Heartflame (Widdershins #8) - E-Book

Quill:
I don't chase legends. I chase mileage.
Run the course, go to class, keep my head down. Graduate, go home, and drag my parents' failing potion shop into this century. That's the plan. I've never needed a better one.
Then Aeron Pyre walks through the gates.
A red dragon — the first at Widdershins in two hundred years, grandson of the dragon who runs the Elder Council, and so far up his own tail he can't see daylight. The entire academy loses its mind over him. But I want nothing to do with him.
Apparently that makes me the most interesting person on campus, because now he's on my running route. Across the table in the library. In the doorway of every room I walk into, smirking like he already knows how this ends.
He says he's going to make me beg for it. What he won't say is why he's started looking at me like I'm something he's terrified of losing.
Aeron:
Dragons choose once. One mate, one time, out of a life that runs for centuries.
I’m eighty-five, practically a teenage, and planning to spend the next eighty exactly like the first. No titles, no politics, no promises, no committment. Then I ended up in the dark with a mouthy ginger witch who hates everything about me, and a word surfaced in me like it had been waiting there since I hatched.
Mate.
He can't know. Not while he still thinks this is my ego talking, because the truth is so much worse than arrogance. If I'm right, he belongs to me for the rest of his life.
And a witch's life is a blink to a dragon.
The academy treats me like a trophy. My grandfather treats me like a message. Quill Aster is the only person here who has never wanted a single thing from me, and that is exactly how I know he’s my mate.
And if that wasn’t enough, now something is testing the wards at Widdershins. Every breach comes harder than the last, every answer from the Elder Council gets thinner, and the people sworn to protect the students seem far more interested in keeping them quiet.
When the wards finally fail, what comes through isn't the enemy anyone prepared for. And the truth behind it is standing far closer to Aeron than either of them can survive believing.
Heartflame is a dark, high-heat MM paranormal academy romance — enemies to lovers, fated mates, obsessive pursuit, first time, size difference, touch-him-and-die protectiveness, and a hero everyone underestimates right up until he saves them all. Guaranteed HEA.

Excerpt from Chapter Four: Quill
“Have you seen that dragon guy around campus?” Greg asked me as we ran the course. He was hardly winded after mile two while I was fighting for my fucking life. “Everyone’s talking about him.”
I let out a long sigh. Or as close to a long one as I could manage while also trying to breathe. “Yeah, I have a class with him.”
“What?!” Greg glanced my way. “That’s awesome! What’s he like?”
“He’s a dick.”
Greg’s jaw fell open. “You… You can’t say that, Quill! His grandfather is leading the Elder Council!”
“I can and I will,” I huffed, shooting him a sideways glance. “The guy’s full of himself. He expects everyone to bend over backwards for him just because of who he is.”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“But nothing,” I said, pushing harder as we rounded a bend in the trail. The pine trees blurred past us, their needles soft beneath my feet. “Just because his grandfather is important doesn’t mean he gets to be an asshole to everyone he meets.”
“What did he do?” Greg asked, and I could hear the genuine curiosity in his voice.
“He literally ran into me after Magical Theory and didn’t even apologize. Just smiled at me like it was funny that my books went flying everywhere.”
“Maybe he didn’t realize—”
“He knew,” I said flatly. “He looked right at me and called me some stupid nickname, then he gave me this patronizing pat on the shoulder like I was some sort of idiot.”
Greg was quiet for a moment, his breathing steady and even while mine was still ragged. “I mean... maybe he was just trying to be friendly?”
“Friendly would be saying ‘sorry’ or ‘excuse me,’” I said. “Friendly would be helping me pick up my books instead of just walking away with some stupid grin.”
We hit mile three, and I felt that familiar burn start to creep back into my legs. Usually by this point I could push through it, but today the frustration from this conversation was making it harder. Everyone on campus was talking about this dragon and I just didn’t want to hear about it anymore.
“Did you tell him off?” Greg asked.
“No. I had better things to do.” I shouldn’t have let him get the last word like that. I should have said something sharp, something that would’ve wiped that smug expression off his scaled face. But instead I’d just stood there like an idiot while he strutted away like he owned the entire campus. I wouldn’t let that happen again.
We rounded the final stretch of the course, and I could see the stone marker coming into view. My legs were screaming now, but I pushed anyway, channeling all my irritation into raw speed. Greg kept pace with me effortlessly. Fucking Greg.