of blood, and the heat of her body. He could smell the warm rich blood that coursed through her veins, so close. He couldn’t even glance at the length of her throat, pale against her velvet scarf but just as smooth and soft. His teeth would sink in easily, without resistance, and she’d gasp. She might cry out but not for long, and no one would hear her. Not here. He could feast to his heart’s content and arrive at the dragon’s lair, sated, with his thoughts clear.
He clenched one fist and fixed his gaze on the passing scenery without really seeing it.
“Do you believe in true love?” Lynsay asked abruptly. “Or in there being one perfect partner out there for everyone?” She was concentrating on the road, so she missed Sebastian’s poisonous sidelong glance.
“No,” he said flatly. “It’s romantic drivel.”
She smiled. “That’s what I think, too. The idea that there’s one person out there who’s your perfect mate just seems a little far-fetched. It also makes dating into a kind of a treasure hunt.” She laughed under her breath. “And as the kid who never ever found the prize, that idea doesn’t appeal to me. Who wants to be a loser at love?”
Sebastian allowed himself a small grunt, which could have been interpreted as agreement or encouragement. Lynsay was turning onto a smaller lane so this ordeal couldn’t last much longer. The road became a bit bumpier and there was no other traffic. The thirst raged and he clenched the other fist in his bid for control.
Not much farther.
Lynsay nodded, clearly unaware of the threat beside her. “But when the person you love believes in all that stuff, things can get complicated.”
“How so?” Sebastian asked, for the sake of distraction as much as anything else.
“Well, I guess only if you fall short. It’s the worst thing in the world to be told that you’re not the One.”
“Surely not the very worst thing,” Sebastian muttered. “You could be attacked and left for dead at the side of a quiet country road, for example.”
To his surprise, she laughed at what could have been taken as a warning. Why were mortals so foolish with their trust? “Okay, you’re right. Not the worst thing, but it’s bad. You’re in love and he’s apparently not, even though you thought everything was going so well.”
“How can you be sure of that?” Sebastian turned to watch her, hearing the yearning in her voice. He felt a strange commonality with this mortal, one that wasn’t entirely welcome.
“Because he dumped me. He said I wasn’t the one. He said he preferred to wait.” She geared down and her voice dropped low. “As if I wasn’t good enough.”
Sebastian frowned. He looked out the window at nothing and reminded himself that her business wasn’t his business. Her broken heart certainly wasn’t his problem. But he knew the Pyr and their code of honor and he could connect the dots.
“You love Hadrian MacEwan,” he guessed.
“Oh, God, yes,” she said with such feeling that even Sebastian’s weary heart clenched.
It really wasn’t his problem.
He was the last individual in the world to become an agony aunt or give advice on matters of the heart. He had no empathy and didn’t care.
But he felt her ache and oddly enough, it found a resonance within him.
Sebastian meant to sigh, but instead, he found himself talking. “Maybe he thought he wasn’t good enough,” he said, then wondered where that suggestion had come from. It had nothing to do with his relationship with Sylvia, certainly. Sebastian had no illusions that he was less than magnificent himself. He kept his gaze fixed on what passed for a road ahead of the car, well aware that Lynsay was studying him.
“You think so?”
“It’s always possible. Some men are idealists. Some think that love should bring more than sexual satisfaction and contentment, that it should be a pairing of opposites, or a partnership of complementary strengths. Some think that a union should be more than the sum of the parts, that it should exult each partner, making each better and stronger than before.”
He sounded like a propagandist for the Pyr and their wretched firestorm, which annoyed him. On the other hand, he understood why Hadrian had acted as he had. He’d heard the argument before. The irony was that Hadrian might actually have loved Lynsay, but the spark of the firestorm and appearance of his destined mate would have compelled him to turn away from her anyway. Had he anticipated it?