Chapter 8

8

P ine had to make things right with Neve.

Yes, she'd agreed to stay with him until the New Year's Ceremony despite everything. He didn't even care about the ceremony. Sometime during the night, it had occurred to him that she was about to go home, and he'd never see her again.

He couldn't have that.

Pine didn't want a mate. He didn't need a wife. But Neve was under his skin. She stoked the fire beating inside of him, and he couldn't let her go, not yet.

Two weeks. That was all he had, and he would have to make it count. If all went well, this thing between them would burn out, and he could send her off knowing exactly what it was like to have her.

And lose her.

No time to dwell on that.

Thinking about the last couple of days, Pine realized that he'd treated Neve more like a prisoner than an esteemed guest, and he was determined to change that now.

Briar had gone off to visit friends in the countryside, so now he and Neve were basically alone in the manor. It was the perfect setting to get this out of their systems. But Pine had never tried to seduce a woman like this before. He hadn't needed to. A bit of light flirtation, some dancing, and a few exchanged words to make sure they both knew the score had always been enough.

Not now. Not with this human.

It was all too delicate. She'd been ready to rip his head off when he agreed to the appearance at the New Year's Ceremony without consulting her. But Pine couldn't say he'd been thinking so much as panicking. Both in the face of the king's direct invitation and the realization that Neve was about to leave.

People left. People died. It was a fact of life.

But perhaps now was time to seize the moments he knew he had before they went away.

"You've got a serious look on your face," Neve observed as she entered the breakfast room. She took a seat and began selecting her food from the platters on the table. She was wearing tight fitting black pants and a crisscross striped, red top with buttons up the center. A hint of cleavage peaked out of the top, and Pine knew he was staring, but it took several beats for him to look away.

Those buttons were an invitation to sin. He wanted to pop them off one by one until the top hung open and bared her to him.

"Pine?" Neve prompted.

Right. Words. Not breasts.

"I thought we could go into the city today. There's a winter market that you might like. It's beautiful this time of year." And normally he ignored it to the best of his ability. It was filled with obnoxious children and bustling families who crowded all around him as if they'd never heard of the concept of personal space.

"I'd like to see that." She took a bite of a buttery roll and closed her eyes as bliss washed over her face, and she made a sound in the back of her throat that went straight to his cock.

"It will be cold," he said and tried to think of snow drifts and glaciers, of dips in icy lakes, anything to get his body under control.

"I brought a coat. You did lure me here under the guise of a winter getaway. I packed as appropriately as I could." She smiled as she said it, the anger from the night before gone.

"I am sorry about that." He'd apologize a hundred times if he had to. He never would have agreed to this if he knew the IDA would kidnap an innocent woman just to attend one party on the other side of the galaxy.

She waved him off and finished her breakfast.

An hour later they met in the entrance hall. Her tantalizing buttons were covered by a thick wool coat. A blue hat with a fuzzy ball on top covered her hair, and mittens with some sort of animal pattern enclosed her hands. It wasn't a style he'd seen on Vemion before, but there was something charming about all that wool.

He'd called for their transport earlier, and the vehicle was waiting outside for them. Pine assisted Neve into the vehicle and followed behind her.

Then they were off.

It was a short ride to the city, and Neve spent it pressed up against the window, watching as they drew closer and closer to civilization. His manor was within view of the castle, but with enough space between him and the city that it never felt too crowded. The royal city wasn't large. Some might have even called it a glorified village, but Pine liked it that way. He'd been to larger cities on Vemion, and they made his head spin.

Neve looked up and gasped. Pine leaned in next to her to see what she was looking at.

Two dragons in flight overhead, their paths weaving beside and around one another. Showing off. He'd seen it a hundred times, and it was nothing special. But Neve followed their every move with excitement, unable to suppress the sounds of joy and wonder that came out of her mouth.

He didn't watch the dragons. He watched her.

What had she done to him? How had she made it that he couldn't look away? Did they have sorcery on her planet? Some dark and enchanting magic that could hold a dragon in its spell?

It would be easy to blame this on witchcraft, but Pine didn't think it was anything so simple. Or complicated.

He wanted her. He'd wanted her from the moment she stepped off her ship.

He'd managed to pull away from that kiss, but the effort had nearly brought him to his knees. If she kissed him again, there was no pulling back. Not now that he had two weeks with her.

The dragons disappeared behind some clouds, but by then they'd arrived outside the market, and the transport came to a stop.

The market was bordered by a fence made of tree branches except for red winter fruits that clung to a few twigs here and there. He knew from experience that eating the fruit would lead to a stomachache, and he would have warned Neve, but she didn't reach for it. Perhaps she had more restraint than he'd had as a boy.

Inside small stalls circled a square where a bonfire roared and families sat on benches or in small clusters, clutching cider and mulled wine as snow fell gently around them. A quartet in one corner played winter-themed tunes, old songs he remembered singing in the nursery with his nanny.

"So what's the winter story?" Neve asked. "What makes it so special?" She walked beside him as he made his way to a drinks vendor and ordered two ciders. Despite the temptation of the wine, Pine resisted. It was still a bit early for that.

"It's the winter festival," he said, handing her a steaming cider in a ceramic mug. "The harvest has died, ready to be born anew. Dragons gather together for warmth and safety. And we eat what food we've managed to save to spite the frost and dare nature not to provide us with a bounty next year."

"You dare nature not to bless your harvest?"

"Is that not how you do it?" He could hear why it might sound strange to someone unfamiliar with the practices on Vemion, but Pine had celebrated the winter rites every year, and they brought a solemn and defiant kind of comfort. "We're dragons; we don't beg anyone for anything."

"And what do you do to nature if she doesn't bless the harvest?" Neve asked.

"She?"

The human beside him gave him a look. "Everyone knows nature's a woman."

"Nature is far too complex to be any one gender. It's a force, not a person." Nature personified would be something terrible to behold.

For some reason, that made Neve laugh. She finished her cider and put her mug down on a small table full of dirty mugs before twining her arm with his. "Tell me more."