Page 41 of Smoke

15

Alina

“Can I ask you something?”

Smoke’s question roused me from near-sleep in the passenger seat of the Jeep. We hadn’t been on the road for very long, but I could barely keep my eyes open all of a sudden. I thought happiness would be enough to keep me awake—if anything, relief and lack of adrenaline were putting me to sleep.

“Of course. What is it?”

“It can wait if you’re sleepy. I didn’t know you were almost out over there.”

I reached over and rested my hand on his thigh. It was so good, being able to touch him even in the simplest way. How had I kept myself from doing it back at the cave? “I’ll be fine. Ask away.”

“You might end up wishing I hadn’t, but all right.” He looked over out of the corner of his eye. “What do you look like under what I see right now?”

Oh. That was unexpected. “What makes you ask?”

“Bradley, of course.”

“He showed you his real self.”

“Right.”

“Nasty, huh?”

“You knew what he looked like under his skin?”

“Sure. We can see through the glamours we put up for humans if we want to. I deliberately keep myself from doing it—you can’t un-see a thing like that—but I couldn’t help it in my uncle’s office when he told me I had to get married. I had to know what I would be marrying.”

“Poor thing.”

“You’re telling me.” I took a deep breath. “So, you really want to know what’s under this? I mean, the funny thing is, I’ve spent my life thinking of this as me. Myself. My parents always encouraged us to adopt our human skins as our own. They were very progressive that way—I know it might not sound like that to you—”

He snorted. “Did you forget what’s on the other side of what you see right now?” he asked.

“Right. I do forget sometimes. It’s easy to.”

“I don’t know how to think of myself sometimes,” he admitted in a low, soft voice.

He was opening up to me. He trusted me. I was his mate, and he was mine, even if we hadn’t sealed it yet. The significance of the moment wasn’t lost on me.

“Am I Smoke? Or the dragon? I think of him as being separate from myself—we all do, it just makes it easier to live without going nuts—but that’s not the entire truth. He’s half of me. Sometimes more than half, depending on the situation. Like earlier tonight, and every time I thought of you needing help. Being hurt. There was a lot more dragon in me then.”

“Because you wanted to protect me?”

“Because I love you.” He placed his hand over mine and laced our fingers. “I love you.”

I couldn’t breathe. My heart was going to burst, and there was nothing I could do about it. It was the sweetest moment of my life, the most perfect.

“I love you, too,” I choked out.

“And I love whoever you are,” he added. “You don’t have to show me if you don’t want to. But after seeing Bradley earlier, I couldn’t get the thought out of my head. There’s somebody else inside you, too. Just like me.”

I believed him, but that didn’t make things easier. I had never shown that side of me to anybody outside my family. Even Jasmine hadn’t seen the real me in years and years. “Later,” I promised. “When you’re not driving.”

“You don’t think you’re going to scare me, do you?”

“No! At least, I hope not.”

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