Page 61 of Dragon Fires Everywhere
I look down at him, and I know.
This is ancient, this power we have over each other. For each other.
This is forever, this passion without borders or bounds, beyond life and death.
I am his. He is mine.
His gaze is gold and black and fire straight through.
It’shim.
He ismine.
We have always been this. Us.Fate.
It takes me a long, hot little struggle—even though I am something far more than merelyready—to take all of him deep inside me. To breathe until I can move, then lose myself in the slide and catch and the sheer perfectionof the magic we make together.
Over and over and over again.
Until we can do nothing but breathe into each other, wrung out and still perfect, andus.Here in my bed, like we have always belonged here.
Azrael pulls me close, tucks me against his body, my head in the crook of his arm.
I hear him growl against my neck.“My own.”
But as my breathing steadies, I’m forced to realize that as wonderful as that was—too spectacular to believe, in fact—it reallydidn’tsolveanything.
I feel so much joy andwholenessthat this sadness shouldn’t still be sitting there in the pit of my stomach. It should have been wiped away. At least fora little while.
Azrael presses a kiss to my temple. “Go on, then. Let it out. You’ll feel better.”
So I cry.
And I let my dragon comfort me, as he did when he was my sleepwalking daydream.
The way I want to believe he always has.
15
I wake up in my bed. Alone.
Well. Not entirely alone. Octavius is curled up at my feet. His eyes are open, and he is studying me with a certain kind ofknowing I do not wish to parse.
It’s a relief not to have to have a conversation with anyone just yet. I need some time alone to sort through... everything.In the light of day. In the comfort of my own thoughts.
You’re welcome.
So much for my own thoughts.
But I smile in spite of myself. Azrael’s nearby, but also giving me what I need. Because I may not understand the exacthowsyet, but I understandthis.
Our souls belong together.
I don’twantto believe it, in the light. I just do.
I stretch. I don’t feel called to commune with my crystals, not just yet. So I simply move over to the window seat and curlup there. I look out at the pearly light of another cold morning. It’s early yet, and unusual for me to be up without an alarm,but I suppose that makes sense too.
After all, a lot of things happened last night.
