Murmurs of “firebrand” erupted, and I gnashed my teeth. He wasn’t my firebrand! He might have calmed me, but we could blame the Yrnblade for it. Not that I would explain. The title of firebrand protected him in ways nothing else could.
“Leave us,” I commanded, unable to hide my tremors. Taron and I were due to have a private chat. My breathing slowed, and I began to shrink to normal size. Despite gaps of missing material, I remained covered in all the right places. “We’ll meet you at the warehouse.”
Alert, hands on weapons, they obeyed, filing out of the alley in formation.
Taron’s warm breath fanned over my nape, rousing flutters in my belly. “Well. This is an unexpected problem,” he said, low and quiet. “I calmed you. With a single command.”
I craned my head, and our gazes collided. Held. “The bond is responsible.” And yet…
Why wasn’t I satisfied with the explanation?
A myriad of emotions clashed over Taron’s face. Confusion. Connection. And finally rejection. He shook his head. “I want it broken. Now.”
We split apart, and I whipped around, facing him fully. We stared at each other. Thoughts whirled, and sentences spilled from my tongue. “The shifters know ofour connection.” Because Lorik arranged it. “If I’m going to break it, I must take you to Ashmorra. You’ve already found a way there, and that way is obviously safer than the traveling stones, the only other option.” But those stones were made specifically for immortals. They might or might not kill Taron, but they would absolutely wreck him.
“I may be human,” he said, his voice harsh, “but I can navigate the stones without consequence.”
“So you used them? Not another method?” That, I hadn’t expected.
“I’ve done it two ways, and the first is the stones.” Taron tugged his shirt from his pants––hello abs, scars and battle wounds––and lifted the material over his heart. Then I spotted it. Something hard, curved and emerald just under the surface of his skin. As he shifted, it caught the sunlight and shimmered.
My breath stalled as the realization unfurled with excruciating slowness. “Is that a… but that can’t be… it’s a dragon’s scale,” I ultimately finished, astonished.
More proof he’d been inside my realm. Done things I hadn’t clocked. That scale must have acted as a key through the traveling stones.
I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out and running a finger along the ridge of the scale, fused to him using dragon fire. His stomach hollowed at my touch. A reaction my body mimicked of its own accord.
The scale responded to my touch as well, glowing brighter and heating beneath my fingertip. Nein, nein, nein. Something was wrong here. This wasn’t just any dragon’s scale. It couldn’t be. Not as a tide of awful emotions cascaded through me. Things like wrath, resentment, vindictiveness and spite. Emotions that were not mine.
With a gasp, I pulled my hand away and glared at him. “That’s a shifter’s scale. Lorik’s.”
“Yes.” Taron didn’t try to deny it. “I worked with him. Now, I will kill him.”
I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth. “Lorik is mine to kill.” But that scale was coming outimmediately. “You’ll go through withmyscale. Mine. Not his.”
“Fine. I don’t care whose scale I wear.” Taron worked his jaw, all other reactions on lockdown. “Just get it done so we can leave. The sooner we break the bond, the better.”
His urgency meant one thing: he wasn’t comfortable with the strength of our bond, either. A point in my favor.
Wasting no time, I grabbed a knife tucked in my boot and cleaned the blade with my fire. “Just so you know, this will hurt you way more than it’s going to hurt me.”
He didn’t even flinch as I sliced open his skin and dug the scale out of his body and tossed it to the ground. Satisfied, I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and allowed my dragon to run wild.
Well, run wild long enough to remove a scale of my own and shove it into the vacant space. Finally, Taron reacted, a hiss escaping him. I didn’t pause, but blew a tiny stream of fire around the edges, sealing the scale to his muscle and flesh.
Beads of sweat ran down his temple. But otherwise? No other show of pain.Do. Not. Admire. That.
I tore my gaze away and stepped around a fallen shifter, his heart a foot from his body. Why had the shifters attacked Taron here, out in the open? Why not drag him off in secret, hiding their prize before they deep-fried it, as usual?
From the depths of my mind, rose the words spoken by the shifter I’d stashed in the catacombs.He did it. He sold theYrnblade. He launched the ambush. He killed the Locke. Or soon will.
Air sawed between my teeth. They’d come after Taron—the last Locke—today and would keep coming, even if they had to destroy this world to see it done. “We must leave this place. Now,” I told him. But still, something held me back. My people. My duty to them always remains first. “I’ll take you to my palace, but you will harm none of my citizens.”
He didn’t hesitate. “You have my word. I won’t attack them.” Pause. Then he added, “If they don’t attack me.”
I believed him. Heard the truth in his tone. Still, a human in Ashmorra? I mean, ja, I’d suggested it, and ja, he’d come before, but never in history had a royal escorted one inside. “I’ll only take you in chains.” Soldiers would revolt otherwise.
His expression hardened, and a vein pulsed at his temple, but he gave me a tight nod. “The pack and everything in it goes with me.”
