Page 46 of Dragon Exposed

“I don’t know. Everything I thought I knew about dragons, about mates, about our interactions with humans has been proven almost entirely wrong since Tristan and his clan destroyed the peace between our people. Before he killed my parents, I would’ve thought my six siblings, the five Carmine brothers, and the four other dragons he named. Now, though, I don’t know.” He sat me on the edge of the tub before he started filling the massive basin with steaming water. “Things were easier before I came to live among the humans.”

I let out a chuckle, even though nothing felt particularly funny about his statement. “Humans complicate everything.” As I pulled my shirt off, I chewed my lower lip and looked him over, watching him swirl bath salts into the water. “What are they going to think of me?”

“Pru, Finley, and Quinn will love you. And Krystana, if they let her come too, will just adore you. As for the others, I suppose it depends on what the Carmines have been up to since the last time I saw them. If they’re in the human world enough to know what happened, if they’ve gone against the garnet king to be here, I would imagine everyone coming here will be friends.” He sighed. “Or, at least, not foes.”

That didn’t exactly ease my mind at all, even as I watched him pad across the bathroom to go get the vial of potion.

I wasn’t at all sure how a bath, even one in extremely salted water, would help the fear leave me, but if it kept me from having to face down at least fifteen dragons for at least a little while longer, I was willing to try.

Before I could step into the tub, Levi came up behind me, pulling me against his body, against the bulge in his jeans that was so prominent, I wasn’t sure how it wasn’t causing him pain, trapped in denim like that. “Let me braid your hair, so you can keep it up and out of the water.”

I sat on the edge of the tub again, this time with my feet in the water, as he deftly worked his fingers through my hair, twisting and weaving with such speed and confidence that I was half sure I’d have knots in my hair I’d never get out.

When I glanced back at the mirror when he was finished, I couldn’t help but gasp. He’d taken all my pale blonde hair and twisted it into an intricate crown of braids. It was a look I never could’ve pulled off on my own, and one that I would’ve guessed should have taken a lot more time.

“Levi…” I looked up at him, a smile spreading across my face until my cheeks hurt. “That’s amazing.”

He shrugged. “Krystana used to have the most terrible knots, and she often slipped away from her guards to climb trees, to investigate our world, ever stubbornly insisting that she could do anything the men could do. I was the only one who could get her to sit still long enough to even do the most simple of braids, so I learned quickly how to plait with speed, so that when she inevitably came back with bloodstains on her skirts and mud on her face, at least her hair would not need to be untangled for hours afterwards.” He knelt down on the rug next to the tub and smiled softly. “Are you ready for your thoughts to be your own again?”

I nodded, even though there was still a part of me that was afraid that I was going to come out of this bath and realize that everything was different. What if the vampires had used my attraction to Levi to torture us both, give us these few good moments together, before they all melted away? Or, God, what if Levi wasn’t even here? What if this whole cabin, everything that had happened, was all in my head?

It’d make sense. No one had orgasms like the ones Levi gave me.

Watching him pour the water into the tub, I slowly lowered myself into the water, holding onto his arm like an anchor. “Levi?”

“I’m right here, Izobelle.”

“Just promise me something. Whatever else ends up being fake, thoughts put in my head by vampires, promise me that all this, that everything we’ve done together, we can do again?”

He leaned forward and kissed me softly. “Mate, we’ll have all our lives to come together. I swear, it won’t just be once. I don’t intend to ever have my fill of you.”

Even as I sunk into the water, Levi stayed next to me, holding my hand. Just like he promised, he didn’t leave. He didn’t even attempt to move, even though I could only imagine the discomfort he was feeling, kneeling on hard tile flooring.

After a few minutes, I sighed. “I don’t feel any different.”

“Of course, Dec wouldn’t tell me everything.” He rolled his eyes, but it didn’t feel like his irritation was directed at me. “We might have to get your braids wet after all.”

My free hand reached up and gently touched the woven plaits. “If I ruin them, will you braid it again?”

“Whenever you want.” He smiled softly. “And when we have a little daughter of our own, I’ll braid her hair too.”

Fucking hell, why was that sexy? Why did the idea of him chasing after a little girl with long blonde hair and mischief in her eyes make me want to give myself over to him, to the whole mating idea? “You’d want a daughter?”

“Daughters are the most precious thing in my world, Izobelle. Sons would make my heart just as happy, but if I am truthful, I have always hoped to have daughters. To bring more female dragons into the world, with all the strength, all the power, they wield.” He cupped my cheek, leaning in close. “We’ll have centuries to talk about children, to bring little dragons into the world. When you’re ready. And only after you wear my bite.”

After a kiss that made my toes curl and my core ache and pulse with need, he added in that husky, growling tone of his, “Until then, I’ll just enjoy fucking you anywhere you’ll let me.”

That doesn’t mean this bathtub, right now, right?I mentally shook the thought away, before I could let my mouth utter those words out loud. It was bad enough that I knew he’d been hard before I even got into the water.

“We should submerge you fully. Hopefully, Declan didn’t bring me a defective potion or tell me how to use it completely wrong.”

I could practically feel the concern, the frustration, coming off of Levi, but it was between him and his brother. If he said it wasn’t about me, I was going to try and believe him.

At least until I was the only human in a swarm of dragons.

After a deep breath, I pinched my nostrils shut with one hand and clung to Levi with the other as I dunked myself under the surface of the water.

It started slowly, like a blanket being lifted off my body one inch at a time, until the fear I had over flying with Levi, seeing his dragon form, dissipated. When I broke through the water’s surface again, I intently stared at him, trying to find any of that fear, any of that worry. But all I could see was Levi.

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