Hoarded by the Dragon (Monstrous Matches, #4)(77)

“I wish you luck.”

We may need it.



“WHERE IS KATARINA?” I ask. I’ve already checked her room, and now I’m in the kitchen expecting to find her making a nighttime snack, but the only occupants are Maggie and Jensen sipping tea. I arch a brow at the shifter but he only sips from his mug happily.

Maggie shrugs. “I’ve been taking her meals to the new studio. She’s been working nonstop since this morning.”

I bite back a smile. When I gave her a studio, I hadn’t expected her to dive into her passions so completely, but I can’t help the bloom of happiness at the result. It’s a bright spot after hearing that the Council will only hinder us rather than help.

“Why? Why do this for me?” she’d asked. As if she has no idea the depth of my feelings for her. Perhaps she doesn’t. It’s been precarious to balance my emotions and the things I want to promise to her.

What would I not do for you?

When I get to the studio, the worries nipping at my heels ease at the sight of my little thief with her head resting on her folded arms on the tabletop, asleep. The room is dark except for a single light set up over the current painting she is working on.

She’s why the dragon part of me has been practically clawing his way out all day no matter how far we traveled from her, but she’s worth it.

I nudge her elbow gently.

“Rina.”

“I only closed my eyes for a minute,” she says sleepily.

“It’s time you came to bed.” I slide my arms around her and lift her from her chair.

She peers at the dark room and sighs. “It may have been for more than a minute.” She curls into my chest and waves a hand. “Make sure to turn off the lamp.”

I huff a laugh at the order from my little queen and get closer to the canvas, tilting her in my arms to reach the lamp.

I freeze. Prickles of awareness and foreboding run over my skin. The colors on the canvas are ethereal, blues, oranges, purples, and reds, the shapes only just starting to blend together organically.

“Rina.” My voice is strained. My chest tight at the familiar sight.

“Hmm?” she says sleepily.

“Was this from a dream?” I ask, hoping that I’m wrong. There are only so many reasons for my thief to be having prophetic dreams involving what’s on the canvas.

“Mmhmm.” She nods.

The fear and worry roar through my senses, but I try to keep myself calm.

Katarina has been painting dragon fire.





33





KATARINA





“THERE’S no telling what it means. It doesn’t have to mean anything!” My sleepiness is long gone, and I sit on Kalos’s bed. I’d rather be doing other things in this bed than discussing my dreams that have meaning, but aren’t helpful, but my dragon paces instead.

He stops in his tracks. “What if he hurts you?”

“Who?” I ask, but the fear and self-recrimination in his eyes communicates who he means.

I force my shoulders to relax and to keep my tone even. “Your dragon isn’t going to hurt his mate.”

“But what if he does?”

The air is tinged with smoke, and I have an irreverent realization that there are no smoke detectors in this entire mansion just for this reason.

“You need to trust him, Kalos. You need to trust that he wants what is best for the both of you.” And worrying that he’s going to hurt me isn’t going to help him be more “aligned” with his dragon. Which means that I don’t get to be Kalos’s mate, but I don’t voice that selfish part.

Are the dragon fire dreams worrisome? Yes, but—

“I have yet to have a dream that has been a helpful message or warning, and I don’t think it’s going to start now,” I say, and the words come out as a beg. I want the worry stringing Kalos tight to ease. I want his wicked smile and even his smug arrogance, but those things have been as absent as his presence.

I try to communicate all this with my eyes, even as I watch Kalos close his emotions away. The silence between us reverberates. The issue gaining seriousness as the clock ticks.

He doesn’t believe me.

“I can’t take that chance,” he says before turning away from me. “I need to work.”

“It’s almost midnight,” I whisper.

He doesn’t respond, and I’m left alone in his bed.

Wary of the future, but more frightened that I’ve just lost a piece of what’s between us.



KALOS IS WORKING. We haven’t really spoken since that night. I hardly catch his scent on his own sheets anymore.

Some of it is that he’s focusing on shoring up our defenses. A few ward masters have been through, strengthening the spells that are already set and weaving in new ones. There is no expense being spared to make this house a bunker.

But it also feels like he’s avoiding me.

I’m grateful for the upscaled security. The revelation that I’ve been dreaming about dragon fire is more unsettling than I want to admit to him. Not because I think he’s going to lose control, but because it’s pressing on a nerve. A feeling that something bad is going to happen. Intrusive thoughts make it hard to work, but the stroke of paint on canvas helps immensely. The one I’d been working on that spooked Kalos is done, and I’ve finished two other canvases like it.