Chapter 22
Blaze tried to swallow back the dread. “What can I do?” she asked. “Can I help you look for the Seals? I have contacts—”
He smiled tiredly at her. “Sure,” he said. “That would help.”
She gazed at him. “But it’s not enough.”
He blew out a sigh. “It has to be. There’s a prophecy Tyr found buried among the Guardians’ archives, saying that in a time of great danger, the Seals will be found. We just have to keep believing it’s true—that if we don’t give up, we’ll find them in time.”
She tightened her hand around his. “I’ll help.”
He nodded, but she could still sense the disappointment in him. She wished with everything in her that her dragonfly had been the Seal.
She asked, “So… if you’re not Guardians, why are you doing this?”
He shrugged. “Someone has to.”
Despite his casual tone, she saw pain flicker across his face. There were still things he was keeping from her. “So, three months, huh?”
“Approximately.”
“That’s not much time.”
“No, it’s not,” he agreed. “We thought the Dragonfly of Morocco might be the Dragonfly Seal, and if it was, we needed it now. Thus the breaking and entering of your house.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Yeah. You said you weren’t sorry about that.”
“I’m not. If it meant that we could keep Vyrkos from busting out of Mount Hood and killing a couple million people, I’d commit bigger crimes than that.”
Blaze understood that. She’d trained with dark sorcerers, learned spells she hoped to never have to use. Anything to keep Silas from taking the idol back.
“And I’m not sorry for the other reason, too. Because the search brought me to you.” He ran his finger lightly up the inside her forearm. Her skin quivered at his touch. “The woman of my dreams.”
Blaze started losing her breath again. “The woman from your dreams,” she managed. “There’s a difference.”
“Not to me.” He ran his finger up her forearm again, watching her reaction. “Especially if you knew what I dreamed about.”
She did know what he dreamed about. She’d seen it in her mind when he kissed her. And it was hot.
“They were dreams,” she said breathlessly. “You don’t know anything about me.”
But that was a lie. She felt like they did know each other. The way his eyes seemed both familiar and strange, and the look of desire and longing in them did too. Like she’d seen that look so many times, and it still felt new every time, still could pull the breath from her lungs and make her pulse pound.
The way he felt dangerous, and yet safe. The way she yearned to relax in his warmth and let him hold and protect her.
“No?” he said. His voice was soft, his fingers warm as they stroked her arm. “I know how your eyes look when you’re happy, and the way they look when you’re sad. I know how your face lights up with joy when you smile from your heart.”
His fingers skimmed her face, the ghost of a touch. “Someday, I want to see that smile for real. I want to see the joy in your face.”
He touched her lips, gently. “I know the sound of your laughter, the touch of your hand, the warmth of your skin.”
He slid closer to her, and moved his hand slowly to the hollow of her right shoulder. “You have a beauty mark right… there.”
He touched it on the outside of her shirt, and still she shivered as if he were touching bare skin. Slowly, he slid the scoop neck of her t-shirt away, exposing her shoulder. He smiled when he saw the mole right where he’d said it would be, where he couldn’t possibly know it was.
He bent his head and kissed it. His lips were soft and warm and sent little flames across her collarbone and down into her belly.
Memories of a hundred more kisses tumbled through her mind, and her stomach fluttered. This was impossible. He couldn’t know her from his dreams.
But somehow he did.
“And you have another beauty mark… here.”
This time, the fingers of his left hand moved to her belly, a few inches above her left hip. He slid his fingers across the hem of her t-shirt, grazing the skin between it and the top of her low-slung jeans. Blaze closed her eyes, reveling in the heat of his touch, holding her breath, waiting for more.
He slid his fingers an inch higher, raising the hem of her shirt until her other mole was exposed.
He slid off the couch onto his knees and dipped his head, kissing that place softly as well. Blaze melted, her hands sliding across his shoulders to cradle the back of his head.
The touch of his lips was like a drug. Her whole body yearned for him, like a flower turning toward the sun. He continued to kiss her belly, lips feather-light, fingers skimming the top of her jeans.
Blaze heard herself make a soft sound of surrender. She’d been strong for so long; she’d been alone for so long. Holding everyone at arm’s length, not daring to get close to anyone.
She couldn’t trust anyone, and she couldn’t bring them into her realm of danger.
No one could understand what she was going through, what it meant to have a mission like hers.
No one, maybe, but this man. Like her, he’d dedicated himself to something that wasn’t really his fight. To doing what was right, even if it cost him everything.
And she hadn’t been able to help. Sadness swept through her, and she slid her fingers through his hair, stroking, pulling him closer.
She knew what it was like to feel lonely, and terrified, and helpless. And to keep fighting anyway.
Zane pulled her to him, so that he was kneeling and she was sitting on the couch, straddling his hips. He slid his hands under the hem of her t-shirt, raising it slightly, his eyes meeting hers, asking the question. She raised her hands to let him take it off her. His face relaxed into a smile, and he pulled it up and tossed it aside, the smile deepening when her hair cascaded down her back.
“I’ve always loved your hair,” he murmured into her ear, holding her against him and twining his fingers through it. “It’s even more beautiful than I dreamed.”
It was so strange, that he had memories she didn’t have. But somehow it made her trust him. It was as if her body remembered his touch, even if her mind didn’t.
His lips touched her collarbone, the hollow of her neck, the sensitive place under her ear. Then they found hers, and she opened to him, loving the way he tasted, the way he felt, the way his scent filled her until she wanted to crawl inside his skin.
He unhooked her bra and tossed that aside, giving a low growl of pleasure when her breasts fell free. He cupped them in his warm hands, kissing first one and then the other, over and over, like he couldn’t get enough. Her nipples were hard and sensitive, and heat pooled between her legs.
Somehow his shirt had disappeared without her touching it, and his chest was warm under her hands. He made tiny sexy pleasure noises when she ran her hands over his muscular shoulders, dropped one to his washboard abs.
He had narrowed his focus to one breast, licking and sucking, pulling gently on her nipple with his teeth as he palmed the other, skimming over the sensitive skin, teasing it gently.
Blaze arched back to let him play with her breasts. Zane snaked one arm around her and pulled her hips closer, her stomach against his taut abs, his hot, hard shaft straining through his jeans, tight against her core.
Oh, god. Blaze moaned, lost in the feel of him. His mouth still sucked at her nipple, stroking it with his tongue, rolling his hips in rhythm. She spread her legs further and rocked against him, gasping when his thick cock hit her in the perfect spot.
One of his hands had slid down the back of her jeans, inside her panties to her bare ass. He pulled her closer with a growl, capturing her lips again and rolling his hips, hitting her sweet spot over and over again.
Blaze felt like she’d caught fire. “I want to touch you,” she murmured, reaching for the front of his jeans. “I want you to touch me.”
A grin curved his lips, and his pants were just suddenly… gone.
Holy fuck. Best. Magic. Ever.
“Mine too,” she panted.
Her jeans and underwear melted away, and then his fingers were between her legs, stroking and teasing. Blaze couldn’t remember ever being so wet, so wanting.
His skin was like a heat lamp, stoking her inner flames. She leaned back, trusting him to support her, forgetting everything but the intense pleasure of his touch.
His finger circled her clit, light and teasing, before he moved down to her entrance and slid his fingers inside, then went back to her tease clit again. Blaze’s searching hand found Zane’s cock and wrapped around it, stroking, matching his rhythm, sliding her thumb over the head on each stroke, slick with his own wetness.
Zane groaned out loud.
“You are so beautiful,” he said. He kissed her lips, letting his teeth scrape over her lower lip before letting it go. “Look how beautiful you are.”
He pulled back to watch the two of them stroking each other, her thighs spread open to him, her head thrown back as her fingers dug into his shoulders. Every nerve was throbbing, coiling tight with tension, wanting, needing.
Blaze felt the wave of sensation building, hot and wild, and she felt like she would burst into flames and rise from the ashes like a phoenix, completely different than she’d been before. There was no stopping, no going back, nothing but sheer desire and the need to cradle him inside her, to take on part of his loneliness and burden and sadness.
“Now,” she whispered.
He moved his hands to her hips and slid inside her. He was huge, so hard, and yet he fit inside her as if they’d been made for each other. Blaze wrapped her legs around him, and he pulled back and thrust into her. Again and again, hitting her sweet spots perfectly, each thrust strong and pure and piling flame upon flame, light upon light, until Blaze felt like she was glowing.
Surrounding her, she heard a faint humming, like a harmonic chord. Something shifted inside her, matching the sound, creating a harmony that vibrated through her, through Zane, through everything in the room.
It built and built, until the sound shattered her like crystal, cracking open her soul and letting the light and sound pour in.
Blaze exploded like a supernova, light flaring out in all directions. Zane still filled her, still moving, faster and faster, climaxes rolling through her, taking her ever higher until all she could do was hold on let them take her away on a sea of bliss, never wanting to come back.
She felt Zane shudder and heard him cry out, and with one final thrust he gathered her to him and held her close, his head buried in the crook of her neck as he shuddered with release.
Blaze sat there, shattered, with nothing else she could do but hold on tight to Zane. He wrapped her in his arms, stroking her hair with one hand, cradling her gently with the other as if she were the most precious treasure in the room.
Afterwards Zane held Blaze to him, the dream love who he had given up believing he would ever find. Who he’d been afraid to find, because he wanted her far away from any Draken Lords.
But here she was. Somehow, they were connected. But how? Could she still be one of the Three, even though she didn’t know where the Seal was?
Through the aftermath of their loving, he felt a sudden intense darkness like a storm about to break. Then a voice thundered through the room.
WHO ARE YOU? I SENSE YOU. I FEEL YOU THERE. COME TO ME!
It was so loud it seemed to fill the air—and yet he felt like it was speaking in his mind. Every piece of art Blaze owned trembled with the force of it.
COME TO ME! SET ME FREE!
Then the door to the vault burst open, and dark fog billowed out.