Page 77 of Magic Forsaken

He left me with no choice but to argue. “What about the fact that no one will believe it for even one second that we’re telling the truth?”

“How so?” There was an almost dangerous light in his eyes. A challenge. Daring me to contradict him.

I didn’t need the extra motivation. Contradicting him was now one of the top five things that got me up in the morning. “You’re…you,” I sputtered vehemently, and utterly unhelpfully.

Why was he pretending that he couldn’t see it without my help?

“I’m a fox, you’re a dragon. I’m barely even a shapeshifter, while you’re their king. I can barely figure out how to use my magic, while you have the power to squash me like a bug. Burn me to a crisp. Turn me into a pariah and make me disappear.”

Strangely, I no longer worried about him doing any of those things. But the point was that hecould. “Why would they buy this story that you’re bringing someone like me as your date when you could have asked anyone and they would have jumped at the chance?”

His lips pressed together in a flat, unimpressed line. “Believe it or not, Raine, the world is not overflowing with women clamoring to date a dragon with my reputation.”

I did find that hard to believe. “What reputation?”

“You’ve said it yourself—bullheaded, impossible to reason with, and often a pain in the ass. Not to mention paranoid, inflexible, and utterly obsessed with rules,” he added helpfully.

He could tell himself that, but I doubted it would stop very many women from at least trying. Not when he looked likethat.

“I’m literally in this position because I’m intimidating,” he pointed out calmly. “How many shapeshifters do you think go out of their way to date someone they find terrifying?”

Point to him. I’d seen the way Heather cringed in his presence. “There must be other dragons, at least,” I protested weakly. “Gryphons, maybe?”

He sighed and grimaced in distaste. “Okay, yes, fine. There are dragons who have tried. But what they want is proximity to power, so they always give up when they find out how much I work and how seriously I take my responsibilities. They want to take the private jet to Paris, but I’m too busy settling petty arguments.”

That checked out, actually. But it didn’t address the meat of the problem.

“But… Callum, there’s no way this is going to work,” I insisted. “Everyone is going to see through it. We don’t act like we’re dating. We argue constantly, plus, they all know you’re my boss as well as my king, so you can force me to obey your orders—including this one.”

His expression didn’t change, but I would have sworn he looked hurt. “Do you feel as if I’ve forced you into something you cannot say no to?”

“Youliterallyjust ordered me to attend this banquet thing as your date.”

He stared back at me stubbornly. “All right. Would it fix this if I fired you?”

For a moment, I gaped at him in shock. Had I just lost my job?

“You’re still technically employed by Faris, on loan to my team for the duration of the Symposium. I will pay you a generous severance package, and you’ll have your original job back as soon as the Symposium is over.”

I threw up my hands and let out a strangled snarl of frustration. “Really? That’s your solution?”

“It’s a perfectly good solution,” he insisted. “If you no longer work for me, I have no hold over you as your employer, and as your sovereign, I am making no attempt to force your compliance. So,”—he fixed me with a fiery, amber-eyed stare—“Raine Kendrick, as my non-employee, will you please agree to be my date to the Symposium banquet?”

My heart lurched with such painful longing that for a moment I couldn’t answer.

When had my heart decided that this was what it wanted? A stubborn, paranoid dragon who could never be allowed to knowmy story. A man of honor and integrity who would despise me forever if he knew the truth.

“Why not ask someone else?” I argued, feeling almost frantic. “Surely you have other…people, who would do a far better job of keeping everyone safe. I’m likely to panic. Forget to use my magic. Or mess up and hurt someone because I haven’t practiced enough!”

Something in him seemed to snap. He pivoted on his heel and stalked towards me, all that coiled power and frustration visible in the flex of his hands and the spark behind his eyes.

But he stopped before he reached me. There was less than an arm’s length between us, and I had to look up to meet his gaze. But I still wasn’t afraid.

“I didn’t ask someone else, because I wantyouthere.” He said it quietly. Clearly. With such perfect control that an outsider might have assumed he was calm.

He was anything but calm. I’d somehow stripped away his controlled, logical veneer, leaving only the man, the dragon, and their frustrated instincts.

“Raine, you were right to challenge me when I tried to keep you from coming with me to see Leith. Right to insist that I respect your choices. But in that moment, all I could see was that you’d nearly died, and it brought out the worst in me.”

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