The warmth at his back deepened, gentle and unwavering, a silken promise that whispered of course, of course, whatever you need. Marcus's jaw unlocked by half a notch. His shoulders dropped a fraction.
His shoulders dropped another notch.
Behind him, Paige and Brielle watched the dragon with an entirely different flavor of envy — softer, almost wistful.
They had not been raised to view those women as property to be claimed. They had been raised to see them as unreachable constellations: the Paradise Princesses whose very existence had birthed their private chat group.
Sierra, Maddie, Elena — the girls Paige and Brielle had quietly aspired to become.
The dragon standing at the radiant center of all that pre-existing aspiration, glowing with whatever invisible gravity made hardened hotel staff bow without payment or prompting, was not a thief in their eyes.
He was simply… there. Like gravity. Like weather.
A new, permanent law of the social cosmos.
