Page 20 of Licking Fire

“That is what they are, I’m guessing. It’s what Valentine is as well.”

Her eyes widened. “The mayor is a shifter?”

“He is,” said Rayer, showing no emotion.

She gulped. “Then when he tells me he wants to eat me up, he really means eat me up?”

Rayer’s jaw clenched. This time it was he who made a move toward the front door. Something deep down told her not to allow him to leave. She grabbed his arm and slid in her socks across the hardwood. She might as well not have been hanging on to him at all, for all it did to slow his progress.

“Rayer, no!” she shouted, before realizing how stupid it was to yell at a man who could change into a dragon.

He stopped and looked back at her. “I will kill him.”

“I know,” she said, understanding he would indeed kill the man. “But don’t. You’ll risk exposing yourself and your kind to the world. Do you think you can really just kill the mayor of the city and no one will find out? No one will dig more into you? Into what you are?”

“I do not care!” He put his hand on the knob.

Without thought, Alondra said the first thing that came to mind. “If you go off half-cocked after him, I’ll leave, and I’ll go far away. I won’t ever come back. By the time you find me, it will be too late.”

Why had she said that? What did she mean by “too late”?

He flexed his grip on the knob and then lifted his hand away, looking as if it was taking him a great deal of strength to keep from leaving. When he fixed his gaze on her, it was heated and pinned her in place. “You think to threaten me?”

Wait… She was threatening him by telling him she’d leave? How?

“You think you can vanish from my life after you only just appeared, at the time I need you most? And you think to throw in my face that you will stay hidden until it is too late for me to claim you as a man should a woman?”

Her mind raced with everything he was saying. She was close to confessing she didn’t really have a clue why she’d said what she did, but her gut told her not to let him know that just yet. That he was stubborn, and he’d go off and kill the mayor. That would be bad. Very bad.

She jutted out her chin. “Yes. I am threatening you. If you go out that door and after Valentine, I will run far from here—from you.”

He raked his hard gaze over her.

She did her best to appear brave. “And I’ll stay hidden for the next few months. I’ll stay on the run. When you do find me, because we both know you eventually will, it will be too late.”

Too late for what? She wondered but kept her questions to herself.

“You came here knowing who you are to me?” he asked, stepping closer to her.

She licked her lower lip. What was he talking about? “Um, yes?”

“Then you know what’s within my rights to do to you?”

Oh crap.

She pointed at him. “Stay right there, Mr. Dragon Dude. I get that you’re immortal. I’m not, so keep that in mind before you hurt me.”

He jerked back as if she’d slapped him. “Hurt you?”

“Well, you were just threatening torture or something, weren’t you?”

Rayer stopped glowering at her, his expression softening somewhat. “Alondra, the truth, please. Do you know who you are to me?”

She bit her inner cheek. “No.”

“Yet you sought me out. Why? Because of your grandfather’s journal?” he asked, his voice even.

“How did you know about his journal?”

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