Page 24 of Lachlan

He’d removed the leather jacket and heavy boots and now wore only the black T-shirt and black jeans. His silver hair was loose about his jaw and shoulders. His face was still as harshly beautiful and compelling as she’d imagined, but also, thankfully, completely human.

Because she had hallucinated everything from the moment of “meeting” this man, that’s why!

Lachlan wasn’t really here, and neither was she.

“You aren’t imagining anything, Belle,” he told her softly. “I’m not sure if you remember, but I already told you we aren’t related to the three dragons Sister Agnes wrote about?—”

“Because you are them,” she stated flatly.

She didn’t care what Lachlan was saying. Shehadto still be up on that mountain, caught up in the last fanciful imaginings of her befuddled brain before she fell into unconsciousness and then died.

“Yes,” Lachlan answered her.

She swallowed again. “But that would make you centuries old.”

He nodded. “Twelve centuries and ten years more.”

“In that case, you’re looking very good for your age!”

“Belle,” he reproved.

She shook her head in denial. “You can’t be twelve-hundred-and-ten years old. That’s imposs?—”

“I assure you it isn’t. I can also shift into a dragon. More importantly, you’re my mate,” he stated firmly.

She recoiled so far away from him, she almost fell off the edge of the bed. “Your mate…?” She was hoping the question would divert his attention as she slipped from beneath the duvet and placed her feet on the carpeted floor before running.

She could run in a hallucination, right?

The way her luck had gone these past few days, the answer to that question was probably a resounding no. She wouldn’t be able to run when the time came. That even in death, she would be forever caught in this wild spiral of unbelievable imagery.

Besides, now that she’d slipped from beneath the duvet, she remembered she was no longer wearing her jeans or socks.

She didn’t remember taking them off, so had Lachlan been the one to undress her?

No, of course he hadn’t, because this,he, wasn’t real.

Then this had moved from a delusion into a sexual fantasy!

Lachlan’s expression remained calm. “The moment I breathed in your scent, I began to hope. Then when I looked at you for the first time, Iknewyou were my mate.”

“Breathed in my scent?” she repeated irritably. Even in her dream, she knew it wasn’t polite for someone to tell her she smelled. “Of course, I have ascent. I’ve been stuck up on a mountain for hours, with nowhere and no way to wash or freshen up?—”

Lachlan chuckled. “Not that sort of scent. You smell like honeysuckle.”

Her eyes widened. “I do?”

He smiled. “Heady and sweet.”

“This doesn’t make any sense.” Dreams never did, she reminded herself. “What are you even doing lying here, in the same bed as me?”

“To be fair, I’m lying on it, not in it, and I stayed because I thought you might be frightened if you woke up alone and disorientated.”

She stared at him incredulously. “You thought my waking up no longer wearing my jeans, next to the man I saw partially shift into a dragon and who claims he’s twelve-hundred-and-ten years old, who also says I’m his mate, would be preferable to me waking up alone?”

He winced. “When you put it like that…”

“That’s exactly how I’m putting it,” she challenged.

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