I pull the jacket tighter around me, the sweater I have layered underneath bunching, but it’s a useless gesture. The cold air invades anyway.
“I’ll wait while you get him. I won’t run off,” I say. He’s more likely to return to me as an icicle.
He must realize something to that effect because he shakes his head.
“Follow me,” he says. “If he’s displeased, he’ll just eat you.”
I huff a laugh but the shiver that travels through me is too violent to make it audible.
I follow behind him. If I thought the outside of the house was gorgeous, it’s nothing compared to the inside. Gold banisters on white veined marble, art nouveau mirrors heavy with filigree.
I’m so stunned by this short walk down the hallway that I don’t realize that we’ve reached a dark-wood carved door to what appears to be an office until the man stops me.
“Stay here.”
I nod, and he knocks on the heavy door before entering.
“Ben, do you have the numbers from Keller?” Kalos’s words muffle as the man who must be Ben closes the door behind him. I’m glad I no longer have an audience because I’m frozen to the spot.
Dear God, his voice. It’s as rumbly and deep as I remember. Maybe if I’d had more time and space it wouldn’t affect me as much as it does, but the memories that surface are too fresh. Him calling me little queen in hushed tones as he makes me beg, the warmth of his laugh when I’d surprise him, the snarling way he’d cut me down to size in the end.
I can’t do this.
I take a deep breath and squeeze the hand warmers that have gone cold in my jacket pockets. Those and the chill in my chest are a good reminder of why I’m here. I couldn’t even have a week of space because the troublemaker in my womb is already causing problems.
I have to do this. This isn’t for me. This is for us. The baby… and me. Because I don’t know if I’m going to survive otherwise.
The door whips open the next moment, and I tilt my head back to take in the fury on the too familiar, achingly beautiful face.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Kalos hisses.
His anger is outsized to the situation in my opinion, and he doesn’t even know the half of it.
“I need to speak with you.” I look at Ben, who must be Kalos’s assistant. “Alone.”
“Anything you need to say to me, you can say in front of Ben.”
Ben’s face remains expressionless, but I have the sense he’s surprised.
I shrug. Telling two strangers this news is only a little more awkward than telling one.
“Are you going to invite me in?” I ask, more to give myself time to think of exactly how to say what I need to than being offended that he’s stopped me in the hall like a child listening at doors.
Will our kid listen at doors? I internally groan. In this whole getting attached business and my confidence that I can actually raise a child, I forgot one very important fact.
I was a terror as a kid. Always getting into places I shouldn’t have and knowing way more than I was supposed to. Is this karma?
Kalos narrows his eyes and looks like he wants to snap me in half, but he opens the door wider, and I enter the office.
There’s a heavy masculine energy to the room. All carved wood, bookcases, and dark walls.
“Well?” Kalos prompts.
I really can’t stall much longer. “I’m pregnant.”
“Congratulations.”
I’m thrown off for a moment at his quick and decisive tone.
“It’s yours.”
I can’t watch his expression, so I glance at Ben whose mouth drops open in shock.
There’s no shock from the dragon. He laughs. It’s not the warm laugh he’d given against my skin that night, this is cruel and sharp. “Your boldness truly knows no bounds.”
He doesn’t believe me.
I shrug momentarily at a loss for what to say. I’d anticipated disbelief, but not this confident cruelty.
“It’s true—”
“You return to the scene of your crime and proclaim the impossible. Perhaps you do want me to call the Council to report you.”
I blink, and terror flashes through me. If the Council takes me into custody, I’m not going to last long.
My heart starts to race, and it’s harder to breathe. It’s been difficult to keep calm, but when I get stressed, I lose more body heat. Body heat I can’t afford to lose. It’s already hard to keep my eyes open. My fingers are past numb, and I’d put on lipstick to hide the blue tint to my lips from passersby before coming here.
It hadn’t taken long after discovering the pregnancy to recognize that the little terror in my belly is doing something to throw my temperature off. It’s not just my temperature. It sucks heat away from everything. Hot baths only stay that way for a moment. The hand warmers in my pocket lasted an hour instead of the twelve they proclaim.
My shivering keeps me awake at night. I throw up anything I try to eat that isn’t above room temperature.
And it’s only getting more severe.
“You don’t understand,” I say, trying to keep calm. “I need help—”
“Perhaps go to the actual person who got you with child then and leave me alone,” he ends on a growl. The laugh is gone. His posture is casual, but his eyes show a banked rage I can’t even begin to understand.
My vision goes blurry at the edges.
“Do you think I want it to be yours?” I whisper. There’s the flicker of something in Kalos’s gaze, but I’m trembling with anger that I wish would give me warmth. “I haven’t slept with anyone else for the last year. If there were any other candidates, I’d go there first. I know exactly what you think of me because you told me so.”
“It’s impossible—”
“I don’t care!” I cut him off. The edges of my vision are getting darker, and it only makes my fear worse. “It doesn’t matter how it happened, I only know it did and that something is wrong.”
Kalos’s posture changes. He almost looks worried. The room shifts back and forth, and I blink to dispel the sway. Fuck. He’s finally taking me seriously, and now it’s too late.
“Let’s have you sit down, and Ben can get you something. Maybe some water or something to eat,” Kalos starts, but his voice starts to dampen, and I hear him curse as the darkness at the edge of my vision claims me.
7
KALOS
I CATCH her before she falls to the floor.
My thief.
My little liar.
I swallow, worried. Or not actually a liar.
Impossible.
Her body lacks any of the warmth that it should have, and she’s shivering. I place my hand on her face and curse. Her skin is like ice. I scoop her into my arms and sit us on the couch. I pull off her jacket and check under the sweater to make sure she has another layer before removing that as well.
“What does she need? A healer?” Ben asks.
“Grab me a blanket,” I say. She’s too cold for a human. I remove my own suit jacket and bring her to my chest. I press our bodies together and will my heat into her. Because of what I am, I run hot. Fire is my element, and I can burn down cities or do something as small as heating the woman on my lap.