Page 49 of Dragon’s Ending

Dominic’s eyebrows rose sharply. Dragons lived alongside humans, had them as friends and colleagues, but serious romantic relationships were taboo. We couldn’t risk our existence becoming known.

“Children were forbidden in those relationships, of course,” I said.

I ached for all the generations before me, for how few chances at love they’d had, and the families they hadn’t been able to build.

“So what changed?” Dominic asked.

“Rob and some of the others managed to give away our existence to a Mortimer,” I said. “It wasn’t planned or anything. I’m not sure why we didn’t come out of hiding before, when the power structures changed, but we didn’t. I suppose hiding became a habit. Perhaps it felt safe.” I honestly didn’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it before. “But anyway, we’re not hiding anymore.”

He was quiet a moment, and then he propped himself up on one elbow to look down at me, his hair thoroughly wrecked from my hands earlier. “I’m glad.”

For an instant, his eyes were intense on mine, then he settled beside me again. “I still think there should be pink dragons.”

“You can’t just invent new dragon colours because you like them,” I told him.

“Why not?”

“Because that’s not how it works.”

“But a pink dragon,” he said. “Imagine it.”

“I mean, you’re not wrong. It would be pretty awesome,” I confessed, and I couldn’t stop looking at him.

He was beautiful. The kind of dark beauty that could drive a man to madness. But lying here with him now, warm and rumpled and thoughtful, he was so much more than that.

I became suddenly and acutely aware that he wasn’t the only one who was still very naked.

Dominic apparently picked up on that immediately, because his gaze dropped briefly to my mouth before returning to my eyes.

“You know,” he said lazily, shifting even closer, “for someone who was determined to spend the day in his archives, you seem remarkably distracted.”

“I am perfectly capable of thinking about history right now,” I informed him with dignity.

Dominic slid one thigh deliberately between mine.

My breath left my body.

“Liar,” he said softly.

DOMINIC

The records room felt different when we eventually made it back there. Like somewhere I belonged.

Ben settled automatically back into his chair beside the heater, gathering up his notes. His visible attempt at concentration was becoming increasingly entertaining now I knew exactly what he sounded like when he lost it.

I should probably have felt smug about that. Instead I found myself unable to stop looking at him. His hair was still damp from the shower we’d shared, crammed together in a cubicle that barely had room for one. A faint mark on his throat showed above the collar of his shirt whenever he moved.

I’d marked him, claimed him as mine. Not something I’d ever done before, but it felt right. When he first came here, he’d seemed almost aggressively uninteresting. Calm, composed, impossible to provoke. I honestly hadn’t known what to do with someone who looked at me like I was just another person rather than a category five natural disaster.

Then somewhere between the records room and flying together, he’d become… Ben. Funny in a way that kept catching me off guard. Endlessly earnest about history and yet somehow not boring about it. Careful with people—he thought before saying anything. My polar opposite in that way.

I dropped into my own chair and started to look at the stack of correspondence waiting for me. But three seconds later, I was watching Ben again.

He noticed eventually, glancing up from beneath his lashes. “You know,” he observed, “if you keep staring at me like that, I’m going to get absolutely nothing done.”

“You say that like it’s a tragedy.”

“It is a tragedy. Some of us care about history.” He tried to return to his notes, though I could see the corner of his mouth threatening to curve upwards.