He was looking at her with a kind of awe. His amber eyes were scanning her face like he was memorizing it. She wasn’t sure what he was looking for—did he think she was making this up? That she didn’t really care about this?
“It’s very clear to me, Arabella Sharp, what kind of woman you are.” He seemed to be holding his breath.
What the hell did that mean? “Women aren’t toys, Lucian. They aren’t playthings for you to use and toss away.”
“No, they’re not.” But he was shutting down, getting quiet. And of course, he had basically kidnapped her and was holding her hostage until he got what he wanted—a mate. Maybe she was making him feel guilty about that. Good.
“If you believe that, why not just let me go?” she asked quietly.
He was staring at his hand, the one that had fallen to rest on his thigh next to her on the bed. A strange marking was on the back of it, and it moved as she watched. Almost like it was pulsing under his skin. She didn’t know what it was, but it reminded her of all this magic she never knew existed, not really. And how she probably didn’t understand a fraction of it even now.
After a long moment, he looked up at her. “You’re right, I should probably let you go.”
She held her breath— would it be that easy? “Why don’t you?”
A flash of pain crossed his face. “If it were entirely up to me…” He was searching her face again. Then he lifted his hand, and suddenly he was touching her, stroking her cheek. She felt the rush of blood to her face and had to actively stop herself from leaning into his touch. What was he doing? And why? He dropped his hand. “You’re a good person, Arabella. I’m glad I stepped in and saved you in that alley. I won’t apologize for that. The world needs more people like you. But I am sorry that you were caught up in this magical world of which you have no real part. You’re the kind of person I’m supposed to protect, not draw deeper into my own personal problems.”
She’d been holding her breath the entire time, during that whole breathtaking moment of openness, but then he pulled back and put distance between them again, dropping his gaze to the tablet that had fallen, unused, on her lap.
“But the fact remains,” he continued, quietly, “that I can’t let you go without some assurance that you won’t tell the human world of our existence. Especially now that you know, at least approximately, the location of our House.”
She had already promised she wouldn’t tell. And, truth be told, helping him find a mate was a pretty small thing for her to do in repayment for him saving her life. And, as a lawyer, she could see how, once she was complicit in bringing another human to a dragon’s lair, into their magical world, it would be hard to argue that she was a victim in all of this. She was helping him. Maybe it was coercion; maybe not. Maybe there was a part of her that wanted to do this for him. Maybe it was the part that didn’t like to have unpaid debts she owed to people.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Too many times, she’d been manipulated by someone—by a man—into believing she owed him. Sex. Money. Support of some kind. That she deserved whatever he dished out if she didn’t give him what he wanted. She wasn’t that person anymore. She wasn’t.
She opened her eyes. Lucian was refusing to look at her, just scowling, darker and darker, at the tablet. He wasn’t that kind of man, in spite of the strange situation they found themselves in—she was convinced of that. She had been tucked away in his mountain mansion for the night, vulnerable to him for hours and hours. He was impossibly strong, far more than any normal man. He could have tried any number of things. He hadn’t. And there was a deep well of something… sadness… that lay just under the power he exuded whenever he walked or spoke or flew on golden dragon wings outside his lair.
She dipped her head, trying to get his attention again. “Tell me more about this mating process.”
He flinched but didn’t look up. “Like I said, there are some complications.”
“Tell me.”
He pulled in a breath and slowly raised his head. “There’s the sealing—a magical dragon flame that binds the female to the male. It makes her body immortal like his. Quasi-immortal, at least. Very long lived. They’re bound together. If he dies, she dies.”
Male. Female. He was using very distant language, but the pain in his pale amber eyes was viscerally close.
“That’s pretty damn intense.”
“Yes, it is. But it’s a necessary part of the sealing, in order for the bond to take. And this is why I need a female who will love me—a true love, no less. Because only through a True Love will the bond take hold. Only then will the sealing be fixed. And the sealing must take—she must be made immortal—for her body to endure the birthing of an immortal dragon.”