I parked in front of the bushes across the street from the house and looked Zav over, wondering where he’d been hurt. In the past, injuries he’d received in his dragon form had shown up on his human body.
Perhaps guessing at my silent question, he pulled up the hem of his robe, this time all the way to his hip. “He got in a lucky blow to my flank that was very deep.”
The light of the dash revealed three deep gouges—talon marks—on the outside of his thigh.
“Ouch. I’m sorry.” I was glad I hadn’t inadvertently touched that spot when I’d tugged his hem down. It had to hurt. A lot.
“It will heal,” Zav said, as if it were a hangnail. He pushed the hem back down. “I am a powerful warrior.”
He gazed at me. Was he trying to impress me by giving me this information and showing off his war wound? Well, he’d helped me enough times that I knew he was badass, so I didn’t bother attempting to deflate his ego. It wasn’t as if it would work.
“I never doubted that.” I met his gaze, thoughts of that molten kiss flashing into my mind, and looked away.
The last thing I wanted was to prompt his sister to show up and start yammering in his mind about how my elven cousin had attacked her.
“Let’s go see Zoltan.” I reached for the door handle.
“Val.” Zav rested a hand on my other arm. Even though my duster covered my skin, a little zing danced along my nerves. Damn dragon magic. “First, I must explain something.”
“You’ve already covered your magnificence and battle prowess.”
“That is not it.” He lifted his hand but held me in place with his gaze. “I wish to explain my actions the other night.”
“You don’t have to explain anything. We’re…” I turned my palm up, not sure of the word I wanted. Dating? Flirting? Hot for each other? We hadn’t admitted to any of that. The other night after dinner had been the first time he’d actually said he wanted me. Before that, he’d been assuring me he didn’t. Though I’d been close enough to him a couple of times to know that at least his human parts were interested in me.
Zav raised his eyebrows, maybe as curious as I was about how I would define us.
“Allies,” I finished.
“Do human allies frequently engage in precoital acts in public?” He didn’t point out that the precoital acts had been well on their way to becoming coital when his sister had shown up.
“I believe the definition of the word involves people cooperating with or assisting each other to achieve a particular outcome. Sex isn’t explicitly excluded. The word is nicely vague.”
He snorted softly. “Very well. But I wish to explain that dragons experience strong feelings when they are hunting and eating. We are predators, after all.”
“Your sister said feeding you gets you horny.”
He blinked. “I wouldn’t put it exactly like that, but… it can cause something of a euphoric state. When a male and female feed together, mating often happens after that. It can also lower one’s inhibitions. Similar to the way alcohol acts in the systems of your species.”
“So when you said you’d been into me since the water-treatment plant, that wasn’t true?”
“It is true. I had not intended to say it. Or to act on it.”
“Because you don’t trust me.”
“Because my past has made me wary, yes, and because I claimed you as a means to protect you, but I am realizing I may not have achieved that. It is true that you are no longer in danger of being brought before the Justice Court, but you may be a target for others because of the link between us.” Zav’s hand strayed to his thigh. Had his enemy brought me up during that fight? “Your life is now more dangerous because I am in it. I will do everything I can to protect you from dragons and all others, but you should never have been brought into our world.”
“I’m not going to disagree with that, but my life was already dangerous. It comes with the job I picked.”
“You can handle most of your enemies. Dragons are another matter.”
“I can’t deny that.”
“It would be for the best if we can figure out a way to cause all dragons to forget you exist and to forget your world exists, or at least lose all interest in visiting it.”
“Earth would be a safer place without dragons,” I admitted, but I didn’t like the implication that all dragons might include him. My life would be simpler and maybe safer if he were gone, but did I truly want that? He wasn’t an appropriate match for a relationship—my therapist agreed—but I would miss him if I never saw him again. “Does that mean you’re planning to leave and not come back once you’ve collected all your criminals?”
His gaze shifted toward the windshield, though the dark street was empty. “That would be the wisest course of action. Dobsaurin would never have come here if he hadn’t been looking for me. The others wouldn’t have come if we hadn’t killed him.”
“You didn’t kill him. Don’t blame yourself for that.”
“And my sister wouldn’t now be here harassing you if not for me.”
“Did she tell you about the mind-scouring?”
His gaze jerked back to my face, his eyes sharp. “She tried to steal your thoughts again?”
“I told her she could. She broke into my apartment and saw that poster of you, the one the dark elves stabbed the face of, and she was convinced I’d done it. I thought that if I let her see my memories and opened everything up, maybe she would realize I’m not your enemy.”
He radiated anger and displeasure, and I wasn’t sure he’d even heard my response. Even though I knew the anger was for his sister and not me, a shiver ran down my spine, and I grew more aware of the dangerous power coiled within him.
“She hurt you?” he asked harshly, his voice almost a growl. He lifted his hand to the side of my face, his thumb touching my lips, his fingers brushing my temple where Zondia had touched me.
“It’s fine, Zav.”
My heart was pounding. In part because I didn’t want to put a rift between him and his sister, and in part because I didn’t know what he would do. My body tightened in response to his touch. I longed to lean closer, but I was also wary. Nothing good had come of dragons touching my temple.
Was he just reassuring me? Or did he mean to do something to my mind?
“I said she could do it,” I repeated, my mouth dry.
“She will know my wrath, that she cannot defy me in this.”
“It really wasn’t a big deal. I know she’s looking out for you.”
A pleasant warmth flowed from his fingers, a magical caress that soothed my scalp like a good massage, then flowed downward through the rest of my body. What exactly he was doing, I didn’t know, but it invigorated as it soothed me, relaxing my nerves and my muscles, and the week’s tension seeped out of my body. I slumped forward, resting my forehead against his shoulder, basking in the healing magic like a cat in a sunbeam.
His fingers shifted into my hair, winding under my braid and rubbing my scalp. That stirred up new sensations that had less to do with healing and more with bedroom thoughts. I told myself to lean back and get out of the Jeep, even if crawling over into his lap sounded more appealing. He’d just given a very good reason why we shouldn’t be together. It was somewhat hypocritical of him to start touching me. But I didn’t pull away.
“When I am finished here on Earth,” Zav murmured, his lips not far from my ear, “there will be no reason for dragons to come back, nor for my kin to bother you.”
“No dragons to massage the back of my head and send magical tingles through my body,” I muttered into his shoulder.
“It is for the best.” He withdrew his fingers and leaned back, the magic slowly fading. “You will be safe and not used as a lever against me.”
The cold of disappointment came in where the warmth of his magic had been.
A sudden suspicion crept into me. “Did your mother talk to you about me while she was using you for politics?”
His lips twisted ruefully. “We did speak about you.”
“About how foolish it was for you to claim a mongrel?” I turned away from him and stared out the windshield. The last thing I’d wanted was for him to claim me, like some prize with no rights, but now that he was withdrawing, I resented that someone else might have caused it.
“She did call me foolish. For many reasons. But it was the encounters with my family’s enemies that made me realize my act was not entirely altruistic. I wanted to claim you.”
His gaze grew intent again as he studied my profile. I could see him out of the corner of my eye, but I kept looking straight ahead, afraid I would be drawn to him again if I met that gaze.
“I’d been thinking about it as a possible solution to the problem with the Justice Court since before Shaygorthian showed up,” Zav continued. “I wanted it to be a solution, so you would be mine, and I could take you whenever and wherever I wished.”
This hypothetical presumptuousness and stealing of my freedom should have affronted me, and I would have been furious if he’d ever tried to make this a reality without my consent, but these admissions, after the numerous times he’d told me he didn’t want me, got me hot instead of disgruntled.
Zav, who hated this vermin-infested planet and had reasons to hate anything even vaguely elven, wanted me. A mongrel who hadn’t a clue how to use her power.
He looked away from me. “When I am in my native form and not as affected by human sexual desires, my thoughts are clearer. I know you would not want to be my property, and even if you did, as I said, this link between us places you in harm’s way. When I have successfully captured all the criminals on my list, I will remove my magical mark and free you.”
I was supposed to feel relieved, not disappointed that I’d been cast aside, and I understood that he wanted to protect me. Still, my words came out bitter when I spoke. “Good. You’re right. Humans don’t like being other people’s property. In this country, when you get married, you’re equals.”