The sound catches me off guard every time—bright and unguarded, so different from the wary tension she carried those first days. We’re walking the forest trail that winds behind the cabin, ostensibly gathering medicinal herbs that grow in the shadowed places between the pines. But I stopped paying attention to herbs twenty minutes ago.
I’ve been watching her instead.
The way she moves through the forest—confident, aware. Five days of training have changed her. Sharpened her edges. She still trips over roots occasionally, still curses when branches catch in her hair, but there’s a new alertness in the set of her shoulders. A warrior’s awareness she’s developing without even realizing it.
“So let me get this straight.” She crouches beside a patch of feverfew, her fingers gentle as she harvests the stems. “Dragons hoard things. Not just gold—things that matter to them. Territory. Knowledge. Power.” She glances up at me, a grin playing at her lips. “Is that why you keep showing up at my cabin? Am I part of your hoard now?”
Yes.The dragon’s answer is immediate. Absolute.She is ours. She has always been ours.
“I show up at your cabin because you have a talent for finding trouble.”
“Trouble finds me. There’s a difference.” She stands, brushing dirt from her knees. The afternoon light catches in her hair, turns it to burnished copper. “Besides, I’ve been very well-behaved lately. Training every day. Practicing my fire. Not taunting any rogues.”
“It’s been five days.”
“Five whole days of good behavior. That’s practically a lifetime for me.” She falls into step beside me as we continue down the trail. “My last boyfriend said I had impulse control issues. Right before I dumped his cheating ass in front of his entire office.”
“That sounds like excellent impulse control.”
She laughs again. The sound wraps around me, warm and unexpected.
We could make her laugh every day. We could?—
I cut off the thought. Force my attention back to the forest. The dappled shadows. The rustle of wind through pine needles. The?—
I stop walking.
Selene takes two more steps before she notices. “What?”
The scent hits me a second later. Sulfur. Rot. Two distinct sources, coming from different directions.
Coordinated.
“Selene.” My voice comes out wrong—deeper, rougher. The dragon is already clawing toward the surface. “Get down.”
“What—”
The first rogue drops from the canopy.
I shove her behind the nearest boulder as claws slice through the air where her head was a heartbeat ago. The rogue landsin a crouch—young, lean, eyes wild with bloodlust. Behind us, branches crack as a second one charges from the undergrowth.
Two of them. Attacking together. This isn’t a test or a random encounter.
This is an assassination attempt.
“DOWN!” I roar the command with every ounce of authority I possess, and the shift tears through me.
Faster than before. More violent. Desperation strips away the careful control I usually maintain, and the transformation rips through muscle and bone with brutal efficiency. Wings explode from my back. Scales erupt across my skin. My jaw cracks and reforms, filling with teeth meant for killing.
The first rogue shifts mid-leap, his own transformation a graceless thing—all desperation and fury, none of the power that comes with age. He’s smaller than me. Younger. But his claws are sharp and his eyes are fixed on Selene with hungry intent.
I intercept him before he can reach her.
We collide in midair, claws raking, fire blazing. The impact sends us both spiraling upward through the canopy, shredding branches, scattering birds. His teeth snap at my throat. I catch his jaw with my foreclaw and wrench sideways.
He’s fast. Feral. Fighting with the desperation of someone who knows failure means death—not from me, but from whatever master he serves. The rogues have been more organized lately. More willing to sacrifice themselves.
Which means someone is making them fear worse things than dying.
