Surprise visibly shook her, along with a resurgence of hope so palpable it was painful to witness. “You remembered?”
Earlier, when he’d looked at the gold ring he wore and the braided bracelet of hair, he had pieced the facts together. He was the destination, not part of her journey. He was the reason why she had climbed the mountain to face him.
He thought again of the broken voice in the night.
Come back. Come back to me.
That had been her voice, calling to him. Astonishment came over him. Realizing the truth had been a matter of logical deduction, but he hadn’t counted on the depth of emotion that had driven her to confront the dragon. She carried so much passion, so much light.
For him.
I miss my mate with all my heart, and I would do anything or give anything to get him back again.
She had been talking about him. No one had ever given him such devotion before—no one that he could remember. Over centuries uncounted, they had given him fear and hatred, and sometimes obeisance, and he had considered all of that his due.
And she had brought him diamonds, sapphires and gold. He stared at the sapphire color of her eyes and the gold of her hair. His favorite things.
He didn’t know he was capable of compassion, until that moment. He said, as gently as he could, “No, I still haven’t remembered.”
Her gaze widened and drifted away, as if not knowing where to land, because wherever she looked, all she saw was the same horror.
That look drove through him like a spike.
He stepped over the fire, commanding it not to burn, and obedient to his will, the flames drew aside. Crouching in front of her, he put a hand underneath her chin, forcing her to look at him. He asked, “Why didn’t you say something before now?”
She put a hand lightly against his forearm, stroking him, and even amidst his heat and anger, the action soothed him.
“How on earth could I tell you something like that, and hope you would possibly believe me?” she asked. “I mean, think a minute—you had a difficult time accepting the fact that I brought the gifts in good faith. How do you think it would have gone down if a total stranger had walked up to you and said, ‘Oh hi, sorry about your head injury, by the way, I’m your mate’?”
He had pinned her underneath one claw. He had been fully prepared to kill her as she drew close to him. He demanded, “When did it happen?”
“Last year. We’ve been together fourteen months.”
“And the building that’s under construction?”
She moistened her lips. “It’s a—that’s another complicated concept.”
He growled under his breath. “That response is not acceptable any longer.”
“Sometimes that response is all I can give you,” she told him. “Your loss of memory is not just about me, Dragos. There is a lot you can’t recall, and I can’t just tell you in a sentence or two about things that are based on years of emotions, commitments, and understandings.” She gripped his wrist. “You’ve lost memories of an entire life, involving a lot of people. Do you remember what I said about enemies earlier? Not only is that true, but it’s also true about friends. You have friends. You have people who care about you.”
He stared at her.
Widening her eyes, she lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “I know, go figure. It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?”
“We’ve built a life for ourselves,” he said slowly, experimenting with the words.
“We are building a life for ourselves,” she whispered. “And we’re not going to give up on it, just because we’ve had a bad couple of days. Or when one of us loses his memories for a while and gets a little bitey.”
His eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“Never mind,” she muttered.
The whole conversation was bizarre, and part of him wanted to reject it out of hand. He was a loner by nature, and suspicious for many centuries-old reasons.
It crossed his mind again that she could still be manipulating him, somehow, for her own gain. Setting aside the question of why she would do so, he thought of how she could have done it.
Perhaps she had found a way to cloak all of her lies in some sort of truthspell. Perhaps she was trying to lure him into some kind of trap. Perhaps she was the trap.
His gaze traveled again to the braid of hair at his wrist, and the gold ring on his finger. As much as he loved owning jewelry, he had never worn any, until apparently now. And that ring was a wedding ring.
For any kind of subterfuge to be employed at this sophisticated level, she would have needed to slip both wedding ring and braid onto his human form before he had been injured, and somehow gotten him to put a protection spell on the braid.
Really, that entire scenario strained his credulity.
But on the other hand, so did the thought of having a mate.
A wife.
A life full of complicated concepts, involving friendships.
Letting all of those thoughts go, he concentrated on the reality at hand.
The reality was, he held her life literally in one hand, his long fingers resting against the warm, soft skin underneath her chin. Her pulse beat delicately against his hand, and there was no fear anywhere in her eyes, or in her scent. She leaned forward into his touch, as if she wanted his hands on her skin.
She had no weapons or barriers of any kind. She had no magic spells, just her own wild, inherent Power that brushed with such a tantalizing coolness against the heat of his own.
“So we were building a life together,” he said in a husky voice into her upturned face, as he stroked his fingers along her petal-soft skin. “Fine. I want to see it for myself.”
With a growing predatory hunger, he watched her lovely mouth shape her words. “What do you mean?”
“I presume we have a home somewhere. Take me there. Show it to me.” Lifting one shoulder, he added a touch of persuasion to his voice. “Maybe if I see it in person, it could jog my memory.”
The painful, excruciatingly bright hope came back to life in her eyes, along with a multitude of other, more complex emotions that he couldn’t decipher.
Complex emotions, no doubt, that went along with their complex life.
He didn’t care about any of it. He only cared about one thing.
The other Dragos—the one with his memories intact—had somehow won this remarkable creature’s heart and soul. Perhaps it was more than a touch insane to be jealous of himself, but he was.
He wanted what that other Dragos had. She was the real treasure, more precious than sapphires, diamonds and gold.
At the core of his ancient, cynical heart, he was an acquisitive creature, after all.
Chapter Six
“I think going home is a great idea,” Pia said slowly.
For such an unbearable nightmare, things were actually beginning to look up. Dragos had shapeshifted into his human form, and he was talking to her. Really talking, not growling or roaring (or biting), or barking orders.
Also, she was intensely relieved that he had figured out the nature of their relationship for himself. He didn’t feel any of the emotions, and that hurt like a burning knife had been thrust into her chest, but at least she didn’t have to try to find some way to tell him and watch any possible disbelief cross his expression.
Her lips were dry. She hadn’t hydrated enough after her climb, and she moistened them with the tip of her tongue. His gaze dropped to the small movement and grew intent, although his hard expression remained closed to her scrutiny.
He was still so suspicious, and that hurt too. Her own logic scolded her. Of course he would be suspicious. Suspicion was part of the dragon’s nature. He had been a solitary creature for so long, with a predatory nature and an ancient, primitive past, and he was quick to war. He had a history of enemies that went back millennia.