Page 751 of Love Bites

MATING FRENZY

Math lay on the wide bed in the penthouse suite, his arms stretched out from his sides, panting.

The ceiling spun every time he opened his eyes. His heartbeat roared in his ears and cramped in his chest.

Fire was consuming his flesh and bones.

When he managed to raise his head and look at his chest and flat stomach, his white dress shirt, dark slacks, and skin were miraculously intact.

And so the searing pain would continue.

If the fated mate wasn’t present, the mating frenzyhurt.

One more damn thing he hadn’t known about dragon biology.

And on the other side of this pain lay senescence, a thirty-year pit of despair and suffering.

But for now, he was burning himself alive from the inside, out.

His skin must be sloughing off in the fire of his soul.

If he could release the fire, breathe it out, the burning might stop.

But he didn’t. Math swallowed the fire rather than kill everyone in the hotel by arson.

And so the fire burned him alive from within.

The mating frenzy cascaded through his muscles and bones, hollowing him like a burning tree.

Agonizing seconds lasted hours.

His dragon writhed within his soul, trying to escape the pain, becoming a mindless, desperate beast.

His skin felt like it was searing and curling, but he wasn’t sweating. His body was tinder-dry and burning.

Flames leaked from the corners of his mouth and trickled down his neck, but he could hardly feel them.

The mattress must be on fire. The hotel must be burning down around him.

This self-immolation would surely lead to his death.

He prayed to the Dragon Lords to die.

The door of his suite opened.

Bethany’s smooth alto voice called, “Math? Are you in here?”

His dragon roared in his head, trying to climb over him and out of his body.

Math struggled to sit up and managed to roll to one elbow.“No.”

“Math? Is that you?”

His voice rasped in his throat. “Bethany, you can’t come in here.”

She stood in the doorway to his bedroom, holding a plastic square in her fingers. “I used the master keycard you gave me.”

“Don’t come any closer,” he begged her, fighting down his dragon that longed to throw fire at the world.

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