Page 76 of Entwined

I like it.

A lot.

Her mouth moves against mine, and her body is pressed to mine from our knees up to our faces, and it still isn’t enough. When her hand brushes up my arm and her fingers encircle my biceps, and squeeze, I can’t help it. I kiss her harder, my tongue doing what she taught me before, and tasting the inside of her mouth.

It’s better than anything I’ve ever tasted.

I could kiss her forever. I could drag her against me always, and it would never be enough. Something inside of me, the core of Azar, my desires to burn and destroy and possess, flares to life as her other hand strokes my chest, and I feel the heat start to emanate from me.

Liz pulls away just a hair, but I drag her back, desperate to consume her yet again.

“Your eyes.” She’s watching me as she whispers. “They’re—they’re glowing.”

“There’s more to this kissing thing than I realized,” I say. “And if you ever kiss Gideon or touch anyone else like this again, so help me, I will roast them, and then I’ll eat them.”

Her laughter’s the most blindingly beautiful sound I’ve ever heard. “What happened to ‘mating has nothing to do with our bond’?”

The growl that rumbles through my chest is pure possession, and I don’t even try to fight it. “I was very, very wrong.”

“Wait.” She leans closer, her eyes on mine until they drop to my mouth.

That stokes the fires inside me in a way they’ve never been stoked. “I can’t wait, not for another second.”

“But Axel, what does this mean—for Asteria, I mean?”

“Who cares?” I kiss the side of her face. Then I drag a kiss upward, to her temple. “She can mate with someone else—Hyperion. With my father. With a goat. I don’t care.”

Now she’s laughing even more, and I’m about to do. . .I don’t know what. But something big. My insides are on fire, and I’m desperate for more of Liz in every way—I realize that I want to mate with her, whatever that means. I want her to be mine in this form and in every form. Mine.

Until I hear them.

Rufus and Gordon are at the base of the hotel outside, calling my name. I’m going to roast them on a spit, and we’re all going to feast on their insides.

Apparently human mating has to be done privately, which is a real drag.

16

Liz

After Gideon told me he was quitting MMA for me—well, basically—I had about a million questions. I was too nervous to ask any of them, but I meant to as soon as he quit.

Before the world exploded.

Now that Axel says he’s not planning to mate with Asteria, because of me presumably, I have ten million more. But I’m a hundred times more afraid to ask any of them than I was back then.

Not because I’m afraid of what it will mean for my future. At this point, I can’t even imagine a future without Axel in it. But I’m afraid of what he might say. I’m afraid of what we might do. I’m afraid of what I may become if we keep going the way we’re going right now.

That crazy old woman may think all of this is fascinating, and she may have shaken her head and cast away the idea, but I’m pretty sure that her first thought was that I might be Gullveig reborn or something, and that’s straight up insane.

But what part of my life since the day the dragons arrived has been sane? What part has made any sense at all?

Only the moments I’ve spent with Axel.

And with my family. As they rush into the room, I can tell Axel’s contemplating ways he could dismember them, especially Gideon, who looks like he’s more than ready to fight my dragon prince. But Gideon and my siblings are two of the major reasons I haven’t suffered a complete mental break during all this.

“Don’t be too angry they’re here,” I whisper. “I need them. All of them.”

Axel grunts.