Page 29 of Dragon Fires Everywhere
I could ask him about it. I know he feels it too. But I don’t want that.
It’s like I know that if I do, there will be no going back.
Not that I want togo back.But I don’t know that I’m ready to give up the option, either.
Today, however, we have Small Business Saturday to help with. I pick up some amazonite I got in Australia and put on my braceletmade of blue lace agate that I may have once told spell-dim Emerson was my version of a wristwatch. We made our own fun inthose dark days. Today the stones are for communication and patience, which I’m going to need in spades. And not just fordemanding shop customers.
When I make it to the kitchen, Azrael is the only inhabitant, but a large breakfast spread has been left behind. Though Ithink, based on the amount of plates and food in front of him, that Azrael has made quite the dent.
I grab my own plate. There are indeed cinnamon rolls, so I take two and some coffee and sit down at the kitchen table.Acrossfrom Azrael, rather than next to him. I think this will offer a better mode of communication.
What are we communicating?
I frown at him. He shouldn’t be all up in my thoughts like this. Another boundary we will need to discuss.Tonight, I think firmly. Tonight I will figure out how to handle this. Him.
Me, something in me whispers.
“I’m going to Ellowyn’s shop this morning to help out,” I tell him. Firmly. “Tea & No Sympathy gets more traffic in the mornings,and always does a booming business this weekend. Then Rebekah will take my place, and I’ll head over to Confluence Books tohelp Emerson.”
He eyes the last cinnamon roll on the platter. “I can’t wait.”
“Azrael, you have to stay put.”
But he takes his time eating the cinnamon roll, clearlyreveling in it, and though I have always loved a cinnamon roll myself, his enjoyment is almost—
I shake that off. And have to blow out a breath to settle myself.
“I thought the entire point of the spell last night was so that I did not have to stay put,” he says.
“We don’t know if it worked.”
He regards me with steady onyx eyes, the gold threads gleaming. “Yes, we do.”
I look down at my plate. “Look. I’m not saying you have to stay hidden in the house forever, but I think it’s best if you’recareful. You... you need some better understanding of how the witch world works before you go dragon-stomping through it.”
“I am part of your coven, Georgina. I am part of your life.” That seems to sound inside me, deep. Maybe it rings in both ofus, this breathless inevitability that I have wanted my whole life—but notright now. Maybe that’s why he softens. “I was part of the witching world long before you. Perhaps you do not understand since thememory of magical creatures has been wiped away, but it is rude to treat us like something to hide.”
I look at him, feeling somehow both contriteandoffended. “You know perfectly well that I’m beingsafe, not rude.”
“I know nothing of the kind. Besides, if the ruse is I’m a human who followed you home from England in a desperate love stupor,shouldn’t people start seeing us together?”
Then he smiles at me.
And in that smile, I know I’m toast. There’s no way to argue with it. Not when it dances andshimmersinside of me the way it does, and I could feign ignorance...
But it’s real. This is happening. He iswaiting.I amresisting.
It feels like a dance, and one I know the steps to, though I shouldn’t.
“Want to dance?” he asks me now, his voice a temptation and fire in his eyes.
I do. Oh, how I do.
But instead,not dancingis how I leave Wilde House with a dragon in tow. We walk to Tea & No Sympathy down the length of Main Street, which is bustlingtoday. It snowed early this morning, just enough to give everything a festive dusting that makes St. Cyprian look like a snowglobe. I catch glimpses of the gleaming winter river through the alleyways that lead from town to the riverbank. Every timeI see the glimmer of the water, I slow.
It feels like it’s trying to tell me something in a whisper, in a song. Impart some wisdom. But if so, it’s just out of reach.
I want to reach for it. I can feel a longing in me—
