Page 69 of Thief of Souls
“Why do you want to know?” There’s a challenging note to his voice. “A great deal of the lore of dragonkind has been lost to the ages and maybe that’s the way I like it.”
“You’re already trusting me with your secret.” I’ve never truly thought about what a rare gift that is—to be the only person in possession of information that might be able to destroy him.
I look at him anew.
He’s never once threatened me to hold my tongue. He may have locked me into a year and a day of service, but it’s almost as if he gave me the key to his demise and then dared me to do something about it.
A chill runs through me.
He’s testing me. He has to be testing me.
Does he want to know if I can be trusted?
Or is it… something else?
“A dragon lives for many thousands of years,” he replies, his fingers stirring over the blankets as if he sees and feels something else. “We were the goddess’s favored children, torn from the stars themselves and forged into beasts who ruled the skies. But it is one thing to own the possibility of living for eons, and quite another to live it. The toll of time comes to a dragon, not so much in the weight of his bones, but in the weight of all he has lived and lost. Mated pairs follow each other swiftly into the grave. But others who lose children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren sometimes make the choice to slowly turn to stone. And others still, return to the stars, using their power in one last defiant surge to shoot through the night skies like a comet. We call it ‘chasing the stars.’”
“And how long have you lived for?” I whisper.
Our eyes meet.
“Long enough for me to begin to feel the burden of my loneliness.” He looks away suddenly, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “Long enough to feel my heart start to slow, and my blood to thicken in my veins. Long enough to drift in dreams for centuries, barely caring of what events transpired around me.”
I have to ask it. “What changed?”
He closes his eyes and tilts his face to the ceiling. “When I dream, I dream of the skies. Of chasing those very stars. I was very close, perhaps, to igniting. But one night a new star appeared. One that sparkled and winked on the edge of my consciousness. One that called to me.” He releases a harsh breath and looks at me. “Twenty-four years ago, I think. I’ve been searching for that star ever since.”
I don’t know what to say.
He sent out a Summons because he said the right constellations were in the sky, but I thought that was only a fae thing.
And when his astrologers consulted their lists, they narrowed down a list of princesses and ladies who fit their timeframe.
Twenty-four years ago.
I am twenty-four.
It’s impossible. My name wasn’t on that list. It was pure chance that saw me take a tilt at the Dragon’s Heart during that precise moment. I don’t even know the time of my birth. Sometime in the winter. Sometime when the snows kissed the ground.
It can’t be—
Keir reaches out with a sudden smile and bops me on the nose. “Stop thinking so hard. You don’t believe in fate, remember?”
“I know.” But I can’t help thinking thathe does.
He’ll never let you go. Not if he thinks you’re truly his.
My heart is suddenly racing.
“What do you believe in?” he asks.
“Myself,” I blurt.
He laughs.
Keir crashes onto the mattress beside me, lacing his hands behind his head. It’s an innocuous move—his attention is on the ceiling—but the second I see his shirt cling to the thick muscle in his biceps, a pulse of heat goes through my lower abdomen.
Want. Need.
