Shovia chuckled. "Serious? No. We're scratching each other's itches, that's all."
I wasn't sure she was being entirely truthful. I didn't think she was lying, of course, but she might not be ready to acknowledge her feelings for Codric. There had been moments when I'd caught her looking at him with fondness and appreciation that I hadn't seen her bestowing on anyone else she'd dated.
Still, I wasn't about to push.
"What about you and Alar?" she asked, turning the tables on me. "How serious is it?"
I thought of our journey up Mount Hope, of the conversations we'd had, the way he'd supported me throughmy fears while contending with his own challenges. The kiss we'd just shared had been electric, certainly, but it felt like the culmination of something that had been building between us for a while and was founded on more than just physical attraction. I admired and respected Alar, and he seemed to admire and respect me. That was a good foundation to build a relationship on.
"It's more," I said softly. "For both of us."
"I'm glad." Shovia sighed. "Well, best of luck with your intensely adorable romance. I'm going to sleep."
I smiled at her apt characterization. There was an intensity to Alar that both drew me in and occasionally unsettled me. He noticed and analyzed everything, which was a good trait to have, but sometimes it made him appear aloof, disengaged.
I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but my body still hummed with lingering awareness, an unfulfilled need that made it impossible to relax. Antsy, Shovia had called it, and I now understood what she'd meant by that.
Every time I closed my eyes, I felt Alar's hands on me again, his lips tracing a path down my throat, the solid weight of his body pressing mine into the cushions. Heat pooled low in my abdomen at the memory, and I shifted restlessly beneath my blankets.
Across the room, Shovia's breathing had already deepened into the rhythm of sleep, and I finally dared to reach with my fingers where I was starved for touch.
"Your thoughts are very loud, Little Warrior,"a familiar rumbling voice startled me, and I immediately pulled my hand out of my pajama pants.
Oh, dear Elu. Onyx had heard my naughty thoughts, and if he had, other dragons might have as well.
“Get out of my head, Onyx. I mean it.And I don't care if my tone of voice offends you. It's rude to eavesdrop on people's private thoughts.”
"I'm not offended, Little Warrior, but your thoughts are so loud that I can't help but hear them. You need to learn when to open a channel and when to close it. You leave yours open, so when you have intense thoughts, I hear them."
I was mortified. “Did you hear my thoughts from before? When I was with Alar?”
He did that chuffing sound that I'd learned to interpret as a dragon chuckle."I did, but don't worry about it. I don't mind."
I was going to die. “Who else heard me?”
"No one. Just me."
“Tell me the truth, Onyx.”
"I never lie, little one. We have a connection, you and I. Perhaps you opened a channel to me and never figured out how to close it properly. You should practice doing that."
I pressed my hands to my burning cheeks in the darkness. “Are you sure about no one else hearing my loud thoughts?”
"I am,"Onyx said."You need to be in physical proximity to a dragon or form some kind of connection to communicate that easily. Otherwise, all dragons would be in each other's minds constantly, and that would be terrible."
His explanation made sense, and the relief I felt was overwhelming, but I was still embarrassed as hell. “I didn't consider that,”I admitted. “But you're right. It would be chaos if every dragon could hear all the other dragons' thoughts.”
"Indeed. We value our mental privacy as much as humans do."There was a pause."You must learn to shield your mind. Your gift makes you more receptive to dragons, but evidently, also more projective."
“Commander Ravel told me to imagine a trap door going down to shield my mind, but I haven't had time to practice it yet.”
"No better time than the present,"Onyx said."Try again now. Imagine a barrier between your thoughts and the outside world and then think something naughty and ask me if I heard it."
I wasn't about to think anything of the kind. The excitement was gone, burned off in a blaze of embarrassment.
I closed my eyes, concentrating on visualizing a trap door in my mind that could slam shut when I didn't want my thoughts to be accessible.
"Good,"Onyx encouraged."Now close the door and hold that image as I attempt to communicate with you."
