Awareness came in flashes. Being carried up the stairs. Softness surrounding her. And his voice— Angus’s voice—had been there, even in the middle of restless dreams. It made a muffled murmur in her ear until the disquiet fell away and she drifted off.

Siobhan’s eyes snapped open. Someone had taken off the blue silk gown she was wearing—along with her bra and panties—and dressed her in a light, comfortable nightgown.

When she raised her head from the pillows, she wasn’t the least surprised to see Angus lounging on the sofa on the other side of the hearth with Sunny on his lap.

Dressed in black pants and a steel-gray shirt open at the throat, he wasn’t looking at her or her cat. His hair not as flawlessly combed as usual, he was staring out at the lights of the night-cloaked city, one of his legs raised and bent at the knee.

There was something starkly distant about him at that moment. “Angus?”

His attention jerked to her, a smile curving his lips. He wasn’t distant and unknowable any longer.

“So, my sleepy angel is awake.” He put Sunny on a pillow, stood and walked to the bed, climbing in and taking Siobhan in his arms. “Have a good rest? Are you feeling better?”

“I slept like the dead.”

“Or like a comatose Snow White, perhaps,” he countered with a chortle. “Dr. Singh stopped by, did a brief assessment, and told me sleep was the best remedy for you. I changed your clothes. And you snored all the way through it.”

“I don’t snore, Dragon.” She slapped his arm playfully and he pulled her tighter in his arms.

Angus cradled her while they listened to the crackling of the seasoned oak in the hearth, and watched sparks dance and rise. She relaxed in his lap, her head resting against his heartbeat.

No one had ever held her so close, so gently, for so long, just for the sake of holding her.

Creaks and settling noises came from the house’s bones as the night deepened.

“Why do old houses creak so much?” she asked idly, playing with his hair, braiding it and drawing the silky end across her cheek.

“When all the warmth fades at night, it makes the old boards contract and slip against each other.” He wrinkled his nose when she brushed the end of the braid over it.

“You were left to your own devices in this place for too long.”

“I had Kerr, Ewan, a bunch of employees—and sometimes my mother, when she was not with one of her lovers—to watch over it.”

“But there was no one to watch over you.”

A sense of uneasiness came over him, as it always did whenever he reflected on his childhood. It had seemed as if his very survival had depended on never complaining or drawing attention to himself as a person, because as the king of Lektenstaten he had heaps of attention on himself. “There were lots of employees, Kerr and—”

“You said that already, but what I didn’t understand before, was how alone you were.” It resonated deep inside her. “All little boys need to feel safe and wanted.”

Angus looked up at her and snorted “In a perfect world. And the world is not perfect.” His hand charted the shape of her hip and followed the line of her stomach and stopped there. “When we were in London, you told me that our worlds were very different—”

“Yes, they are.” But maybe not so much anymore…

“My world is much larger now than it was before. And you’re the most important person in it. You’re safe and wanted now, Siobhan. In time, you’ll become used to that, and you won’t worry.”

As she turned her face against his chest, he lowered his mouth to her ear. “We’re bound to each other,” he whispered, “for as long as the world exists. Remember that.”

Siobhan rubbed her cheek against his shirt. “We haven’t made our vows yet.”

“We did. Many times. Each time you were in bed with me. That’s what it meant.”

His fingers slid beneath her chin, coaxing her to look at him. Amusement deepened the faint whisks at the outer corners of his eyes. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but there’s no getting rid of me.”

Desperately she stared at the face above hers, all strong, stark angles and shadows, a striking framework for those compelling golden eyes.

Angus hid nothing, letting her see the tenderness that was reserved for her alone. She felt the overwhelming pull between them, like the force of gravity between twin stars.

Angus adjusted her higher on the pillows.

She was breathtaking and vibrantly alive.

“Angus?”

“Hmm?”

“Would you have really laid down your life to protect me if that bull had me cornered?”

“That wouldn’t have been necessary,”—arrogantly, he raised a black eyebrow—“since I smote the bovine down anyway.”

“You are right,” she laughed, “you smote it.”

He would die for her, a thousand deaths if he had to. And a strange pressure settled in his chest at the thought of his precious Siobhan being hit by the massive bull.

Shit. Get a grip, man. Toughen up for hell’s sake. Angus grunted in annoyance. “I’m a badass, remember? It insults my manhood you can even doubt me. Clearly, I will have to prove my virility to you at a later date to restore my reputation.”

She grinned. “You’re such a guy.”  

He gave her a faint smile and planted a playful kiss on her mouth. “Yeah, thank God for that.” She watched as his features softened and to her stunned surprise, slowly his face inched closer until he nuzzled her belly and turned his head to the side so his cheek was resting on her belly, as if she were his favorite pillow.

His eyes closed, and again he turned his head to nuzzle her.

“What are you doing?”

He pressed his warm cheek to her skin, a soft purr rumbled out of him, and he just stayed there.

“Angus?” Her voice quivered. “What are you doing?”

He lifted his chin and his eyes opened. There was something terrible and painful in their depths. Something that knotted her stomach and made her want to soothe some of the torment she sensed within him.

“I want my child safe and loved.”

“He, or she, will be both, there is no need to worry about that,” she assured him.

The flecks of bright gold dusting his dark-golden eyes beneath thick sooty lashes hinted at pleasures untold, laughter, and, yes, pain. She had seen it once or twice, but tonight it was there unveiled, clear in the golden depths. “Marry me, Siobhan.”

She wanted this man. She wanted more of him, his skin, his taste, his body inside hers. His love.

Wanted him with an unreasoning hunger that far surpassed even her desire for a loving mother, for a loving lost father.

Dizzy with everything that had happened—and what had not happened, but could have—she linked her hands around his neck.

She decided, then and there, that she was going to make His Majesty, the King of Lektenstaten, Angus Augustus Braxton-Lenox, or rather her Dragon, fall in love with her.   

“Yes, Dragon, I will marry you.”