Page 56 of Dragon’s Ending

Afterwards, we drifted back upstairs to the records room. The rain had finally stopped, pale autumn sunlight spilling weakly through the narrow windows and turning the dust hanging in the air to gold.

We did genuinely attempt to work. For nearly twenty minutes. Then Dominic got bored and wandered over to where I sat cross-referencing parish records with dragon genealogies. He rested his chin on the top of my head to read what I was working on.

“You smell nice,” he informed me.

“That’s an incredibly disturbing thing to say to someone reading about burials.”

“Still true.”

I tried very hard to remain focused on the records in front of me. Unfortunately, this became significantly more difficult when he slid one hand slowly down over my chest, and started opening the buttons of my shirt.

“Dominic.”

“What?”

“You are actively preventing research.”

I twisted slightly in my chair to glare up at him properly. Which turned out to be a tactical error, because one look at Dominic made recklessness seem like an excellent idea. His expression shifted too, amusement turning into hunger.

For one dangerous moment, the records room seemed to narrow around me. Then Dominic blinked, breathed out sharply, and stepped back before we did something profoundly irresponsible on top of irreplaceable family archives.

“Ben,” he announced, with mock severity. “You really do have to stop seducing me onto medieval tax records.”

“I’m fairly certain you’ve got that the wrong way round.”

“Historian,” he said gravely, “I am trying to preserve your professional reputation.”

I laughed despite myself as he flopped dramatically back into his chair. Everything I already felt for him was abruptly turned up to eleven—he knew I wanted to work almost as much as I wanted him, and he was denying his own impulses to let me.

We managed nearly another two hours of work after that. Then, without warning, Dominic looked up from his papers and said, “Let’s fly tonight.”

Anticipation fizzed instantly in my stomach, and judging by the slow smile spreading across Dominic’s face, he knew exactly what that suggestion had done to me.

Chapter Twenty-two

BEN

By the time we launched ourselves from the castle ruins, the moon was up, the stars bright in the darkness.

Cold air rushed beneath my wings the instant I caught the wind, glorious and familiar. No matter how often I flew, awe filled me each time with how it felt—freedom and power and something I’d never found anywhere else.

Until now. Because as I turned and saw Dominic, that same feeling of awe overwhelmed me. Silvery grey in the moonlight, he was powerful, dangerous and effortlessly sure of himself. He was so beautiful, my heart ached.

He banked the moment he saw me looking and moved lower in invitation, close enough that our wingtips nearly brushed as we swept together over the valley.

Then he folded one wing and dropped. I followed before thinking. Wind tore past us as we spiralled downward, the ruined castle rushing up out of the dark hills below. At the last possible second he levelled out hard above the hillside, his laughter ringing bright and wild in my head.

Show-off. I surged after him anyway. The sheer joy of it burned through me, the speed, the cold, the certainty of Dominic always just ahead or beside me, turning back towards me again and again as though he physically couldn’t help it. And perhaps he couldn’t. Neither, increasingly, could I.

We finally landed hard among the ruins, with twin thumps that threatened the stability of what was left of the tower. The moment I shifted back, cold air hit my skin sharply enough to make me gasp.

Dominic was laughing, eyes bright in the moonlight as he shoved wild hair back from his face.

“You nearly clipped that tower,” I informed him, still half drunk on flying.

“You loved it.”

Unfortunately, he was right.