Page 10
CHAPTER SEVEN
Zoey eyed the man—dragon?—warily as he stood a short distance away from her. Unfortunately, not far enough away for her to be able to outdistance those much longer legs, get in her car, and lock all the doors before putting the key in the ignition and driving back to London.
Hell, he looked strong enough to rip the door off the Mini even if she managed to do the first three of those things. To rip the roof off too, if it became necessary!
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “You mentioned your one true mate?”
“You,” he confirmed with satisfaction.
Zoey gave a scornful laugh. “You met me two hours ago at the most?—”
“And I knew the moment I saw you and breathed in your unique perfume that you are my one true mate. My dragon knows it too,” he added happily.
Zoey opened her mouth to dismiss his ridiculous claim.
But then she remembered that the dragon in her delusion had said she was the last person it would ever hurt.
Was that for the same reason that Hunter, the man, had just told her he couldn’t leave Cornwall without his mate?
Because she was the true mate of both Hunter and his dragon.
Was she really starting to buy into this fantasy?
Hard to continue dismissing it when she had definitely seen a thirty-foot-tall dragon, and Hunter had now insisted that dragon was him. There was also no disputing that he hadn’t been around when the dragon was, and vice versa .
She swallowed. “Are you able to…I don’t know, maybe partially shift?
Not to your full dragon,” she hastened to qualify her request, not sure she was up to being confronted by a thirty-foot-tall silver dragon for a second time in a matter of minutes.
“But maybe just your mouth or—or hands? Claws? Is that possible?”
She had barely finished speaking before Hunter lifted what had been his hand but was now a huge dragon claw, with long curved talons extending from what had been his fingers.
Scary, yes, but also incredible. Miraculous, in fact.
Zoey kept her fascinated gaze on Hunter’s clawed hand as she took a step forward, followed by another, then another, until she was standing directly in front of him.
She half lifted her own hand as if about to touch one of those talons, but stopped several inches away. “Does it hurt when you do that?”
He shook his head. “It’s as natural to me as growing fingernails is to you.”
“Amazing,” she admired. “Can I—” She glanced up at him. “Can I touch?”
Hunter smiled. “My darling Zoey, you’re my one true mate. You can touch me anywhere and at any time you wish.”
She gave him another lingering glance. “You like saying that, don’t you?”
He bared his straight white teeth—the same ones that could shift into a mouthful of large, pointed ones—in a grin. “That you’re my one true mate?”
“Yes.”
“I love saying that, almost as much as I love?—”
“Please don’t say me,” Zoey cautioned. “You don’t even know me, and the last thing I want is to be loved because of what I am to you, not who I am. No one has loved me since my parents died twelve years ago,” she added huskily.
Hunter respected the hell out of Zoey for telling him that. He also, much as she might not believe him yet, knew he already loved her for who and not what she was.
He knew that Zoey was a young woman who had grown up strong and true to herself despite having lived with a fucking monster since she was eight years old.
Hunter no longer had any doubt that was exactly what Edgar Wallis was.
Behind Zoey’s outer strength was kindness and caring, and a desire to help people while continuing to follow her dream of becoming an artist.
Hunter could only imagine how disapproving a man like Edgar Wallis would have been when, after Zoey left her boarding school, she had told him she wanted to go to university to take a course in the art she obviously loved.
Or perhaps the other man had just been glad to be rid of her for another three years?
That sounded much more like the cold and selfish man Hunter had been observing for the past two days.
“My Zoey.” Hunter lifted his other hand, the one that wasn’t a dragon’s claw, to gently touch the side of her face.
“How could I not fall instantly in love with such a strong and beautiful woman? How can I not wish to gather you up in my arms and fly us both back to Scotland? To offer myself to you as your mate and?—”
“Husband?” Zoey broke off abruptly, color blooming in her cheeks. “Sorry. I just… If we ever do become…mates, then you need to know that I would want to be married in the human world too.”
“I would be truly honored to be your chosen husband.”
She frowned. “Did I use the correct phrasing when I said human world? I don’t want to insult you.”
Hunter chuffed out a laugh. “I am not insulted, and yes, that is the correct term. You should know,” he said, sobering, “that once we are mates, you will no longer be completely human either.”
She blinked. “I won’t?”
“A snow dragon’s mate also has the ability to shift and fly beside him,” he announced with pride.
Her eyes widened. “Once we’re— I would be able to shift into a dragon and fly?”
“Yes.”
It all still sounded incredulous to Zoey. Especially the part where Hunter had just confirmed she would be able to shift into a dragon if she became his mate. Just thinking of the changes necessary in her human body to achieve such a thing was mind-boggling.
At the same time as it all sounded utterly amazing!
Hunter glanced at her hair. “My instincts tell me you will shift into a magnificent red dragon,” he admired.
“Can Belle— Are she and Lachlan already mated?”
“They are, yes. Lachlan told me her dragon is black, the same color as her hair.”
The things Hunter was now sharing with Zoey were unbelievable. And yet…not as much as they had been when he had first shifted so suddenly.
She glanced down at his clawed hand before moving her hand the rest of the way necessary to be able to touch him. The moment her fingers came into contact with one of Hunter’s talons, he pulled back with a hiss.
Zoey frowned when she saw how pained his expression now was. “Did I hurt you? I didn’t mean to. You did say I could touch you,” she reminded wistfully, sad that she could no longer feel even that brief physical closeness. For a second or two, it had felt incredible.
“You can,” he assured gruffly. “It was just— The emotional link I felt between us was so intense that it resulted in me seeing such a kaleidoscope of colors that for a moment, it blinded me.” He gazed at her with open adoration.
“Over time, the vividness of colors has faded for me. Meeting you, my mate, has brought the world back to a maelstrom of bright and beautiful colors. As bright and beautiful as you are. My senses are so sensitive, and I am so physically aware of you, that a single touch from you almost caused me to climax.”
Zoey blushed at this revelation. Possibly because one touch of that single claw had felt wonderful to her too.
Her nipples were so swollen and sensitive, she could barely stand having them brushing against the inside of her bra, and between her thighs was so wet, she was sure her panties would be damp.
It had also opened up an emotional and physical connection Zoey hadn’t even realized was missing from her life until that moment.
As if, for those same brief seconds, she had become completely whole for the first time in her life.
As if all the painful black holes inside her, the ones that, when she was a child, had longed to be loved, had suddenly been filled.
Because she and Hunter were mates?
Zoey was slowly starting to believe, to accept, from the power of her reaction to that single touch, that was exactly what they were.
Quite what that meant for them, for her future, she had no idea.
But the one thing she felt absolutely certain of was that Hunter would never, could never, hurt her.
She moistened her lips a second time. “I… Would you kiss me?”
Fire instantly flared in the depths of those dark eyes, telling Zoey that she hadn’t imagined seeing that blaze of gold in his eyes earlier when he spoke of the gems and gold in a dragon treasure.
“What is that?” she whispered as she continued to watch his eyes in total fascination.
“I saw red flames flare briefly in your eyes just now. Earlier today, they were silver,” she explained at his questioning look.
“Ah.” He nodded. “My brothers and I have the ability to control the elements of fire, earth, water, and air. I am also a snow dragon, which would explain the silver flames you saw earlier. The red flames of just now are because we can all, if necessary, breathe actual fire.”
“Like the dragons depicted in myths and legends?”
“Yes.”
That ability probably also explained why, to Zoey, Hunter’s scent was of pine needles on a forest floor, burning leaves on an autumn day, and a brisk salty sea breeze.
Well, at least she hadn’t been imagining that!
Even if she still wasn’t one hundred percent convinced about the existence of dragons.
“May I kiss you now?” Hunter requested in a deeply husky voice. Both his hands had returned to normal now, with fingers rather than talons.
“How do we… I know I was the one to ask for this, but…do we just kiss? Or is there something I should do or that I need to know before we—” Her words were cut off the moment Hunter swept her up into his arms and his mouth claimed hers.
Earth-shattering.
Zoey could think of no other word to more accurately describe how it felt to have Hunter’s mouth on hers as he kissed, ravished, and thoroughly explored every inch of her mouth with his relentlessly hungry lips and probing tongue.
She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, but Hunter’s tongue seemed longer and rougher than a normal one as it licked and claimed her mouth.
As he tasted.
Possessed.
But it also felt as if she were claiming, tasting, and possessing Hunter.
As if, in that moment, he became just as much hers as she became his.
Mate.
Zoey jolted back as that word, spoken in that rough and yet purring voice, sounded inside her head. “What the hell was that?” she gasped as she pulled out of Hunter’s arms.
Hunter gave an apologetic grimace. “My dragon has no doubts as to exactly what we are to each other.”
“But I heard him speak inside my head!”
“And I apologize. That was unforgivable.” He released a long sigh. “My dragon is impatient for his mate. But that is not an acceptable excuse for an intrusion of such intimacy.”
Zoey’s gaze moved searchingly over Hunter’s face, once again overwhelmed by how strikingly handsome he was: his face was all sharp angles, and his eyes were that intense brown bordering on black. “Will we—will there be that mental link between us if we become mates?”
“Yes.”
That sort of connection, intimacy, sounded incredible to someone who had felt so emotionally alone and isolated since her parents died.
Edgar was a cold man, and although the household staff had tried to be kind—such as making her favorite meals when she was home—they couldn’t replace her parents or fill that gaping hole in her chest that wanted someone to love her.
“What else?” she prompted, eager now to know exactly what mating a dragon amounted to. She very much liked what she’d heard and felt so far.
Hunter smiled. “Once we are mated, we will be able to sense each other’s emotions through that same link. To know whether either of us is in pain. Whether we are feeling pleasure.” His voice had become gruff.
Zoey felt the heat bloom in her cheeks. “But we aren’t mated yet, and perhaps we never will be, so how was it possible for me to have heard your dragon— Hunter?
” she questioned warily when she heard the unmistakable thunder of a growl vibrating in his chest. “What did I say?” she prompted as Hunter once again began to shift into a fierce dragon in front of her eyes.