Chapter 1403: My Dragon Husband, At Last

The woman laughed genuinely this time, and the sound of her laugh relaxed something in him despite every warning still quietly moving beneath his thoughts:

"I should’ve been paying attention too," Phei admitted before extending his hand. "I’m—"

Eleanor placed hers inside it before he could finish: "Phei Ryujin Tiamat."

His smile paused.

"I know you." Her hand remained within his, and Phei did not immediately let go either. "And most importantly we’ve met before, after all." she explained.

That finally made him search her face properly, and while his memory worked to search her from anywhere, Eleanor found herself committing the profoundly stupid mistake of concentrating on their joined hands:

His palm was warm, his grip easy and the sensation far too familiar for something supposedly new. Her dreams had always exaggerated touch until she woke half-convinced there should be evidence of things that never happened, yet the real Phei felt frighteningly close to those memories.

Even the simple brush of his thumb against her hand carried a small pleasure completely disproportionate to the gesture.

’His hands really feel like that.’ Her pulse quickened. ’Bloody hell.’

His scent continued to wash over her again and made the situation intoxicatingly easy to get lost in, because her body had been trained by dreams to associate it with absolutely nothing respectable.

"We have?" Phei finally asked.

Eleanor blinked herself back into reality and nodded. "I suppose I can’t blame you for forgetting. I bumped into you then too." She gave a soft embarrassed laugh as his eyebrows rose. "Actually, hearing myself say that makes this substantially wya bad that it should be. Apparently physically colliding with you is becoming a personal tradition of mine."

Phei’s smile widened. "Yeah, I guess it is. Although if I were being my usual poetic self, I’d probably claim this was fate."

Behind him, Eira immediately brightened through their bond. {There he is. My flirty Master survived the frozen hell after all.}

Phei ignored Eira while Eleanor smiled. "Fate?"

"Most fate is probably nothing dramatic. Just tiny things arranging for two people to occupy the same stupid piece of floor at the same stupid time. Doing it twice in practically identical fashion feels suspiciously committed. Yes fate." He replied.

"That is horribly cheesy." She laughed.

"I made you laugh."

"I can appreciate terrible jest material; cheesy ones mostly."

Phei grinned. "See? Fate."

Eleanor brushed several strands away from her face, and the ordinary movement somehow made him pay attention again. "Though I wouldn’t call the first encounter terribly romantic. You assumed I was one of your admirers fan-girlspretending to bump into you."

Phei stared at her. "I did?"

"You did. You were with that silver-haired woman, you know—?"

Recognition slowly surfaced and Phei winced faintly. "Oh. Yeah, right. I remember now; it was the Sovereign Tower right? In my defense, people actually did that to me far too often back then."

"So you weren’t merely insufferably full of yourself?"

"I was also that."

Eleanor laughed.

Phei gave her a mock-regretful look: "Damn. So I already ruined our first meeting impression."

"Not at all. Believe me, I understand. I’ve had similar incidents myself, although thankfully most of mine were confined to school and university. People become remarkably inventive when they want attention and desperately want to pretend they don’t."

Phei’s gaze travelled over her slowly enough that Eleanor noticed and immediately became warmer beneath it. "I can see why those poor souls wanted your recognition."

She blinked. "Compliments already?"

"Is it working?"

"No but I respect the effort."

"I’ll take pity points."

That earned another laugh, and the conversation settled into something strangely effortless. Phei remained aware that he should probably be far more suspicious, but maintaining maximum battle readiness became difficult when the apparent threat kept laughing at his stupid jokes in her beautiful British accent. Eira had no such weakness. She continued watching although Eleanor never gave her exactly the reason she needed to remain suspicious.

Phei muttered something beneath his breath about apparently possessing a terrible habit of encouraging dangerous women, and Eleanor answered without thinking, "You always—" before stopping so abruptly that the unfinished words seemed to remain hanging between them.

Phei’s eyes sharpened.

Eira became very still.

Eleanor’s mind screamed at her while she recovered with admirable speed. "You always seem like the sort who would encourage dangerous women."

Phei studied her face. "Do I?"

"Very much."

Inside his mind, Eira’s voice became almost gleefully suspicious. {She changed that sentence.}

"Oh gee, thanks genius I didn’t see that at all."

{She was going to say you always do something.}

"I noticed, Eira. Do you understand sarcasm?"

{Just checking whether all that beauty had finally occupied the space where your brain used to be.}

Phei mentally told her to fuck off, while Eleanor smiled as though nothing had happened. The little slip settled comfortably inside his suspicion, but curiously enough, he still did not release her hand.

"Still," Phei said after a moment, "running into you again here of all places is one hell of a coincidence."

"You said fate, remember?"

"Right. Forgive me. Dramatic hopeless-romantic Phei was speaking. Apparently sensible me briefly regained control."

"I rather prefer the dramatic one."

Phei smiled. "Dangerous admission."

"Why?"

"It’s some sort of encouragement."

Eleanor laughed softly, although the word encouragement acquired extremely unfortunate meanings when her traitorous mind supplied images from dreams where encouraging Phei had usually resulted in waking several hours later flushed, aching with phantom memories and needing a very cold shower.

She tightened her fingers around his almost unconsciously, and Phei noticed.

"So," he said eventually, his thumb brushing once over the back of her hand, "what’s your name, if you don’t mind me asking, my beautiful lady?"

Eleanor’s composure developed another crack. "Beautiful lady?"

"Too much?"

"Quite."

"Still not working?"

"No. But persistent."

"One of my better qualities."

"That remains to be proven."

Phei laughed. "Name?"

"Eleanor," she finally said, warmth lingering across her cheeks. "Eleanor WitchBourne."

Phei paused.

Of course.

Of fucking course.

The one supposedly normal mortal woman his True Void Sense had somehow failed to notice was named WitchBourne.

Why could his life never give him a Susan Miller?

Why did every suspicious person arrive carrying a surname that sounded as though their ancestors had either founded an occult order, been burned by one or personally argued with the moon?

Phei kept every bit of that inside his head and simply repeated: "Eleanor WitchBourne."

She smiled, outwardly composed now despite the warmth still colouring her face, while inside her mind dignity was losing badly against the increasingly vivid awareness that her Dragon husband from countless obscene dreams stood directly in front of her in flesh and blood, smelling even more intoxicating than dream-memory had ever managed to preserve.

’He doesn’t remember me.’ The thought should have hurt.

Strangely, it didn’t.

Dream-Phei always knew her. Real Phei did not.

That difference should have frightened her more than it did, yet standing this close to him, Eleanor felt the same impossible recognition that greeted her inside every dream. Her body knew his scent. Her pulse knew his presence. Something embarrassingly intimate inside her reacted to the cadence of his voice, the warmth of his hand and the sheer pressure of him before conscious thought could intervene.

She had spent too many nights waking from dreams where Phei had made her forget practically every dignified word in the English language.

Meeting him in person was making the problem considerably worse.

’Gods, you’re even more beautiful when you’re real; more so now.’

Her eyes rose briefly toward his mouth.

She remembered those lips.

Far too well for a woman who had technically never kissed them.

Phei caught the glance, and Eleanor immediately looked back into his eyes with the outward dignity of someone who had absolutely not just remembered being kissed senseless beneath three different imaginary moons.

Eira caught that too.

{Master.}

"What now?"

{Either this woman is the strangest mortal alive, or somebody has been lying to reality again.}

Phei could not argue.

He finally released Eleanor’s hand, although something about the simple separation made her fingers feel strangely empty afterward. "Well, Eleanor WitchBourne," he said, still smiling, "hopefully our third meeting doesn’t involve you physically attacking me with your forehead."

"I’ll do my best, though apparently fate has established a theme."

"There she goes using my cheesy line."

"I said I respected the effort. I never said I wouldn’t steal it."

Phei chuckled and began moving away while Eleanor watched him go. White hair, broader shoulders, that impossible presence following him down the corridor restrained enough that ordinary people would never understand why the air seemed different around him, all of it closer than ever to the Dragon from her dreams.

’Almost there, Eleanor.’

Her smile slowly softened as Phei glanced back once, caught her still watching and gave her an easy smile before continuing onward. Eleanor’s heart thudded hard enough to annoy her, heat curling through her again from nothing more than that ridiculous smile, and she touched the hand he had been holding while releasing a quiet breath.

’You don’t know me yet, darling, and still here I am, about to become engaged to another man. A man I don’t even love; not the way I love you. Gods, Father would kill me if he ever discovered I’d gone and fallen in love with someone who only exists in my dreams."

That was all right.

Every night she slept, somewhere beyond waking reality, her Cosmic Dragon husband remembered exactly how to find her, exactly how to make her laugh, exactly how to make her furious and very definitely exactly how to leave her waking with memories no dream should have been capable of creating.

None of them could envision the chaos they were about to ensue on the island.