“I told you.” His form loomed over her, his male scent filling her with that old mix of excitement and longing.
Luxurious and captivating, like the allure of wealth and power, yet tempered with a grounding note of cool, stone caverns deep within the earth.
As always, he made her lips part and her core throb. “I’ve come for you.”
No, no, no.
He stalked to her and hemmed her in, one hand on the wall over her head, the other caging her. But there were some differences. He used to only wear suits that barely contained his human form, and now he wore a leather jacket, making him look even more like a disreputable gangster.
All the feelings flushed through her. “You can’t be here.”
“Why?” he asked softly, and the roughness in his question made her pulse.
Upstairs, her son made a muffled noise.
Sard hesitated, then looked over his shoulder.
Her veins turned to ice. Oh, no. She pushed him back.
In surprise, he moved a step.
She escaped him, got between him and the stairway, and shoved his now-immovable bulk toward the closed door. “You’ve got to go.”
“You do have someone else here.”
“It’s just a cat.”
“You’re allergic to cats.”
“On TV.”
He frowned at her.
“Out you go.”
Upstairs, her son distinctly cried. “Maaa!” Sard’s expression blanked.
“Uh…” She pushed helplessly on him. “That was also the TV…”
“You lie.” He vaulted over her and flew up the stairs.
She swore and raced after him, her slippers thumping on the carpet. “Wait! Don’t you dare…” She reached the top of the stairs, gasping from panic and the ascent, to catch Sard frozen just inside the nursery.
He and her son stared at each other. Her son had coppery red eyes and hair. He held the bars of his crib and bounced on his two human-looking feet. He wore a fuzzy, green, hooded dinosaur onesie with darker green triangles down the back and dark footies.
Maybe she could get away with this.
“You had a child?” Sard asked, his voice even gruffer than before.
“No.”
His brows lifted, a mix of relief and confusion, and he staggered back as he took a deep breath.
Her son held out his arms to her. “Maaa. Maaa!”
“Mama?” Sard repeated, confused.
“I mean, yes.” She walked past Sard, unclipped the leash fixed to Copper’s anchor inside the crib, and picked up her son, her cheeks burning. “But it’s not what you think. He’s a human.”
“Oh. He’s a human.” Sard’s brows drew together, thunderous. “You had a baby with a human male…”
“Right. So he’s got nothing to do with you.”
Her son wiggled, straining for the ceiling. He was trying to reach the poster she’d put up to teach him about his ancestry. It was an artistic rendering of the planet Draconis, and he was always trying to fly up and touch one of the pretty cartoon dragons.
The onesie fabric slipped through her fingers, and Copper floated out of her arms, escaping before she could catch him.
She grabbed the dangling leash affixed to his ankle and dragged him back down.
But it was much too late.
Sard shouted, “He’s a dragonlet!”
“But he’s not yours,” she insisted, the words metallic in her mouth, beyond panicking.
“Who’s his father?”
“Uh, it’s…uh…you don’t know him.”
“Who?”
She hugged Copper. “Forget it! You left without any explanation. We don’t owe you anything!”
Sard’s nostrils flared and his eyes widened. Orange-red gemstone scales danced across his cheeks and across his head.
Her son stopped struggling and watched, captivated.
If male dragons could produce fire like females, no doubt Sard would let out a furious stream of fire. Instead, he squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth, and his gemstone scales sank into his human skin once more. He opened his eyes, and they were still filled with inner fire.
“There is no dragon technology here! No security cameras, no perimeter alarms. Whoever the dragon father is, he must not have cared about you very much to leave you here in this human place instead of carrying you away to his well-guarded and well-provisioned lair!”
The accusation stung, but she shrugged one shoulder, shifting her son to be more comfortable against her hip. “You’re right. He definitely didn’t care.”
“Therefore, I…” Sard suddenly frowned and went to the window.
He examined the skies, let the curtain drop again, and zoomed back down the stairs, muttering to himself.
“This place is too close. I need somewhere far away from human settlements…” He stopped at her entryway and thumbed through her hanging keys, the red dot of the accidental pen strike already healing on his hand. He lifted an old wrought iron key.
Julie had followed him down the stairs, her nervousness making her flop sweat, and pushed her damp magenta-streaked brown hair out of her face. Copper bounced on her hip. “What are you doing with the key to my grandparents’ cabin?”
“We are taking a human road trip,” Sard announced.
“In February? The roads will be snowed under, impassable, and besides.” She shifted Copper to her other hip. “I already made plans for Valentine’s Day. Really great ones. Ones that don’t involve you.”
He opened the front door and advanced on her. “Cancel them.”
“I can’t— Hey. What are you doing?”
He scooped her up in his arms, lofting Copper as well.
She smacked his broad, implacable chest and thought he winced, but it must have been her imagination because he didn’t let her down. “Don’t ignore me. I’ll stab you with a whole box of pens!”
He strode out the door, leaving her front door wide open to the frigid February air—”My heating bill,” she moaned—and launched into the sky.
Her son shrieked with excitement to finally be flying fast and high.
Even though his and Sard’s skins were warm where they hugged her, the icy weather cut through her completely inadequate black yoga leggings and off-the-shoulder teal shirt. She wriggled her feet in her puffy slippers. “Put me down!”
“Your dragon husband doesn’t value you as he should,” Sard growled, his red eyes sparkling with determination. “I will value you a hundred times more. You’ll feel my love spilling out of your pores. I’ll prove to you that I am the better husband!”
He flew them into the icy sky as Copper giggled and Julie screamed.