“Avalore.Ava-lore.”She broke it down as if it should mean something to him.
Avalore.He admitted he liked her name but arched an eyebrow at her tone.“It’s nice.”
She sighed.“Why do you look like it’s the first time you’ve heard it when you keep calling me Little Lore...most call me Ava, though.And I haven’t been called little since I was a toddler.”She mumbled the last part as she raised the glass to her lips.Avalore drank more than half the water before returning the glass to the tray, then lifted the spoon from the dish.
Her comment clarified her misunderstanding.“I call you Lure.L.U.R.E.”As in to draw in, attract something or...someone.He kept the definition to himself.“Compared to my size, you are small but built healthy in all the right ways, like a Drahkelle.”
Liekki could have bit off his tongue when he heard the words slip, but it didn’t stop him from taking a glance at the full spread of her hips and thighs that the sheet accentuated.
Settling back against the wall, he lifted his gaze and met Avalore’s again.Her eyes appeared more green than brown as she stared at him, taking in his words.
It was her turn to frown, but he cut off the question before she could ask and moved to a more important one of his own.“How did you get into our territory?Did your government transport you in?Want you to spy on my people?”
“No.”Adamant, she shook her head.“They’re the reason I escaped.I’m no spy.”
She ate more.
“Are you sick?Do you have the human virus?”Liekki already knew the answer.The sickness would have tainted the air around her and been present in her sweat when he licked her.
Avalore took two more bites before she spoke.
He was patient.He wouldn’t begrudge the sustenance Avalore clearly needed.
“I’m not ill.”An indistinct shadow crossed her features, then was gone.
Then, it doesn’t make sense for her to have the mark.Was the human government playing games?Marking random humans...for what purpose?
“How many more of you did they release into the territories?”
“Release?”She shoved the bowl away and sat back.“I told you, escaped.Mich and I ran from them.”
“Mich?”The growl came out fast and loud, executed by him and his dragon.Who the fuck is Mich.
With an arched brow, Avalore slowly and cautiously wrapped her hands around the hearthstone in her lap.
Even though she didn’t raise it, Liekki understood the warning.Nonplussed, he held his stance and waited.
“Mich is my friend.We got away from the lab...and your beast chasing us,” she declared with a chin lift.
“Mydragon wasn’tchasing you.”Liekki was fully aware of what his beast was doing in the forest.The dragon was introducing itself to its mate.He shook his head at the woman and dragon within.
“Well, dragon-tamer.Then it was something else in the lab after us.”She shivered as her eye drifted to a place over his shoulder far away while her fingers absently continued to caress the stone in her lap.
A groan filled his chest, and heat flared down into his groin, swelling it as he watched the movement of her hands around his hearthstone.If the woman knew how erotic her gesture was, Liekki was pretty sure she would stop.
“You didn’t see what it was?”he asked to draw her attention back to him.
She blinked away the vision and shifted her gaze to his face.Her hands stilled their movements.“No.I think Mich has seen it.”She shrugged.“We decided to split up in hopes we both would get away.But—but I don’t know if Mich got away and is safe.”
The room filled with her tension and trepidation over the person she’d fled with.
Liekki knew if the man came into Drahk territory looking for Avalore, he’d kill him.It didn’t matter that he wasn’t trying to take her as a mate, but he’d be damn if he allowed some human to claim her.Shoving aside his abnormal jealous thoughts, Liekki returned to the heart of the discussion.
“You have the mark.”Even though he hadn’t seen it when he disrobed her, he could smell it and sense the latent Drahk genetics pushed toward the surface.
“What mark?”She looked at her hands and arms and even rolled one shoulder and then the other forward as she tried to look at her back.When she saw nothing, she looked at him for clarification.
He crossed the room but stopped on the other side of the small table, holding remnants of her small meal.“Nowhere easily seen.It’d be at the apex of your thighs.”
