“I didn’t talk to anyone. Well, except the food vendors.” She pulled the elastic from her tiny ponytail, and her hair spilled forward. “I’d just finished putting the food in my backpack when I accidentally knocked into this woman?—”
She scowled, picturing the annoying bully. “She sniffed me and flat out said she smelled you on me. Since we weren’t…never mind. She basically announced she claimed you as hers. And threatened to kill me if I stood in her way.”
A tic worked in his jaw. “A she-dragon.”
Ash nodded, hunching forward, and the pack she’d forgotten flopped across her back. She dragged it off and dropped it to the ground. “I hurt her.”
“What?”
“And I’d do it again,” she muttered, removing her coat. Carefully, she pushed up her sleeve and frowned at the angry red welts marring her forearm. After that blast of heat, she’d expected far worse.
Race hunkered down in front of her and grasped her wrist. “What happened?”
“The dragoness burned me, making her intentions known. It was bloody excruciating,” she grumbled, squinting at the discoloration on her forearm. “Honestly, I thought I’d be more charred, but look—it’s just red marks. My coat truly is flame-resistant. Do you not have male dragons here for her to go after rather than hunting down strangers?” She glared at him. “Or amI going to be a target every time some she-dragon gets a whiff of you on me?”
His expression darkened, a dangerous flicker sparking in those blooded depths, but his thumb gently stroked her hurt skin. “They always go after the most powerful. And I am.”
It was said without a hint of the baiting arrogance from a male who seemed to thrive on showing her that side of him.
“What do you mean youhurther?” His caressing thumb moved over her unmarred skin. A curl of desire seeped through her, her pulse kicking hard as their gazes locked.
She jerked free and shot to her feet, rubbing her skin where it tingled from his touch. “With lightning. Just a bit. That scaled heifer deserved it.”
A sigh escaped him.
Ash turned away and frowned at the unfamiliar terrain. Forest shadows rolled down the slope below, and thick ferns draped the ground where she stood, the fronds crushed beneath her boots. “Where did you bring us? This isn’t the cave’s area.”
“We’re farther west. Leagues from Nyxholt.” He rose. “This is Kraevyr Peak, if I remember correctly. We can’t return to the cave. She-dragons can track scents for miles, and that one would have marked yours. Let’s give her time to grow bored and abandon the chase.”
“Wonderful.” Ash swallowed hard.
His expression gentled. “After that blowout, I suspect more will come, mostly out of curiosity.”
“What?”
“Don’t worry, I have you.”
Her head spun. Maybe it was the thin air, or perhaps the way he looked at her, causing the pull between them to spring up sharper than ever. The urge to lean into him tugged at her.
Bloody hell.It was sheer lunacy to let those thoughts invade.
He was a dragon shifter. Animmortal.
And she was…
Hell, she didn’t even know anymore, not when her humanity itself was in question, and the answers she needed were hidden somewhere in a village deep in the Himalayas.
She blew out a shaky breath and scrubbed her hot face.Lord, what a mess.
“We need someplace they won’t think to look,” he said, removing his cloak. “Another cave…”
Ash frowned as he scanned the area.
All she could see were more mountains meandering away like a ribbon of blackened charcoal, peaks swallowed in mist. Sunlight fell in fractured shafts through the canopy of massive trees, catching on moss and rough bark. The enormous stygian trunks glistened, white sap slowly seeping through the dark wood.
She reached out to the nearest one, brushing her fingers over the liquid. “What are these trees called?”
“Bleed-cedars,” he said without looking at her.
