining the idea, I went after her.

“I could’ve sworn I was the one in charge,” I muttered as I followed her out the door.

“Men,” she snorted. “They always think that.”