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current demeanor, or softness. This was all about establishing dominance. His entire attitude demanded that she prove herself.
    Bowing her head, she knelt to open her pack and pull out the packets of gold and jewels. Gathering them in her arms, she walked toward him. About fifteen feet away, she slowed to a stop. When she made as if to kneel, Dragos said, “Bring it closer.”
    Obediently, she took a few steps closer. The force of his personality pressed against her skin. His Power boiled around his physical form like an invisible corona, and despite the gravity of the situation, the desperate animal inside of her drew comfort from his closeness and calmed.
    “Closer,” the dragon said again, watching her intently.
    He was lethally unpredictable, easily the most dangerous creature she had ever known or met, and at the moment, he did not remember he loved her.
    She was supposed to stay wary of him, but it was too hard to maintain when she was so tired and it went against every one of her instincts. With a sigh, she approached until she could set the packets on the ground between his outstretched forelegs.
    When she straightened, he lowered his head until the large curve of his nostrils stopped a few inches from her hair. They stood like that for some time, breathing quietly. As she looked up into one immense, molten eye, she wanted very badly to stroke his muzzle, or to take out her small penknife, slice the palm of her hand and lay it against that terrible, half-healed wound on his brow.
    That wound had taken everything from her. No matter how suspiciously or aggressively Dragos treated her at the moment, she never forgot—that wound was the real enemy.
    But she didn’t dare go quite that far, not without his express permission. If she made a mistake and pushed him too far, he could lash out at her again, and they would both lose everything.
    “Now, tell me about this ‘horrible misunderstanding,’” he ordered.
    At a loss, she glanced around the clearing. How could she explain what had happened in such a way that the dragon could accept it? So much depended on concepts and relationships built over centuries.
    He was Lord of the Wyr demesne, the head of a multibillion-dollar corporation, and a husband, mate and father, and yet earlier, the dragon didn’t even know his own name.
    Taking in a deep breath, she said in a cautious, low voice, “It wasn’t any kind of attack. I swear it. You’ll know that for yourself, as soon as you remember more.”
    “If it wasn’t an attack, then what was it?”
    “An accident,” she whispered. She wiped her cheeks with both hands. “A terrible, terrible accident. You were helping with building a project, and you were all working together.”
    It was impossible to tell if he believed her. The dragon’s face remained expressionless. “How did this accident occur?”
    The evening before, she had asked the very same thing of Aryal, but she had only half comprehended the answer.
    Now, she said, “I don’t know all the details of what happened, but what I do know is that you were setting off a series of small, controlled explosions in a large section of bedrock that bordered a lake.”
    “Why?” He watched her closely.
    “The site is where a large building is going to be constructed, so the area needs to be level in certain places. But there was a buried fault line in the rock nobody knew was there. It looked solid when it was inspected, but it wasn’t. You—along with a couple of other men—you all thought you were safe where you were standing, around one edge of the bluff.”
    She paused, but he said nothing, his steady breathing stirring her hair. Lacing her fingers together, she twisted her hands and continued, “When the explosion went off, the force of it blew through the fault line, and blasted out where you were standing. They call that kind of accident ‘flyrock’ in construction and quarry blasting—it’s material projected outside a declared danger zone. At