Page 38 of Into Ember

Vick.

I watch it happen and my brain refuses to believe it.

His boots scrape against the floor, one hand still half-curled around the shirt it lost — a man I have never once seen off balance, catching himself against nothing.

I’ve been half afraid of that man my entire life. We all have.

Five boys who learned to read his silence, his expressions, the words he chose, because his temper was the one thing none of us ever tested twice. He is one of the strongest dragons I have ever known. Buildings move before Vick does.

There has to be another explanation. Has to be.

But the guys are scattered around the room and not one of us in our right mind would touch him.

Which leaves the woman standing in front of me, breathing hard.

She moved him.

Holy fuck.

That’s not possible. I know it isn’t.

Then again, possible stopped being the standard the day I met her.

Three years I’ve known what she is.

Knowing it and watching her embrace it are two completely different things.

Because she’s growling.

It’s low and steady. Rolling out of her like the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard and she has no idea that she’s even doing it.

The woman making that sound still thinks she’s human, and her dragon is done pretending.

Vick straightens and fixes his coat like it’s the problem. He looks down at her and I don’t like what I see on his face.

“Move.”

She doesn’t.

She doesn’t even flinch. Her head is still tilted up at him and I know she’s staring Vick dead in the eye — all five feet and some change of her. Holding ground in front of a dragon older and stronger than any of us — and her growl never wavers.

I have to lock my knees when I realize what this means.

She thinks he’s a threat. To me. She’s got five minutes of Vick, and he spent almost all of them with his hands on me. She’s decided he doesn’t get a sixth. She doesn’t know he’d never hurt me, that this is as far as this was ever going.

She doesn’t know what this means either.

The growling.

Stepping between us.

And she’s standing there anyway. Ready. Defending what’s hers without one clue that I’m hers to defend.

No one besides the men in this room has ever done that for me.

And now her.

I can’t move. I don’t want to. I want to memorize her like this — breathing heavy, watching Vick the way a predator watches, every part of her saying try it. I have never seen this side of her before and I fucking love it.