Max was exhausted and stumbling. The large use of his magic and the need for it to continue to be drained from him was not all that was wearing him down though. Heather had made it very clear that she did not want him. That she wanted to go home. That she was not happy there and that she would follow her best friend long before she would stay at his side.

Not that he could blame her. In her time, they may have known each other for what would have been weeks. In his time, it was a matter of days. How could he expect her to give up everything that she had in her world, things that she clearly missed and wanted back, in order to stay with him when she had no idea of what kind of dragon or man he really was?

He had hoped to show her, but he knew there was a large misunderstanding between them over the situation with the Orcs. She had thought him distant and unkind, he had read that on her face, and he could not seem to break through that. When she had looked at him earlier, her face had been as remote and distant as one of the seven moons that arched their way over his lands.

He could not hope to know or own the moons. Nobody was given to know or own the moons. He also could not hope to know her, or to possess her. That was her choice, and her words had made it very clear what she had chosen.

Her world. Not his. He could not blame her for that; her world was alluring and so different from his. She had always lived within it, and she was part of that world. The humans who did come to this world, the one which he ruled, came knowing exactly what they were getting themselves into. They came seeking that world. They came willingly.

How he wanted to break that law: that law that could never be broken! How he wanted to push her against the wall, kiss her so deeply that he took her breath, and then ask her, just come right out and ask her, to stay with him. He wanted to ask her to be his life-mate and to remain there on his world with him.

He could not do that. He knew he could not do that.

Not only would he be breaking the law, but he would be putting himself at just as much risk as he had been in when he had fallen in love with that treacherous witch who had stolen first his senses and then made an actual grab for his literal heart.

Heather was no witch. He had examined her body so closely, looking for a mark or sign, and he had drunk deeply from her mouth and let his magic pour over her to see if he met any within her. All things he should’ve done back when he had been young and foolish and convinced that a human woman would come through that portal and give to him the love that his mother had given to us father. He had not done those things because he had trusted Leria: had been foolish enough and arrogant enough to trust her

It rankled him, way down into his soul, that he had not trusted Heather. The top part of his head had shied away from what he was doing, but in his soul had been a soft whisper, echoing out all the memories of how badly he had been hurt. How close he had come to actual death at Leria’s hands.

He looked over as the last of the humans who resided in the village came struggling through the gates. All of them wore exhausted and frightened expressions, and all of them were looking at him, to him, for guidance and strength. He was deliberately keeping his face impassive even though he was so tired he could barely stand anymore. All of the dragons were out, many of them standing sentinel up on the walls, and the rest helping to guide the humans to the long series of outbuildings and to the castle that would shelter them in case of an Orc attack.

Max knew that that attack was very likely. Maybe not that day, but it was coming. He would have to do battle, and when he did, he could not afford to be distracted by Heather and all the emotions and want he had for her. The only good thing that he could see about the entire situation was that the Orcs had no idea that the village had been emptied. He would not be able to keep the illusion any longer than the impending dawn. That didn’t matter. It would be long enough. If the Orcs were watching from afar, they would assume all was well.

If they were a scouting party, they would go back to their troops and announce that the village was ripe for picking and slumbering peacefully like a baby. By the time troops arrived to take it, it would be too late for them to take anything. That was all that mattered.

Or was it?

Heather was gently guiding the last few villagers toward what would become their temporary homes. He watched her, one hand coming up to his face. She was kinder than she knew. She was also stronger than she knew. She had the makings of a queen, he just knew it.

When all the villagers were settled in, he saw Blake go to Christy and say something to her. She lifted up both of the middle fingers on both of her hands and pushed them right into Blake’s face and then turned around and stomped off. Max didn’t know what that gesture meant, but he had a really good feeling that she wasn’t agreeing to have Blake’s child.

He found himself face to face with Heather again. His eyes searched her face and saw the exhaustion upon it. He said, “You’re tired.”

Dawn had begun to break over the horizon. It’s pearly and rosy fingers streaked across the darkness, making the few stars still shining up there look brighter by comparison. She lifted a hand to her hair and patted a few disarrayed strands back into place. “So, do you. You should get some sleep.”

He said, “I was going to say the same thing to you.”

She turned to look toward the door that Christy had disappeared through. “Yeah, I should. Are you going in now?”

He looked up at the dawn. He could feel his magic coiling up, draining away and ebbing. He nodded wearily. “I am. I’m pretty much dead on my feet.”

He staggered a little as the words came from his mouth. Her arm instantly went around his waist, and he felt her body press into his in a gesture of support that touched him so much that he could feel a burst of something he had never known before strike across the inner surfaces of his soul and heart.

She said, “I can help you inside, if you like.”

He wanted to protest. Just that gentle and innocent touch, just that supporting shoulder and arm, was giving him all sorts of ideas, and none of them involved him sleeping. He wanted to draw away, to remove himself from that touch and from her presence but he just couldn’t. He would lose her, and far too soon. All he had was that moment. If she was willing to give him part of her time there, then he wanted it. No matter how little it was.

He wanted it.

They reached the upper floors a few minutes later, and she guided them towards his room. He really was tired now, and he knew he should protest her entering his bedchamber with him, but he just couldn’t. He wanted her. Despite his exhaustion, despite his worry about the Orcs and what they were up to, he wanted her.

She looked up at him, a question in her eyes. It was a question that there was only one way to answer. His mouth came down on hers. Their bodies fused together, and his arms went around her. The feel of her against him was so right, so perfect. It was as if she had been made for him. As if her body had been carved from flesh to fit right against his. He knew that was foolish; they were not meant to be together. They could not be together. She was a human and he was a dragon, and she had not asked to stay. He could not ask her to stay.

Her lips came brushing across his in what he knew was probably supposed to be just a gentle and soft goodnight kiss, but the moment that she kissed him, his hands ran up along her arms and then glided over her neck to capture her hair and bring her face even closer.

Her lips bumped against his teeth and then parted for his tongue. He gently stroked her tongue with his before exploring her mouth in a long and leisurely motion that made his heart hike upward in its pace and speed. Her body slumped against his, and as her breasts flattened against his chest, his heartbeat kicked up yet another few notches.

Everything moved in the soft and slow motion. The feel of her clothing beneath his fingers, the supple texture of her satiny skin against his fingertips, the silky feel of her hair tangled into his fists and her tongue in his mouth as they kissed longer and harder than they had ever kissed before, all combined to create in him desire so strong that there was no turning away from it.

All he wanted was her. He wanted to touch her, and he wanted to taste her. He wanted to feel her oils across his lips and in his throat. He wanted the feel of her nipples in his mouth. He wanted to feel her slick depths gripping his rod as she gasped from the pleasure that he gave her.

Then they were on the bed, and he indeed tasted her. Her oils spread across his lips and then into his throat and he reveled in the unique and enticing flavor that was hers and hers alone. Heather: that’s what his heart and mind cried out to him as his fingers slid inside her willing inner walls. Her folds pulsed open and closed around him as his tongue massaged the high-standing flesh of her and his member gave off a thick pulsing throb that left a small streak of his juices on the bed sheet below it.

Her cries got longer and louder as his fingers moved faster within her walls, opening them for the thick rod he wanted so desperately to bury within her body.

She cried out again, her hips lifting and lowering and her fingers yanking painfully at his hair as her hips ground into his face, and her walls clenched faster around his fingers. She began to jerk under his tongue. Her fluids rushed from her body, coating his entire chin and mouth. He slowly pulled his head up, and his fingers out of her wet and sopping crotch, and then his hand caught at his member, guiding it to that wetness.

His hips pistoned forward and then he was inside her. Her legs wrapped around his waist and his hands flattened against the mattress as he strained above her, his flesh parting hers and taking him over the edge and into a shuddering orgasm that left the point of his chin digging into her shoulder and his body limp on top of hers.

Silence spun out between them. He rested there, taking his weight off her body enough not to hurt her but close enough that he could enjoy the warmth and soft surfaces of her skin.

He could smell her fragrance on his fingers, in his nostrils. He knew this was the last time. The portal would open soon enough, and because he had so much to do before it did, a castle to guard and missions to fly, he knew he would not get to lie with her like that again.

He could not do that. He might be breaking the law just by doing so, attempting to use something as biased and fleeting as human passion to force her to stay when it had to be her choice, and she had to have a better reason for it than that.

She spoke. “I should go. Christy needs me.”

He needed her. He could not say that to her though, so he just said nothing at all as she dressed and left the room, leaving him in silent misery.