Sergei winked. “That’s a surprise.”
“And if I don’t want to go?”
He opened the driver’s side door and shrugged dismissively. Climbing in, he replied, “It’s not about what you want. It’s about what you need.” He gave her a stern look. “Pack a bag, Shiya. I’ll see you tonight.”
The roar of the engine was the only sound after that. Taevas stood there silently, shaking with rage, as the SUV pulled back onto the road and drove off at a reckless speed. Neitherhe nor Alashiya moved until it was completely out of sight. Even then, they waited until not even the sound of the engine reached them.
As soon as it died off, the potent magic that held him in place eased. “Shiya!”
She whirled around, her boot heel kicking up dust, and ran for him. It was only a handful of steps before she crashed into him, her arms curled tightly around his neck. They were pressed so close together, he could feel her heart racing against his own.
“How could youdothat?” she croaked, beating lightly at his shoulders. “What if he’d seen you? What if he’d smelled you or heard you or?—”
Taevas’s gaze roamed over the road as he hurried them back into the shadows of the trees, out of the blazing sun. Half dragging her and half stumbling himself, he walked them deeper and deeper into the woods. It didn’t matter where they were going, so long as he got her as far from that dragon as physically possible. If he could’ve, he would’ve flown away with her right then and there.
“Whatwasthat?” he demanded. “That’s one of the men who kidnapped me, Shiya. How did you end up in a car with him? What happened in town?”
“I don’t know! One minute I was asking Mike to borrow a car, and the next he’d caught up with me in the street and started talking like— He just grabbed me and told me he was going to drive me home. I didn’t know how to shake him off without making him more suspicious. I—” She cut herself off with a hard shake of her head. Peeling herself away from him, she grabbed his wrist and began to pull him down a path only visible to her.
Her voice was pitched high with panic when she continued, “It doesn’t matter! None of it matters! We have to get you out of here, Taevas.Now.I don’t know what that man wants with you, but heislooking for you. And I saw the news when I went to Debbie’s! I’m so, so sorry. I’ve been keeping you here and thecar?—”
Taevas grabbed her arms, halting her frantic trek through theundergrowth. They were deep in her woods now, and had stopped in a small gap in the trees. Sunlight filtered in through the leafy canopy in streams that created abstract shapes on the forest floor.
It was a beautiful place, but he didn’t see any of it. All he saw was Alashiya’s pale face tilted up to look at him.
“Did he hurt you?”
Her lips parted with surprise. “I… What? What does that matter? Taevas, he’shuntingyou! And the ‘Riik?—”
Feeling like he was seconds from coming out of his skin, he ground out, “Answer the question.”
“No! He just— I don’t know what he wants with me. Not that it matters. Didn’t you hear me? He has men with him, Taevas. There’s nocousin.He’s been searching the woods for you with Monty! You heard him. He wants to come back tonight!”
“Not whatmatters?”Taevas couldn’t recall a time when he got so angry his mind simplyblanked.Not even seeing Sergei put his hands on Alashiya just minutes before had the same effect. It was like that one simple phrase had robbed him of every thought he had or would have, save for one.
That great, serpentine beast of need and possession roared in him when he snarled, “You areallthat matters, Alashiya!”
The ’Riik, his Wing, Sergei — they were all banished from his mind when he crushed their mouths together in a brutal, desperate kiss. Taevas slipped his claws into her hair and pressed her back against a tree trunk. She trembled beneath him as he swept his tongue across her lips, demanding she let him in.
Alashiya gasped. Her back arched when he slid his tongue past her teeth to glide it hungrily against her own. Her fingers pressed into his chest, her blunt nails raking gently. His cock jerked in his loose linen pants as he gripped one of her luscious thighs and hiked it over his hip.
No matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to get close enough. To taste enough. Tofeelenough.
His tail coiled around her waist with a possessive squeeze as hestole kiss after kiss, each one needier, messier than the last. He wanted to mark her in every way he could. He needed her to taste him on her lips, to feel his hands everywhere, to endure the sharp pleasure-pain of his cock between her perfect thighs.
He needed her to know that she was his, that he was hers, and that whatever came next, there was no tearing them apart.
“Damn it, Shiya,” he growled, hips rocking restlessly into hers. Alashiya made a shocked, breathy sound that sent a bolt of lust down his spine. “When are you going to get it? You’reeverything.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
It wasfear that drove him off the cliff, and it was need that pulled him down to Earth. To her.
Taevas’s muscles coiled so tightly they trembled as he devoured her, one furious kiss bleeding into the next. It was a nightmare. The nightmare of all nightmares — his worst fear come true in ways he could barely wrap his head around.
To have lost himself so completely to a mate, surrendering all aspects of himself to her, only to potentially lose her… Mating had killed his father. It tortured his mother. It threatened everything he valued in himself and what he’d built, but even that existential fear couldn’t touch the raw, slithering poison oflosing her.
He didn’t think for a moment that Alashiya wanted Sergei, or even that the dragon was a real threat to his claim, but seeing Jaak’s look-alike lay his hands on her— Taevas would be seeing that in his dreams for decades to come.
