Page 33 of To Spark a Dragon's Love
Willow gasped as her cheeks flushed and she reached for the napkin, pulling it onto her lap. “Don’t tease.”
“I wouldn’t. Never about that,” I said honestly as I took my place at the head of the table.
All eyes were still on us. Years ago, I wouldn’t have expected anything less, but now it felt like a tightening rope around my neck. Their need. The hope bleeding out from their strained smiles. This extravagant table that Kieran insisted on carting around from place to place was filled to the brim with excess, a feast fit for kings, and they still looked as if they were starving as they stared at me.
You’ll let them all—
“Thank you for the compliment. It was sweet,” Willow whispered, silencing my beast and derailing my thoughts. “Also, I thought you said we didn’t have to speak.”
Desperate times called for desperate measures, apparently. I reached for my wine glass.
I wasn’t one for speeches. But above all else, I was my father’s son and knew when to act the part of a guardian. They needed me still, even if I would eventually fail them all.
“A prophet I am not,” I said, feeling everyone relax onto their seats. “But none can deny this turn of events seems to alter the course of our future.”
I paused, gathering words that would tell the truth without destroying what frail hope they had. Kieran caught my eye.
I nodded and raised my glass. “To hope in our final hour. To beauty within the darkness. And to love, which they say can change all things.”
“To love,” Willow echoed. It was only the tug of the bond in my chest that allowed me to feel the emptiness behind her sentiment.
When I turned to look at her with the question written on my face, she was smirking. Her eyebrow arched as if to call my speech out for being bullshit.
I touched my glass with hers and we both drank, not breaking eye contact as the guests around the table called out, “To love!”
Glasses clinked and laughter resumed.
We were off the hook again.
I wanted to say something to Willow, but words failed me. The blissful silence in my head left me speechless. If I could, I’d stay here for a while longer, locked in the reflection of her jeweled eyes and the stillness that seemed to radiate around us.
But the doors opened and dinner was served, breaking our little bubble apart.
Her stomach rumbled. Instinctually, I speared an elk steak and put it on her plate, serving her before I served myself.
And damn it all because the guests noticed.
Nervous laughter sounded around the table causing a slight tremor in my hand as I went to remove my knife from the meat.
I’d served her first and now they sat, judging me and confused at the sign of weakness. It was an archaic practice. The show of dominance when the strongest took the first bite. All the shifter alphas at the table couldn’t help but tense.
They’d challenge me if they could.
I almost welcomed it.
My dragon unfurled from his lazy slumber, ready to shed blood, daring any of these ungrateful dignitaries to try and—
“We can leave if you want.”Willow’s voice in my mind silenced every demon. I turned to her with my brows raised. She’d figured out how to communicate telepathically with me on her own.
Willow shrugged and my hand was moving before I thought it through, sawing off a bite of meat on her plate and piercing the bloodied section with the tines of the fork.
Her eyes widened in surprise as I held the meat poised in front of her mouth.
“Hungry?” I asked.
The look she gave promised murder, but those pink lips opened, allowing me to place the meat on her tongue.
Forks and knives clattered as good-natured whistles rang out. I caught sight of Lucan out of the corner of my eye. My brother was smiling, but he sat next to a very pale-faced Kieran.
