Page 59 of Prince of Storms
“Aren’t I?” Mia asked, conveniently ignoring what had happened between us at her house the night before.
“If she finds out about you, I can’t predict what she’ll do,” I said, deciding to ignore her question. I wouldn’t lie to her. Not about that. “So you should stay in the house, where you’re safe, until I figure out what to do about her. She’s already a nuisance enough.”
Mia tilted her head to the side in question.
“She’s the one who disabled your car,” I explained. “She also blew up my battery at your house, then hit us with the lightning bolt on our way home this morning.”
“That was allher?” Mia yelped.
“Yes.”
“Yeah, I think it’s safe to say she’s a big danger to me. I almost died several times because of her, Tor! She almost killed you. You went through the windshield …” She trailed off.
I smiled. “I wasn’t in any danger of dying. Just a bit of pain. We’re very resilient like that.”
“Must be nice,” she said.
“It has its perks,” I admitted with a heavy sigh. “But you’re right. She’s a threat to me, but also you. A threat I have to eliminate if I’m going to protect you.”
And I will protect you, my mate. With everything I have. No matter the personal cost. Even if it destroys me.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Mia
Hearing Tor talk about protecting me and how important that was to him stirred something inside me. Guilt? Perhaps slightly, but it was bigger than that. He was prioritizingme,putting me first, over not just his sister but himself. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. It was … different. Something was different. But what?
I thought it over as I gazed around the grand cavern, taking it all in again. He was acting different; that was it. Something had changed in how he treated me. I was no longer just a hired cleaner he’d fooled around with. I was something more to him, though I wasn’t sure what or, perhaps more importantly, why? What had caused this change in behavior?
Was it simply the fact that he was free to show me who and what he really was? Was that giving him the freedom he’d lacked before?
“How are you doing?” he asked, taking me by the upper arm, gently turning me around until I looked right at him. “With all of this? You don’t seem to be too worked up.”
“It’s … a lot to take in,” I admitted, trying not to focus on how his hand felt on me, how big it was compared to my arm. “Explains a lot of inconsistencies I hadn’t even noticed were bothering me, not to mention all the other weird occurrences.”
“I’m sorry you had to find out this way,” he rumbled, gently stroking my arm with his thumb, sending shivers up through my shoulder.
“I’ll be okay, I think,” I said, tittering slightly with laughter. “Maybe.”
“Why don’t we go back?” he suggested. “At least get you some food or something like that.”
“That’s not such a bad idea,” I said, though I wasn’t all that hungry just then.
His fingers slid down my arm and took my hand, tugging me after him, back through the Rift and into the basement of his mansion. There was absolutely no sense of being transported, no disorientation. Just moving through the Rift, from one side to the other, like any normal step.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked, pausing at the top of the stairs, his hand still entwined with mine.
“I think so,” I said, glancing at our joined hands. My body was tingling from his touch. Every time he had a hand on me, I reacted that way.
Was it dragon magic? The times he’d kissed me, it had felt like my mind was being melted from the inside, reducing inhibitions and creating unbelievable desire out of nowhere. Could it be that he was enchanting me? I didn’t know everything they could do. After all, I’djustdiscovered they were real. How much else was there to dragons?
“Mia? Everything all right?”
I nodded, pulling my hand from his. The feeling faded, albeit slowly, until I looked up and met his eyes. In his gaze, I saw the unbridled lust that had been building inside me.
Was he feeling it, too? Could I possibly have that effect on him? It didn’t seem possible, he was, well,him, and I was me. His six-pack and thick biceps, chiseled chest and perfectly cut jaw were amazing specimens of male sexuality. I, meanwhile, was short and thick. The complete antithesis.
Yet the way his pupils drank me in as he stared back seemed to belay that truth. As if I had somehow understood it wrong all along. He wasn’t faking it. There was nothing to fake anymore. Nothing had been said or intimated for him to begin faking it. It was justhim.
