her waist. “If it were not, I would have stashed you somewhere safe, even had I been forced to send you to sleep.”
She widened her eyes at him, a little shocked, but anger stirred beneath the astonishment. “You can really do that?”
“Yes.” He sounded distant, matter-of-fact. Not paying attention to their conversation.
Isai wasn’t looking down at her, but out, over the lake. They had to walk around it, circling the entire lake. Finding the exact spot where Iulian had sacrificed his life in order to seal the book to the lake wouldn’t be easy. They were counting on the fact that she had a connection with Iulian and would pick up his trail when they came across it, and that Iulian’s blood would call to Isai’s. If they were wrong, and this hadn’t been the last place he’d come, she had no idea what they were going to do. The Sierras were a huge mountain range and finding Iulian’s resting place would be impossible.
“I can do that, too,” she said.
Isai scanned the rocks around the lake, and then the meadow, his senses and attention on making certain they were safe. That was his job, while hers was to pick up any psychic footprint Iulian had left behind. He was doing a better job than she was, and for some reason, she’d woken up annoyed. She sighed. Not annoyed. That wasn’t the truth. She rubbed her palm over the mark of the dragon. She should have told him everything she believed. It sounded ridiculous, even to her, but the thoughts kept coming into her head and she couldn’t keep them out. It was a good thing she didn’t have his full attention.
“You have my full attention,” Isai said, still not looking at her. He slid his hand down her hip to cover the hand over the mark of the Dragonseeker on her body. “And you cannot put me to sleep, even with your mage spells, sívamet. Not unless I give my consent.”
“Why would you think that?” she challenged, more because she didn’t want to think too much about why she was so disgruntled and out of sorts.
He pressed his hand over hers and then moved it up to cover her womb. Her heart jumped, and she looked up at him. His eyes met hers, sapphire blue, deeper than any color she’d ever seen. His eyes held knowledge, too much. She had to look away, feeling the inevitable burn of tears. She wasn’t going to cry in front of him. Not again. Not when it seemed to her that in every crisis, that was her first reaction.
“This is not a crisis,” he murmured. He curled his fingers around hers, took her hand off her dragon and brought her fingertips to his lips.
She snuck another quick peek at him, her heart pounding so hard it hurt. Once again, he was scanning the entire area around them. Their six shadow cats had spread out under orders from Isai. He was certain they would be attacked the moment they found the book. She didn’t feel eyes on them, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t anyone or anything watching them. She supposed the smart thing to do would be to hang back, let them find the book and then attack.
“Are we going to talk about it?”
“No.” Her voice was tight. She couldn’t help it. She was turning into one of those girls. Needy. Leaning on him. And now she’d trapped him.
“Do you remember how it felt when I put you over my knees and spanked your rather superb bottom?”
There was something in his voice, an equal tightness. She glanced up warily, but he was looking over the lake again.
“Yes.” She bit her lip and kept her head down, staring at the icy ground. The blades of grass looked as if they were lined with frost, lending them a silvery appearance. Even though it was cold, and the wind was really kicking up a fuss, it was a beautiful world to be sharing with a man she was falling in love with. Or maybe she was already gone. Completely. Maybe she loved him so much she was afraid they would lose their chance at a life together, because he would never stop doing what he thought was right.
“I suggest that you bring that memory up and revisit it. Let yourself feel it all over again.”