“So what does that mean for you?” I ask softly, not wanting to spook him any more than I already have. “That you have to give up everything good in your life just to keep things together for everyone else?”

“I’m not giving up anything. This is just who I am.” His hands clench into fists, and he tries to turn away.

But I won’t let him. Not now, not when I’m finally understanding all the ways he’s managed to torture himself—for Hudson’s death and for this new role he doesn’t want but can’t turn away from.

“That’s bullshit,” I tell him softly. “You wear indifference like a mask; you wield coldness like a weapon—not because you feel nothing but because you feel too much. You’ve worked so hard to make everyone believe you’re a monster that you’ve begun to believe it yourself.

“But you’re not a monster, Jaxon. Not even close.”

This time he doesn’t try to turn away—he jerks away, like a live wire has just wrapped itself around his entire body. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he growls.

“You think if people are scared enough, if they hate you enough, they won’t dare to step out of line. They won’t dare to start another war, because you’ll finish that one, too—and them right along with it.”

God. The pain, the loneliness, of his existence hits me like an avalanche. What must it feel like to be so alone? What must it feel like to—?

“Don’t look at me like that,” he orders in a voice as tight and thin as that high-wire he was just talking about.

“Like what?” I whisper.

“Like I’m a victim. Or a hero. I’m neither of those things.”

He’s both of those things—and so many more besides. But I know he won’t believe me if I try to tell him that. Just like I know he won’t take any more comfort from me right now, not when I’ve just laid him open right here for both of us to see.

So I do the only thing I can do.

I tangle my hands in his hair, pull his mouth down to mine.

And give him the only thing he’ll accept from me.

   50

He Who

Lives in Stone Towers

Should Never

Throw Dragons

For a second, right after our mouths meet, everything goes away. What he told me about his brother, what he told me about my being in danger, everything. For these moments, as his lips move over mine—as his tongue explores my mouth and his teeth gently ravage my lower lip—all I can think about is him. All I can want and feel and need is Jaxon.

He must feel the same way, because he makes a noise deep in his throat as his arms come around me. And then he’s picking me up just a little, lifting me until the curves of my body line up perfectly with all the hard, sexy planes of his. And soon the kiss I meant as comfort shifts to something else entirely.

His hands are on my hips, his chest and stomach and thighs pressing against my own, and all I can think of is yes. All I can think of is more.

More and more and more, until my head is fuzzy, my heart is practically pounding out of my chest, and the rest of me feels like one more slide of his hands or shift of his hips will make me shatter.

Just the thought has a low, needy sound pouring out of me, a sound that Jaxon responds to with a hard, sexy squeeze of his hands on my hips. But then he’s pulling away, lifting his mouth from mine, and lowering me slowly to the ground.

“No,” I whisper, trying to hold on to him for as long as I can. “Please.” I’m not even sure what I’m asking for at this point, only that I don’t want this to end. I don’t want Jaxon to go back to that cold, bleak place where he has banished himself for so long.

I don’t want to lose him to that darkness anymore.

But he murmurs softly to me, brushes his lips over my cheek, my hair, the top of my shoulder. Then slowly, slowly eases back a little more.

“We won’t have much longer before Foster gets here, and I want to talk to you before he does.”

“Yeah, okay.” I sigh, then bury my face against his chest as I take a couple of deep breaths.

He runs his hands up and down my back to soothe us both, I think, before finally settling me on the bed—with a little distance between us. “I want to talk to you about your safety.”

Of course he does. “Jaxon—”

“I’m serious, Grace. We need to talk about this, whether you want to or not.”

“It’s not that I’m trying to dodge the conversation. I’m just saying, after what happened earlier, anyone who doesn’t like me is probably going to keep it to themselves from now on. Even if they want to hurt you.”

He gives me a look. “I told you, this isn’t all about me. If it was, Flint wouldn’t have tried to kill you on your second day here. There wasn’t anything between us then, so he couldn’t have been trying to get to me. Which means—”

I finally recover from the shock ricocheting through me enough to interrupt him. “What are you talking about? Flint didn’t try to kill me. He saved me. He’s my friend.”

“He’s not.”

“Yes, he is. I know you don’t like him, but—”

“Who told you to walk under that chandelier, Grace?” Jaxon asks with watchful eyes.

“Flint did. But it wasn’t like that.” Still, uneasiness stirs in my belly. It’s one thing to believe nameless strangers are out to get me. It’s another to think that one of the few people I call a friend here is… “Flint wouldn’t do that. Why would he try to drop a chandelier on me after he saved me when I fell off that branch?”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you. He didn’t save you.”

“That’s impossible—he wasn’t even on the branch with me.”

Jaxon narrows his eyes in an are you kidding me kind of way. “He wasn’t underneath the chandelier with you, either.”

“So what? He got one of the shifters to half break the branch before the snowball fight, knowing it was going to be windy?”

“More like he got one of his dragon friends to start the wind that caused all the problems. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Grace. The dragons can’t be trusted, and Flint absolutely can’t.”

“That makes no sense. Why would he dive off that tree branch to keep me from hitting the ground if he was trying to kill me?”

Jaxon doesn’t answer.

My stomach tightens up as something horrible occurs to me. “He did save me from falling, didn’t he?”