Page 138 of Marked By Moonlight

He’d collapsed behind me and lay there, as limp and breathless as me.

I touched my neck carefully. It was warm and tingly, but there was no wound or blood, just a humming undercurrent of magic inside me.

We’d done it. The mating bite. We were bound together — forever.

Mess that I was, I rolled around to face him. Hug him. Hold him. Trying to process it all.

“I didn’t know you had that much dragon in you,” he whispered, running his hands over my back.

“I didn’t know I did either.”

It occurred to me that if I had ended up with anyone else — say, Clem, a wolf shifter — then that side of my DNA might have been activated. But boy, did I like the idea of being a dragon shifter.

I hugged Marius fiercely. Shifter species aside, he was the only man I wanted. The only one I would ever live a truly happy, satisfied life with.

And if that meant living on the edge from time to time — say, another art caper or a brush with another dangerous supernatural — it would be worth it. I’d never felt as alive as I did with Marius, and I’d never felt as eager to embrace my supernatural side.

“You’re going to have to learn to control it, of course,” Marius warned.

“Ha. I’ve taught middle schoolers for years. If I can handle thirty of them at a time, I can handle one measly dragon.”

In truth, I worried about a dragon running amok with my actions, words, and emotions. But I’d done pretty well handling Marius, Roux, Bene, and Henrik. I could do the same with the dragon that would eventually emerge from within me.

“The trick is to keep that side of you in a separate compartment and only let it out when you need to.” That sounded ominous, but Marius shook his head and framed it more positively. “I mean, when you want to. Like when you want to fly, just for the fun of it.”

“Only if I get to do it with you.”

He grinned. “Believe me, that can be arranged.”

He kissed me, slowly at first, then more urgently, and soon, we were back in the throes of passion. Not that I was complaining.

Afterward, we cleaned up, straightened the bedding, and lay spooned together.

“So, you’re stuck with me now,” I whispered.

He shook his head. “Not stuck. Delighted.”

I nuzzled the arm he’d looped over me, gazing at nothing in particular. Slowly, the row of paintings on the wall came into focus, and I considered them, one after another.

There were a few from my grandparents’ collection, plus the one I’d painted of the château on a misty morning, with all my friends represented. A lion sauntered across the lawn, a tiger blended into the bushes, and a bat flew between the chimneys. Best of all, two figures stood at in the windows of my suite, one tall, the other a little smaller.

I wove my fingers through Marius’s, thinking back to the morning I’d lain here, fearing I had lost everything.

Then my eyes wandered to the Van Gogh we’d brought back from Mallorca. HavingThe Painter on the Road to Tarasconon my wall was a privilege I would enjoy for months before finding a way to anonymously slip it into the hands of a museum. As always, I asked myself,How did I get this lucky?

But part of me couldn’t help sighing a little. If only I’d succeeded in finding a more fitting buyer forThe Tower of Blue Horses. But it was Jensen’s now and would probably remain locked away from the public for another generation.

Marius must have picked up on the sentiment, because he kissed my shoulder, then rolled away.

I protested, but he only chuckled.

“I’ll be right back. I have a present for you.”

“Well, inthatcase…” I joked, watching him step across the room to the clothing we’d left strewn by the door.

He found his pants and rooted around in the pockets, giving me a prime view of his ass. Another kind of masterpiece, in my humble opinion.

Then he walked back. I lifted the blanket to let him slide in, then stopped.