Page 47 of Must Love Dragons
She slipped her bracelet on her right wrist and snapped it closed, feeling a pulse of warmth up her arm.
Putting the other bracelet in the pocket of her dress, she walked out of Lyra’s room and headed down the back stairs and outside instead of meeting him in the kitchen as they’d planned.
She wouldn’t make him wait any longer.
Tonight she was going to claim her dragon.
Zay glanced at his phone for the second time, wondering where Kinsley was.It was after six.Lyra had already come down into the kitchen with Nysa, made her dinner, and left for something she called a “cat play date.”
Drumming his fingers on the counter, he wondered if he should go find her.
And then his phone buzzed.
A simple text from Kinsley was on the screen.
Come outside.
His dragon hummed curiously.Zay tucked the phone into his pocket and grabbed his keys from the hook.He stepped out onto the front porch and looked around, not spying his mate.
He was about to call her name when he felt a pull to the back of the house and decided to follow his dragon’s instincts.
Walking to the side of the house, he followed it around to the back, and there in the center of the backyard, was Kinsley.
She stood in a dress and jacket in the chilly fall evening, just past the spill of light from the inside of the house.
As he approached, she moved her hand back and forth and the firepit that they used in the summer blazed to life, illuminating her more clearly.
“What are you doing back here?”he asked.
“I wanted to talk to you.”
Her voice was calm but there was a strange electricity in the air.
He drew close to her, picking up her sweet scent, his dragon growling in approval.She smelled so good, like sweet smoke and vanilla.
He stopped just short of reaching her, caught in the intensity of her gaze.The firelight flickered over her face, making her look ethereal and powerful.
She reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out something metallic that glinted in the light.His dragon stirred, sensing something momentous was about to happen.
“I learned something interesting,” she said, her voice soft but sure.“Dragon females are the ones who initiate the mating bond, the ones who claim first.”
His heart pounded, and his dragon went completely, reverently still inside him.
“I didn’t know,” she continued, taking a step closer.
He swallowed hard as emotion rose up inside him.“Kinsley.”
She shook her head, and he closed his mouth.
“You’ve been waiting for me,” she said.“Even though it might not have occurred to you to tell me what you needed, this is something thatIneed to do too.”
She was right.He had been waiting—aching—for something he hadn’t put into words.
She reached for his wrist and his pulse thundered beneath her touch.She brought the silver cuff to his wrist and said, “I claim you, Zayvien Vohn.”She slid the cuff onto his wrist and clicked it closed.The metal warmed, heat spreading up his arm like an invisible flame, recognizing that she wore the other, matching bracelet.
He didn’t have to look at the bracelets to know they’d belonged to his grandparents.
His sister had given them to Kinsley so she could claim him in the way of their people.His dragon roared in triumph in his mind.
