Page 18 of Dragon Fires Everywhere
But I move back because everything in his gold-and-onyx eyes is too much, too confronting. Too muchrecognition, when this morning Iknewthat dragons weren’t real.
Trouble is, there’s nowhere to go.
I run into the wall. I’m trapped unless I want to magic myself away, and that seems a bit risky with my heart trembling insidemy chest.
And when the only thing in my head, in my heart, in every part of my body, is him.
He leans forward, so close I can feel the dragon heat of him, the way I did out there beneath the moon. Not just the heatin me, but the heat he gives off, like a furnace.
Deep inside, underneath all my layers of body and magic, something in me relaxes, as if it’s finally found a soft place toland.
Home, I think again.
His eyes glitter. “You are brave, Georgina Pendell, though you try to hide it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I tell him. “I’m a Historian.”
Not brave. Notspecial, Hecate forbid. Just... smart and organized and careful.
The way a Historian is supposed to be. Just ask my entire family tree.
“Careful,” he sniffs, apparently reading my mind. Again. Which is a thought I can’t quite take on board in the middle of thismoment. When he moves away from me, I tell myself I’m relieved. “You would do well to accept yourself, Georgina. Denying whoyou really are gets us nowhere.”
Us.
I’m standing there with my back pressed up against the wall,and he’s prowling through my room. I think maybe he’s going to leave, and I’m wondering which room in this house he’d consider an appropriate place for an ancient mythic dragon to sleep now that he’s real—
But then, in an elegant move that makes my mouth go dry, Azrael stretches out on my bed instead.
Onmybed.
He links his fingers behind his head, closes his eyes, and lets out one long sigh. Like he’s... going to sleep.
Like he’salreadyhalfway there.
Like he... expects me to crawl right up next to him and snuggle in like he’s my cat familiar and not...him?
“That’s mybed,” I say incredulously.
But I’m quite certain he’s already happily asleep. And even if he wasn’t, he doesn’t care one bit.
7
Later, tucked into one of the guest bedrooms a floor down, I don’t think about how long I stood there, just staring at Azraelin my bed. I don’t think about that scalding heat or that wildfire recognition that is still wreaking havoc on me.
Just like that pulse keeps kicking at me, like it’s whispering,Us. Us. Us.
I don’t think about soaring through the sky or that odd, shivery sensation that suggests none of this isnew.Not really.
I tell myself that I’m being brave. Because it was rational and reasonable andrightto remove myself from the situation. I was exercising the Pendell caution my mother has spent my life trying to instill inme.
I repeat that to myself until it almost drowns out that ache inside me, those little gleaming threads that I pretend I can’tsee, reaching out toward a conclusion I don’t want to draw while I can still feel us gliding through the cold night like wemake our own heat—
That’s all future Georgie’s problem, I tell myself as I let my eyes close on the longest Thanksgiving I can remember.
I quickly fall into a hard and dreamless sleep. When I wake up to morning light pouring in through the windows, I push myself into sitting position. I stretch and yawn, and then stop mid-stretch.
Because crystals dance in the air above me.Mycrystals.
