Bile scorched her throat. She had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
This was how she died, roasted alive by a bloody dragon in a godforsaken cave.
“I swear,” she rasped, lungs burning, “if you torch me, I’m haunting your scaly arse.”
Magic crackled through the air like lightning. The dragon’s colossal form rippled and folded impossibly fast into itself, scales melting away into skin, wings shrinking into shoulders?—
Her mind couldn’t process what her eyes were seeing. Where the beast had been, Race stood, his long silver hair gleaming in the darkness.
Terror gave way to relief.
“Race!” She darted toward him, flung her arms around him, and held on tight as the tears broke free.
He wrapped his arms around her. “I have you.”
Then it hit, and fury erupted. Ash jerked free, pulled back her fist, and punched him hard in the jaw.
“Ow!” she groaned, shaking her hand, quite certain she’d broken half the bones in it, while his rock-hard dragon skull seemed perfectly intact.
“You absolute swine,” she gritted out. “You’re a bloody dragon!”
“Shifter,” he corrected, not fazed at all by her punch.
“Because of you, I’m in this sodding mess!” She dashed her tearstained face with her fist, blood blazing through her veins like wildfire.
“I told you to go inside.”
“I was inside,” she snarled, “when your bloody friend snatched me?—”
Her jaw nearly hit her chest as the clouds drifted apart and moonlight seeped inside.
Good lord. He’s stark naked.
Silhouetted in the light, his tall, powerful body—all hard muscle and raw sensuality—stole the breath from her lungs. Damn, even his semi-erection looked impressive.Of course it did.Her face heated, and she dragged her gaze up to his.
His lightly tanned skin gleamed in the dark, begging to be touched and petted.Ugh.
“You’re naked,” she muttered, her hands clenching.
He arched a brow, his eyes gleaming with amusement. “I am. It’s what happens when I shift forms.”
A pair of black trousers appeared in his hand, and he pulled them on, hiding that sinful body.
Inhaling more hot air, she wiped her damp brow and marched the breadth of the cave. “All I wanted was to find out about my past, but you just had to haul me away from the Himalayas, and then that madman snatched me.”
“Ash—”
“Now, I’ll never know why the hell these powers appeared and are ruining my life!” She circled him.
“Ash!”
“I’m not talking to you, I’m still too mad?—”
He turned with her. “You can be mad at me once we’re back on Earth. We need to get out of here before the she-dragons return.”
She glared at him, all six-foot-seven-plus of infuriating, unfairly beautiful male.
Barefoot, he prowled toward her, moving with lethal grace and barely leashed power, his silver hair catching the moonlight, broken only by dark ebony streaks at his brow.
