“Beautiful car. What year is it?”
His Dragon pulled against his skin toward her. Want.
He rubbed his shoulder. Submit. Not yours. “Fifty-seven. Saw it in the showroom and couldn’t resist.” He’d felt passion then, at least he thought he did. One decade ran into another, the fire for life ebbing with them.
“Did you buy it new?” She rubbed the bridge of her nose. “God, what a question. But you did, didn’t you?”
“Back when they made real cars. When Miami was much smaller, a tourist and retirement destination. When life was interesting.”
Waking up to find her in his arms had been mind-blowing. The fact that she’d been a willing captive was even more interesting because he was pretty sure she hadn’t woke the moment he had. In his dream, she was stroking his back. That’s how it had started, but he was a bit muddled on what was real and what was not. Did she normally have a man in bed with her to stroke? He doubted it, or she would have mentioned him by now. He thought of the young Dragon at the Yard who desired her. Ire prickled through him, which was ridiculous because he had no use for those kinds of feelings. Especially where Ruby was concerned.
Ruby who was not a girl. The red shirt molded her chest, and hell, he’d seen enough of her to know her curves were all woman. Had, in fact, felt those curves, or at least he had a vivid dream memory of squeezing one of those delectable breasts, feeling the peak stiffen. His fingers flexed at the thought.
Had she even noticed that she moved differently now that her Dragon was awake? That her hips swayed and confidence injected her with sensuality? He shouldn’t be noticing.
“Why isn’t life interesting anymore?” she asked.
He trained his gaze on the road ahead, always a good idea when driving in Miami. “When you’ve lived as long as I have, there isn’t anything else to do. I’ve fought, killed, nearly been killed. I’ve lost friends, lost the freedom to fly, to be Dragon. You get to a point where you don’t care about anything.”
“Even staying alive?”
He shrugged. “As long as I don’t die because some damned demon or Dragon got the best of me.” The upside to not caring was that he didn’t have to fear losing anything. Or anyone. The downside? Not caring about anything. Or anyone.
“Dragons can’t fly? We have wings.”
“It’s against the law now. In the 1700s, when I was born, Miami was largely unpopulated by Mundanes. It wasn’t until the 1870s that developers came in hordes. During the population booms, we only flew in the dark, soaring through the night skies with the glitter of stars and moonlight on our scales. With the development of satellites and radar, airplanes and cameras, we can’t take the chance anymore. Can you imagine those videos up on YouTube?”
Younger generations didn’t know the singular experience of soaring through the night sky, the wind tugging at their wings. A shame. Then again, it was probably worse to know a pleasure one could no longer experience.
Yes, much worse.
His gaze went to her mouth, and he remembered how it had felt on his. Another pleasure he could not have again.
She faced him, her head tilted as she studied him. “You care about flying. I heard something in your voice. Emotion, nostalgia, longing.”
“Your imagination.”
“Yeah, right. So what if Crescents did come out of the closet, so to speak? Rule Number One seems pretty severe to me. And very restrictive.”
“Before Miami was populated, the Crescents didn’t hide their powers. A group of settlers pretended to be our friends, but one night they ambushed Crescents in their own homes. They killed over a hundred of us before they were stopped.”
“That’s terrible.”
He only nodded, not letting himself go back to that dark, moonless night. “The Concilium has discussed it over the years, but ultimately the Rule has remained. People are afraid of what they don’t understand. Especially when it’s dangerous.”
“I guess they’d get pretty freaked out to learn that there are Dragons among us. I sure did.”
How far she’d come. “That call I took earlier was from my former boss. The man who ordered your family’s murder just contacted him, suspicious that the assassin did not complete the assignment. Somehow Mr. Smith”—his expression told her it was the anonymous kind of Smith—“has figured out that you’re Justin’s daughter, alive and well. Which confirms for me that he’s the one who sent that star orb. His target was Moncrief, but he could see you through the orb. The question is, why did he go after Moncrief to begin with?”