Garrick’s hand tightened on my waist, pinning my side against his. “How can you possibly know that?”
I ignored him. If she was a baby, then her parent must be around here somewhere. Waiting around for that reunion seemed likely to get us burned to death before we even reached the Devotion Gate.
“We have to go,” I said, slipping free of Garrick’s grasp. I moved slowly back into the trees, keeping the little dragon in my sight as I retreated. Garrick mirrored my movements without question.
It was a damn good thing my heart was long dead, because leaving behind that beautiful, wondrous creature made something inside of me ache.
I awoketo a warm body pressed to my side.
I’d gone to sleep shivering every night for weeks. What had made Garrick change his mind now? He’d already given me his cloak. We’d sparred in the woods yesterday, and he’d said… he’d complimented my curves. He’d been so hard against me.
I had told myself that this was a terrible idea again and again. Giving in to the attraction I felt, and now suspected he returned, with the Lifebind still in place between us…
But he was so warm, curled around my back like that. He’d even nudged apart my legs, sliding his own spiked calf between mine?—
Spiked. Calf.
I sat straight up, swallowing my scream for fear that if I woke the creature curled on the ground, it would try to swallowme.
But the little—not so little—dragon was already awake. She shook her head from side to side, the same way I did when I tried to dislodge the last vestiges of sleep. She stretched out her neck and flared her wings, reminding me of a child stretching their arms overhead.
“Koryn.” Garrick’s voice floated across the fire, which was nothing but smoldering embers. “You need to move very slowly. Our friend from yesterday is here.”
“I have eyes, you idiot,” I hissed through my teeth.
At my side, the dragon cocked her head, then opened her mouth and bared her fangs at Garrick across the fire. It seemed she was a good judge of character. I was not certain I wanted that judgment pointed in my direction, even if she had decided to sleep curled around me.
I inched away from her, curling my legs under me and rising to stand with deliberate slowness, even though it aggravated the perpetually aching muscles in my calves and thighs. She turned her elegant head, well aware of every movement. She watched as I slowly walked around the fire, coming to stand by Garrick’s side.
And then she stood up and followed right after me.
I completed the circle, moving back to where I’d slept, where my cloak and pack were still laid out as a bedroll. The dragon followed, circling wide enough to avoid Garrick, but arriving right back at my side.
“Why is she following me?” I whispered—useless, considering she was two feet away from me. But I couldn’t help the impulse.
Garrick cocked an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth turning up in his characteristic smirk. Apparently, now that he’d decidedthe dragon was not about to kill me, he found this whole scenario amusing. “It couldn’t be your winning personality.”
I hissed at him. To my utter shock, the little dragon opened her mouth, leaned forward, and replicated the sound. With a few more fangs.
Garrick’s blasted smirk transformed into an unrestrained grin. “If he gets big enough, maybe you can ride him,” he said, taking a cautious step back and looking at us again.Us.Dark Lord, help me. “Though I doubt he will grow soon enough to help you in the gates.”
I rolled my eyes. “Stop being ridiculous. Dragons are not for riding.” Not to mention those lethal looking spikes that ran down her back. They’d be the size of swords by the time she was full grown, if the legends were true about dragons’ size. “Andsheis a baby.”
“She?” Garrick chuckled.
The block in my chest eased a bit at the sound, my legs clenching together ever-so-slightly so that I could ignore it.
“Don’t ask me how I know,” I added. I could not have explained it. But just like I’d felt that thrum of power on the breeze the day before when we’d first encountered the little dragon, I could feel the rightness of my understanding of her.
“Of course I am female. A witch would never accept a male as her familiar.”
“How do you know about familiars?” The words were out of my mouth before I realized it was not Garrick who had spoken.
He straightened slowly from where he’d bent to repack his belongings. “I do not know anything about familiars.” His eyes slid from me to the dragon, her bright yellow-green eyes now staring up at me expectantly.
“A man who acknowledges what he does not know. I approve. He may stay.”And then she nodded her head, dippedher rounded snout a few degrees, and eyed Garrick across the camp. A little huff of frosty air puffed out of her delicate nostrils.
“Good decision. He is impossible to get rid of,” I said.
