Page 4 of Dragon's Flame
Sarah grinned. “You’re welcome.”
3
TARIAN
When Tarian had been imprisoned with the Sirens beneath the ocean of his home, the only thing that had saved him was his dream of seeing Seris.
He’d replayed their eventual reunion a million different ways inside his mind: on a mountaintop, on the beach, in front of people, all alone—he’d turned his great intellect and his seemingly infinite time to the task.
It was the only thing that had kept him alive under the perpetual onslaught of the Sirens’ maddening magic and cruelty. Their songs had shredded his mind, their claws had torn at his skin, but he had clung to the image of Seris’s face, as lovely as the setting sun. The feel of her soft lips on his, the curve of her body nestling against him—thoughts of her had been his anchor in the dark.
But not a moment of his dreaming had prepared him for this reality now.
He had never once considered that she might reject him.
He stood beside his Jaguar, reeling, one hand braced on its hood. No part of him was able to comprehend what had just happened.
The girl in the orange long-sleeved shirt was Seris. He was sure of it, once her blonde friend had run away.
But she didn’t remember.
Not like he did.
He was the same person he’d been eight hundred years ago.
She was . . .not.
Who knew how many lifetimes she’d lived since then?
There had been no spark of recognition in her eyes when she’d seen him.
He hadn’t even been this upset at seeing her—not her, but some false magic-made version of her—in a coffin eight hundred years ago. He’d known then that she wasn’t truly in that cold stone box—if she had, the fragment of his soul he’d given her would have returned.
But thiswasher, and her rejection . . . broke him.
He heard the sound of an engine as a car slowly neared.
The driver rolled down their window and leaned slightly out. “Hey, are you going to give up that spot?”
Tarian looked at the driver, then back at the café where his mate was still inside.
“Never,” he growled.
The driver’s eyes widened, and he hastily rolled up his window before speeding off.
Tarian parked two businesses down,near a green dumpster, where a scrappy-looking dog was snuffling through spilled food containers. The air reeked of sour milk and rotting vegetables,but Tarian barely noticed as he paced back and forth, keeping an eye on the distant café door, his boots crunching on the gravel.
How was he going to make her understand?
What could he say or do to make her remember her past—and recommit to their shared future?
Every minute he was away from her now, having seen her and breathed in her undeniable scent, was intolerable. The faintest trace of orange blossoms still lingered in his mind, filling his chest with a painful ache.
He could show her his powers—but that was as likely to scare her as anything. His brother Rax had warned him this world was magic-less, and there were too many people around to consider. If the café hadn’t been so crowded, he might have just grabbed her hand anyway, desperate to make himself known.
Surely, if he touched her—skin on skin—it would summon some deep memory to the surface of her mind.
It had to.
