A Shade of Dragon 2(13)

Lethe eagerly and totally misinterpreted my touch, hurrying to remove his tunic from his chest. I might have pleaded with him to stop and explained myself, but Lethe removing his shirt while distracted by our kisses was the exact thing that I needed in order to claim the lost shard of the magical mirror.

So I slid my fingers into his hair and allowed my tongue to enter the fray between us.

Lethe stripped the tunic from his shoulders and let it puddle on the floor. His now bared arms came up to lock around me, and he murmured satisfaction, burying his hands in my singed dress and hoisting me into the air, pinning me between the fireplace wall and his frigid yet sweating body.

He moved much faster than Theon ever had; I could only assume he was significantly more experienced, or more desperate, in the bedroom. His mouth migrated from mine, trailing deep, wet kisses along the curvature of my throat, where he fastened with a pleasant suction. For a fleeting second, I forgot what I was doing.

Shoot! The pendant necklace had become tangled around my fingers. My eyes bulged open again and I moved to unclasp the delicate silver latch at the nape of his neck. He was hard-pressed to notice how my eyes were open and my fingers were committing espionage. In fact, his hands were dangerously close to breaching the second base.

But I was so close to getting the necklace, and he was hardly paying any mind to the world around us. Lethe was wound around me like an attention-starved vampire.

Just as the pendant’s chain unsnapped and disappeared into the bundled gathers of my skirt, Lethe’s fingers tore through the loosened laces of my dress and I yelped with surprise.

“Um, Lethe—!”

At this, he yanked his face from where it was buried in my throat; two bright spots of blush stood out on his cheeks, and the roots of his hair shimmered with beads of sweat. “What?” I felt suddenly cold. For me, this had been staged—but what about for him? “What’s the matter?”

“I just feel as if we’re moving awfully fast. On Earth, we usually—well—” It was a total lie that people on Earth waited. But he wouldn’t know that. “On Earth, we have to wait—until marriage,” I lied, rather smug with the deception. After all, he had no way of knowing whether or not I subscribed to the increasingly archaic practice of chastity.

Lethe lowered me back to the ground, petticoats still bunched between us at the waist. His chest was surprisingly toned for a man who, at first glance, was so much narrower than Theon. His musculature was deceptive. “I see.” His eyes, still so deep and dark, like the waters of a warm lake, were beginning to form their ice crystals again. All he needed was an instant of doubt, a breath of space between himself and his desires, and he would wall up. “But my father would never allow for the marriage of an ice dragon to a human female—particularly the marriage of the ice prince himself.”

I made a show of disappointment for him, and clutched my petticoats close as I stepped away. The pendant was caught somewhere in their gathers, and it would not do to let the pendant clatter to the ground right in front of Lethe.

“Then, Lethe, since there can be no future together, I guess we should stop.”

Lethe cleared his throat and nodded, scooping the tunic back into his hands and shrugging it on over his head. For a moment, with my petticoats clutched against my thighs and my hair all crazy and his own complexion stark with sweat, we stared at each other like the survivors of some catastrophe.

“I will have a word with my father,” Lethe informed me, his tone suddenly cold, and then he strode from the chambers. The door clapped shut behind him, and this time, I didn’t hear the turn of any key in any lock.

He had left me alone—alone, to shake out the layers of my dress and search the floor for the shard of Theon’s fallen crystal.





Nell





It was only a matter of minutes before the glimmer on the floor of the hearth made itself known to me, and I scooped up the flat shard of crystal to find that Theon was already there, gazing back at me. The crystal had been activated already—but when?

Oh God, had he witnessed me kissing Lethe?

Peering into the crystal, wishing my hair wasn’t so mussed and my cheeks not as full of blush as they were at the moment, I deduced that Theon was in some kind of dim shop, its wall lined with small drums and funnily-shaped guitars. Behind him stood Michelle, which I tried to ignore—even though she herself looked rather mussed at the moment. Distant firelight fell across their faces.

Well, he couldn’t hear me. I’d realized that by now. So my only option was crude sign language… crude, and quick. I could only assume—and hope—that Lethe had gone to speak with his father on the possibility of wedding an Earth woman; I didn’t want to be too full of myself, but the context certainly indicated as much. I could also only assume—and hope—that such a conversation would be a long one.