“I don’t want any trouble. I really don’t. I can call?—”
He shook his head again, more firmly this time. The woman pressed her free hand against her eyes and took a deep breath. She looked terribly distressed, which only agitated him further.
If you’d come here,he silently told her,I’d help. My wings can keep you warm and safe. Everything will be fine. Come, little thing, and do as your Isand commands.
The hole in the roof had turned the barn into something of a wind tunnel. The beginnings of a storm whipped around her. His tough skin could take it, but her soft flesh couldn’t. She didn’t even have proper clothing on.
The more he looked at her, the more confused he became. He had no idea where he was, let alone how she’d ended up there with him dressed in little more than her pajamas. His heartbeat accelerated. That beast stirred with a great, furious growl in the back of his mind.
Dizziness made his vision swim. Growing increasinglyagitated, Taevas silently commanded her,Come to me now. I order you to return to me!
Oblivious, she said, “Look, you need medical attention. Even if you aren’t here to hurt me, Ineedto call someone. You’ve got cuts everywhere, and youlooksick.”
Sick?Spots peppered his view of her. Taevas shuddered.I don’t get sick. It’s only the drugs. I’ll shake it off. I have to.
The edges of his already blurry mind had begun to fade. Taevas fought it hard, some part of him screaming in the dark to hold on, to stay alert, that this was the most important thing he’d ever done and he couldn’t miss a moment, but it was fruitless.
He was fairly certain he hadn’t been ill in decades, but he strongly suspected that the woman was right. A feverish heat crept over him and both sets of his eyelids grew heavy.
The last of his strength evaporated from his limbs. Taevas’s neck slumped and his wings folded haphazardly against his back. Resting his chin on the floor, he strained to keep his gaze fixed on the woman. She looked rather more alarmed than she had before.
Lowering her makeshift weapon, she took several halting steps toward him. “Hey,” she called, voice gone an octave higher. “Hey, don’t go to sleep!”
He tried to listen to her. He really did. It was little use. Taevas made a clicking sound deep in his throat — an apology and a stern order to stay near.
His eyes slid shut, but he was still conscious enough to be startled when a shaking hand patted his leathery cheek. Her voice came from a distance. “Is there some reason you don’t want me to call for help?”
Taevas managed the smallest nod. The woman’s sharp inhalation was loud in the lull between gusts of wind.
There was another tentative touch. Just fingertips glancing over the curve of his snout before they disappeared as quickly as they’d come. In a more hushed voice, she asked, “Are you in danger?”
Yes,he thought, unable to manage even a nod. Perhaps hemade some sound of affirmation, but he couldn’t be sure. Darkness eased over him, tender and merciful in its escape, as those gentle hands returned to stroke his cheek.
Chapter Four
Taevas woketo the sound of a door swinging open on rusty hinges. He didn’t recall having fallen asleep, and it felt as though he awoke with a terrible jolt, but in fact he didn’t move at all. He lay partially on his side in the dust, his normally powerful limbs useless. All he could do was crack his eyes open in time to see a woman silhouetted against blinding light.
It took him a moment to recognize her, and not just because his mind was addled. She’d washed and changed since he closed his eyes what felt like a moment ago. Though she was still bruised and had a cut on her brow, her skin was scrubbed clean of blood and filth.
She wore a fine linen dress belted at the waist and neat little boots that had gone out of style a century past. One knee was badly bruised and swollen beneath the hem of her olive-green dress. Dark splatters decorated her shoulders and the slopes of her heavy bosom.
Rain,he thought, scenting the air. Droplets clung to the stray curls around her brow, too. Her dark hair was secured behind her head with a length of ribbon that appeared to snake in and out of her fascinating curls.
She was disarmingly lovely — even staring at him with thatgrim expression. Nothing but soft curves and even softer brown skin, she looked like something otherworldly against the backdrop of squalor and decay of the barn.
That thought roused him a bit more.Where am I?
The woman didn’t appear to notice he’d awoken. She was busy shutting the huge barn door with one hand, her other occupied with a comically oversized basket. When the door closed, he was startled to realize she’d built a large fire in the center of the floor. It was carefully ringed with stones and the smoke escaped through the collapsed portion of the ceiling.
She builtmea fire?
It was a humbling thing for a powerful dragon, especially when he realized he needed it. Taevas was wracked with shivers. To him, it felt as though the temperature had dropped fifty degrees between one blink in the next.
The fire filled the building with flickering light and just a little bit of dry heat. He noticed she’d positioned it slightly closer to him rather than the true center of the room. A pang of feeling struck him — gratitude, certainly, but also mourning for a time when his parents stoked the fire to keep him warm at night.
It’d been a very long time since he thought of that old life. It seemed odd to him that those memories, best left in the past, would resurface when he couldn’t even recall what had happened the day before.
The woman still didn’t notice him. She hurried across the floor with her basket, her brow furrowed and her gaze down. It was a marked contrast from how she acted before, he thought. The memory was fuzzy, but he knew she’d been afraid of him.
