It was an unspeakable relief when the dragon drew back. Perhaps the flames would come, but she didn’t think she was in immediate danger of being eaten if it was moving like that. The fact that she had a preference for flame over becoming dinner was something that would have to be examined later.
She couldn’t see the rest of the dragon’s massive body, but she could feel the air shift as they moved. Old furniture, farm equipment, and debris clattered to the ground as the dragon made itself comfortable in the darkest part of the barn, away from the hole in the roof. All the while, Alashiya watched, unblinking and still, from her place on the floor. Outside, the owl let out another low, unbothered hoot.
Just when she’d begun to wonder if the dragon had somehow forgotten about its prey, they lowered their head again.
“Don’t,” she whispered, soft as a breath. She was too proud to beg for her life, but the word slipped out, yanked out by that hook in her chest.
There was no way of knowing if the dragon listened to her or not, but they didn’t eat her. They gingerly pinched her ruined cover-up between their teeth once more and dragged her slowly across the filthy floor. Talons, massive and deadly, closed around her as they tucked her against their wounded breast. They caged her there, allowing virtually no wiggle-room as they settled down onto their haunches.
Something slithered across the floor, drawing itself in a circle behind her.Their tail,she suspected.
There was another great movement of air, a fluttering noise, and then the peculiar sensation of being enclosed came over her. What little light there was in the barn disappeared in an instant. The sound of its thundering heart was a drumbeat against her ear. For a split second, she thought it was her own panicked heartbeat, but it was far, far too loud.
The dragon, apparently satisfied with their arrangement, dropped its bloodied head onto the floor and closed its eyes, leaving Alashiya to stare into the darkness, trapped in its claws.
Chapter Three
Magic saturatedthe air in his lungs, wind howled through the gaps between old wooden boards, and Taevas was pretty sure that something was wrong with him.
His body hurt in too many places to count. The air was warm and moist in his nostrils, and a great many scents assailed him from all sides. Breathing was a problem, though he couldn’t rightly explain why.
Thoughts were fleeting and disconnected. Everytime he thought he had a handle on a thread, it snapped and the pieces fluttered away into the ether.
Frequently, a warm wind carrying droplets of water would whip through his hiding spot and vibrate the sensitive membranes of his wings. He didn’t mind. Dragons could take weather in all its extremes, and the warmth was better than the bitter cold of high altitude when he ached as much as he did.
But he couldn’t allow the rain within the circle of his mantled wings. That was imperative. It was an urgent, throbbing directive — not a thought, per se, but as natural an urge as breathing. Within his wings, it must not be wet or uncomfortable. It must be safe. He mustn’t squeeze too hard and be mindful of his tail, because something fragile lay there. His to guard, his to treasure.
The thought tickled something in the back of his mind. It was important, he was fairly certain.
Taevas tucked his snout closer to the fragrant thing in his arms. Thinking was exhausting.Hewas exhausted. He couldn’t remembernotbeing tired. He’d been ground down to dust, and now his body hurt too much to move, and all he wanted to do was sleep with the familiar, luscious scent of cypress and woman in his nose.
Woman?He flexed his wings, drawing them in just a little closer.I don’t bring women back to my roost.
It was the first clear thought he’d had in… a long time. Itfeltlike a long time. It was impossible to say concretely, though, because everytime he tried to focus on exactly what had happened, where he was, or how long he’d been there, the thread snapped and fell away like all the rest.
But even when he decided to stop grasping broken threads, the scent kept drawing his thoughts in a more linear direction. He explored them tentatively and was immensely relieved to find something he could hold onto.Reallyhold onto.
Soft,he thought, rubbing the end of his bloody nose against the fragile thing in his talons.Soft like silk. Smells like home.
But he wasn’t home, and something about that was very, very wrong. His homes didn’t smell of green things and decay. There was perfect environmental conditioning that filtered out too much humidity and the extremes of weather. There was no wood dust left by generations of termites or hard, unclean concrete floors. His homes were ultra modern, sparkling clean, and high up in towers. He had two of them, one in New York and one on Drummond Island, and even when he was away from them, he only slept in the best hotels in the world.
He’d spent too many years living in hovels to stomach anything less than the best. It was one of the rare luxuries he allowed himself as Isand of the Draakonriik, and one he took seriously. A dragon’s pride was his roost and his heart was his nest. So why was he sleeping in the dirt?
More importantly, why wasshe?
Taevas lifted his head. He got the vague sense that it was early in the morning. The strangest impression came to him then, half-formed and fleeting: that it’d been a long time since he saw the sun.
Light, cool and bright, glowed through the thin membrane of his wings. It gave everything within their span a soft lavender glow — including the woman clutched possessively in his talons.
He didn’t recognize her. Even in his foggy state —drugs,he thought with a slow blink — he would’ve recognized the proud nose, the thick, dark curls, and those sad eyes. But at the same time, heknewher. He knew the scent of her flesh, her hair. He knew it mingled with the scent of himself from the deepest, softest parts of his nest. Something ancient and needy slithered in the back of his mind, a great beast awakening from slumber.
Peering at her, trying to force his brain to work through whatever had poisoned it, he was startled to at last notice she was looking back. Dark eyes watched him from beneath heavy, angular brows.
He was so used to the scent of congealed blood that he hadn’t noticed it until he gave her a proper look. She was covered in it. It was smeared in her curls, along the front of her thin nightgown, down the curve of one supple cheek. There were bruises on her golden brown skin. The front of her thin housecoat wasn’t just bloody. It was badly torn, too, revealing a lush shape covered in flimsy cotton.
Rage bubbled up his throat in boiling blue flame. Someone had hurt her. When?Who?
He tried to ask her, but all that came out was a furious growl. It was then that he realized he wasn’t in his bipedal form.Of course I’m not,he thought uneasily.But when did I last shift?He couldn’t remember that either. His memory was too slippery. There were too many of those damn broken threads.
