“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. You deserved to be happy.”
“But that’s the thing,” she said. “I didn’t know what fate had in store for me. If I hadn’t run from Bernard, if I hadn’t decided to not accept that life, I wouldn’t be here now. I wouldn’t have stumbled upon happiness.”
“I see,” he said, listening patiently as they walked to the bedroom.
“I wouldn’t have met you. I wouldn’t have met Sever and Robbie and Citrine. I wouldn’t have found a home. I had so many other homes not work out. I’m glad I didn’t give up. I’m glad I kept going, kept looking for something else.”
He nodded. “Me, too.”
“I’m glad I broke into Date-A-Dragon.”
He grinned. “It’s a very good thing you did. Because I wasn’t living either.” He sat on the edge of her bed and looked toward the window. “I was always watching out, thinking of different horizons, wishing I could be in my old world that I left behind. You see, me and the others were lured into a trap and caught in an avalanche. But being frozen doesn’t kill dragons; it merely puts us to sleep. So I was awakened and lost in this new world.” He grinned. “In my world, I was at the top of the food chain, literally and figuratively.”
That explained his somewhat snobby demeanor at times, but he’d gotten so much better since he’d known her.
“In a way, you were the perfect person to be sent to me,” he said. “Just like I like to think I was perfect for you. I needed you to show me that someone could keep fighting no matter what situation they were put in, that they could still have hope. And I needed to show you that hope could be rewarded and share with you all the resources that I have taken for granted. And in the meantime, come to appreciate everything I have.”
She cocked her head. “I hadn’t thought of it like that before. I just knew it felt right.”
“Because you’re so faithful,” he said. “The angel and the cynic. It works.”
“How?”
“Because I can protect you, and you can make sure I never grow too hard.”
She sighed, putting a hand over his. “I can do that.” She looked down. “We’re getting dust all over these lovely covers.”
He shrugged. “We can buy more. Dante can produce gold at will and will give me as much as we want. Silver was more valuable in my day than it is now, but Dante can literally produce it. We can live in a mansion, buy an island.”
She blinked rapidly. “What?”
“I know,” he said. “It’s a lot to take in. Right now, let me just take care of you.” Then he picked her up again, and she let out a little squeak of surprise.
“Where are we going?”
“The shower, like you suggested,” he said. “I want to wash all the evidence of what just happened away from you. Touch and hold you and make sure you’re okay. Then I want to make sure you’re mine.”
She smiled. “I think I’m okay with that.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “More than okay.”
She kissed his cheek, and he smiled. “How did any dragon get so lucky?”
“I told you already,” she said. “Luck has nothing to do with it. Fate, on the other hand…”
“All right,” he said. “Well, let’s go make fate happen.”
She couldn’t agree more.
Twenty-One
Adrien watched his mate’s beautiful eyes close as he washed her hair, letting water stream over, washing the bubbles away as he tried to keep the water away from her face.
She was so beautiful, and the way she tilted her head back and let the water stream down just exemplified everything she was as a person.
She faced everything head on. She accepted things even when they were unbelievable or hard to understand. She faced life and kept marching forward, while he’d been stuck, longing for the past for so long.
How they had come together, her marching to the future, him yearning for the past, he didn’t know. But it was perfect.
They could make a new future together, either alone or with new and old friends.
He could slowly talk more about being a dragon, and he knew she would accept that as well. Even before she’d taken the ring off, he’d seen the acceptance in her eyes.
He didn’t know if anyone had ever looked at him like that, like she understood everything about him and was okay with all of it.
He ran his hands over her waist, smooth with silky soap, and then over her breasts, and she gasped, opening her eyes, little droplets of water on her spiky lashes as she looked up at him. She ran her hands over her face and neck, pushing the water back, and gave him a smile.