Chapter Six

Sarah

"S o, what now?"

I posed the question while staring out the giant window overlooking the core of the dragon capitol. Calling it a city would have been too much because there were maybe ten or twenty thousand residents. The luxurious apartment where Levi had brought me after "The Choosing"—and what a sham that had been, considering I'd known which dragon was picking me—was better suited for the top floor of a NYC condo. Instead, we were on the fourth floor. I had yet to see a building over five stories tall.

When Levi didn't immediately respond, I pulled my gaze away from the window to find him looking at me with a semi-blank stare.

I cocked my head, waiting another full minute for him to respond, but he just sat there, watching me, as if I'd asked the stupidest question in the world.

"You're joking, right?" I pushed when it became painfully obvious he had no answer.

"There is no joke," he rumbled. "You're here."

I bit back a fiery reply containing many obvious notations about how I was there and not at home with my son, where I should be. On more than one occasion, I'd debated telling Levi I had a child back home. To see if that would get me out of the "responsibility." To see if he would take pity on me.

But I was scared he would do the math. Figure out that Jake was his. And what would happen then? I didn't want this sexy but idiotic loser involved in raising my son, who was turning out to be a lovely kid. He would just muck it up.

Not that you've done a great job either. You've abandoned your only child.

I shut down that train of thought. I wasn't happy with myself, but there was no denying that my actions saved the lives of thousands. Perhaps tens of thousands or even millions. It was impossible to know. As much as it hurt, as haunted as my dreams would be, I could not have made any other decision and still been myself.

I would just have to learn to live with the self-hatred and loathing.

Somehow.

"You're serious," I replied when he didn't break out into a smile. "You're fucking serious, oh my god."

"What's the problem?"

I gaped at him. "The problem? The problem is you made it a condition of peace that I give up everything, abandon my life, my family, friends, everyone , to come here to be your mate, whatever the fuck that entails. Then I come here, and instead of just being paired with you, I get tossed into some sort of weird fish-in-the-barrel experiment where dragons come in and pluck us humans out willy-nilly at random. Except it was you who was going to take me anyway, so it wasn't random. It was just a waste of time."

Levi only grunted in affirmative as I paused for breath, as if to say Yes, and?

"Unbelievable," I almost screeched, hauling back on my emotions just in time. I would not come across as the crazy lady. Not yet. "Then, you bring me to your apartment, and you just sit there, doing nothing!"

Levi raised both eyebrows in question.

"You don't see a problem with that?"

He shook his head.

I sighed, rubbing my face. "Right. So, now, we just sit around in silence until we die? Is that it? Are you honestly telling me you had absolutely zero ideas or plans of what would happen after you got me here?"

A flicker of unease crossed his handsome features. Dull realization hit me like a rubber mallet.

"You don't," I whispered. It wasn't a question. "There is no plan. No idea. No nothing, is there?"

The background level of happiness that had been lighting his face ever since he picked me out of the lineup in the dark underground cave faded now.

I shook my head, short ponytail swishing wildly with the frustrated motion.

"What did you think would happen?" I asked him.

He shrugged, then stood, pacing slightly toward the window, so he was closer to me, though there was still a barrier between us, one he respected by keeping his distance.

"That you would be happy, I guess," he said as if it should have been obvious.

My jaw dropped. "Happy? You thought I would be happy to be here?"

He fully turned to face me now, the force of his gaze boring down on me, reminding me of why I'd let him take me to bed any time he wanted in the past. The man was intense in the absolute best way possible when he turned it on. Like he was now.

"Of course I thought you would be happy," he growled in a delicious baritone that should've awoken things in me. I'm sure he expected it would. "I can feel your heart when I get closer. The way it beats faster. I can see you breathe harder. I smell your pheromones, and your arousal when you think of the things I used to do to you. The way you would obey my every command. That's still in there. You can't hide it from me, Sarah."

Despite my utmost self-control, honed by years of training for my job, I couldn't stop the shiver of pleasure that went racing down my spine at the sound of him using my name.

But I had an easy way out of that. All I did was picture Jakub's face as he came rushing out of the house after me, tears in his eyes, promising to be good. As if my leaving was because of something he'd done.

"Any sexual attraction I may or may not feel toward you is more than canceled out by the fact it's been six years !" I shouted in his face. "You walked out on me, you moron. Without a word. Without a note. Nothing. Just disappeared. Casting me aside like I was a toy to be discarded. Then, you come back around, waltzing into my life like a few hours had passed, and not half a decade and change."

Levi opened his mouth, but I cut him off with a savage chop of my hand that made him retreat a step.

"I. Am. Not. Done! " That time, I shrieked. I didn't care. "Then, you proceed to ruin my life, by forcing me to leave everything and everyone I care about, all because you want to stick your junk between my legs some more. You don't stop to consider me or my feelings or wants. All you do is think of yourself! Why on Earth would I be happy about any of that ? Huh? Tell me, Levi, please, because maybe I'm missing something. Am I?"

Tears were building in the corners of my eyes, but I blinked them away, letting anger replace sadness, burning away the liquid as heat built in my chest like a furnace rising to temperature.

"I didn't mean to," Levi said, pulling himself fully erect. I desperately tried not to notice the way the change in posture stretched his shirt across his broad chest and shoulders, emphasizing each muscular curve and bulge.

It was that fitness of self, along with his good looks and the absolute intensity of his personality that had melted any resistance I'd had years ago. As long as I wasn't working, he could have had me anytime, anywhere that he wanted. And he had. Not that I didn't get what I wanted out of it either. After a day of being always on alert, focused, and under orders, it was beyond freeing to be at someone else's command. To be told what to do, and then be pleasured for obeying.

And if there was one thing Levi was good at, it had been pleasuring my body. Hands, mouth, thick, hard cock. They had all pleasured me. Orgasm after orgasm.

I'd dated a few men since, but nothing serious, nothing that stuck. How could they after him? Nothing compared to Levi. Not even my vibrator.

"You didn't mean to?" I barked with harsh laughter, yanking my mind back to the present and out of fantasy land. I lived in reality, where sex with him was in the past. "You're joking, right? You didn't mean to tell the president that the only way the war ended was with me coming here? Me specifically, not anyone else, they could volunteer. But no, you had to force me against my will."

"Not that," he said, refusing to respond to any of my points. "I meant five years and eight months ago."

I frowned. He had the timing down to the month? "What do you mean?"

"Walking out on you wasn't what I wanted to do. To leave."

Anyone else would have continued on, explained just what they meant by such a comment. Apparently not Levi.

"Please, do go on," I encouraged sarcastically. "I'd love to know why, since you didn't seem to be able to tell me then."

He blinked and gestured around him, as if that was all the answer I should need. "I had to come back here," he said.

"Okay," I said, speaking slowly so he had time to do something absolutely wild, such as expand on that statement. He didn't. "And did that need to return somehow rob you of the ability to write a note? Make a phone call? Tell me to my face you had to leave for some reason? Have you ever heard of the word ‘goodbye,' Levi?"

Anger flared in his eyes. I didn't care. Good. It was good if he got upset. Maybe then he would start explaining himself better.

"What do you expect of me?" he growled. "I couldn't tell you that I had to return to the dragon homeland. Seriously, come on now."

"Of course not!" I shouted. "But you could have lied. Come up with any number of reasons. Simply told me you were moving on. Anything would have been better than just disappearing."

"I thought it would be easier that way."

"Oh, I'm sure it was. For you," I said coldly. "You took the coward's way out."

That got a reaction. Levi's temper flared, his hands closing into fists so tightly tendons creaked.

"Oh, get off your high horse," I snapped. "You weren't the one left for nearly six years thinking you'd screwed up or done something wrong. You knew the truth, so you could sleep at night. But you never considered me. Never thought of me."

"That's not true," he said in a much softer tone.

"What isn't?"

"I thought of you. All the time. Couldn't get you off my mind, if I'm being honest. That's why I was so happy to see you again."

"Bullshit. You just hoped you could jump into my pants again without having to try. As if you could somehow still hold sway over me six years later."

"Five years, eight months, twelve days," he replied evenly, eyes never wavering.

I wanted to scream. He had to be the most frustrating man ever ! One moment, completely oblivious to the fact he had ruined my life, having hurt me twice, and then acting as if I shouldn't care and should just jump back into his bed.

Then he turned around and demonstrated he knew the exact number of days it had been since he'd left. Because in some weird way, he'd been thinking of me all that time.

And wasn't that a conflicting feeling or two for me to have. I still hated him, but … ugh . There was no denying that hearing him say that evoked some sort of reaction.

"Every night, I lo—"

Whatever he was going to say was cut off by the sound of something big hitting the roof above us. As I'd discovered on our trip over there—and flying on the back of a dragon was certainly something! —only Levi's apartment had access from it. Which meant that whoever it was, was there for him.

"Levi?"

My gaze was already darting around the apartment, eyeing windows, the doorway to the stairs, places for cover in case whoever it was came in shooting. Every sense was on ultra-alert.

They were dragons, I reminded myself. They could fly. Windows weren't necessarily safe. They could come through them. I strained to hear for the sounds of others coming up the stairs. If they were smart, they would have both ways in and out covered. There would be nowhere for us to run.

A hand landed on my shoulder heavily enough to make me jump. I slapped it away reflexively, spinning toward my assailant and dropping into a fighting crouch. Dragon or not, I wouldn't just give in.

But it was just Levi. He stood there, the arm I'd whacked away hanging in mid-air, his eyebrows straining across the empty terrain of his forehead toward his hairline.

"Everything okay?" he asked as two people came down the stairs.

A man and a woman. I immediately noted two things. One, the closeness with which the newcomer—a tall, lithe blonde stunner who made me feel short and frumpy with her athletic figure, perfect hand-sized boobs, and legs that went on for weeks, not days, and were further emphasized by her very short black shorts.

The other thing I noted, besides how close she stood with the male—close enough to be inside his personal space, indicating more than just friendship—was how Levi reacted. It wasn't much, but I'd learned to read his body quite well, and apparently, despite the six years— five years, eight months, twelve days, I corrected, recalling how Levi had it memorized—I hadn't lost that touch. Something about those two …

No, I decided, it wasn't the two of them. It was her. A slight turning of his body belied his focus.

"Levi," the male said, his voice extremely deep.

"Malakai! Lydia!" Levi said warmly, throwing his hands up in greeting. His eyes, however, strayed back to me, questioning, interrogating.

"I'm okay," I whispered, relaxing as it became apparent they were not strange attackers but rather welcomed friends.

He grinned at me, then strode across the room, embracing first Malakai, a shorter but arguably broader male with thick, coarse black hair cut right to the scalp and a goatee adorning his face. A hefty cleft chin could be seen through the short stubble, but his most intense feature was his eyes. Bright, bright blue, like the color of the sky after a storm rolled through, they sucked in whoever looked at them and didn't let go.

I hung back, unsure of the dynamics, waiting for an introduction.

I never got one.

Malakai glanced at me once—more than I could say for the blonde—and then spoke in low tones to Levi. I watched his shoulders tense, followed by an emphatic shake of his head. Malakai didn't stop, however, and bit by bit, Levi's resistance crumbled.

Finally, he turned to me. "I'm sorry, but I have to go."

My jaw just about made a hole in his floor as it plummeted. "You what ?"

"I have to go," he said awkwardly, coming over to take me by the shoulders. "It shouldn't be too long. Something's come up."

"Really. Something has ‘come up'?" I said. "Why don't you tell that to the life you destroyed. Namely mine."

Levi rolled his eyes. "I don't have time for this, Sarah. It's important. I have to go. It shouldn't take too long." He glanced at Malakai.

The other dragon shrugged in less than fully convincing fashion. His eyes were hard … and focused on me. I met his gaze without wilting.

"Make yourself at home," he said.

"Kind of hard since it's not."

He licked his lips, looking ready to continue the argument, but a gentle clearing of a throat from Malakai stopped him.

"I'm sorry," he said, locking his eyes firmly on mine.

Then they were gone, all three of them up to the roof and taking to the air. Leaving me in a dragon house. In a dragon town. In a dragon world.

Alone.