What’s happening to me?
This need ambushing her didn’t just creep in—it sprinted, full tilt, wearing bloody trainers. The harder she fought it, the stronger it grew.
Just when she thought her knees would cave, he slowed. The trees opened into a winding clearing, several feet wide. Fallen trunks and slabs of stone formed a jagged barrier at the far side. Weeds clawed through rubble and cracked granite.
He nodded to a split in the dark rock face. “The entrance is narrow, but it opens up inside. Watch your step.”
The opening was barely wide enough for Race’s broad shoulders. He ducked inside first, and she followed. A small flame flickered to life in his palm, its amber light spilling oversmooth walls etched with worn carvings—wings, fire, spirals fading into the stone.
This place was even larger than the last cave.
Ash trailed her fingers over the etchings. “Someone lived here once.”
“Aye. Dragons,” Race murmured, moving deeper into the vast chamber, shadows bending around him.
A ledge ran along one wall, and above it was a shelf wide enough to serve as a sleeping platform. Just the thought of sleeping on the hard surface made her body ache even more.
On the opposite side was a single horizontal bar, a heat-blackened metal jutting from the wall. For clothes? Probably.
“There’s a chimney.” He nodded toward a narrow shaft in the granite ceiling where a pale column of daylight spilled over a crumbling firepit lined with dusty peat just past the halfway point of the cave. “We can risk a fire. The smoke will disperse into the mist.”
He dropped her things and his cloak on a boulder, then fed the flame that appeared on his palm into the torches still lodged in their holders. Warm light flared, chasing away the shadows.
Her heated body finally calmed down, and she rubbed the goosebumps on her arms.
As Race gathered dry timber and coaxed a fire to life in the old, crumbling pit, Ash picked up her coat and dragged her pack to the rocks placed alongside the pit. Exhaling wearily, she spread the coat, sank down, and rested against the stone, the growing warmth seeping into her.
With her arms wrapped around her knees, her chin resting on them, she let her gaze drift back to him. Hunkered near the pit, his powerful shoulder muscles shifted beneath his tunic as he fed more wood to the fire. The flickering light licked across the sharp planes of his face, reflecting in those deep claret depths.
With that gaze, how had she ever thought him human?
Race jerked to his feet. “Stay here. I must hunt.”
“You’re leaving? But I bought enough food for us,” she blurted, trying not to show her dread of being alone. “We can share.”
He didn’t answer at first, just watched her. Then that wry, fanged smile appeared. “You saw my other side, Ash. I need more.”
She swallowed. Right.
He’s a dragon, not some bloke you can feed kebabs.
His features softened a fraction. “You’ll be safe here. I won’t be long. Stay away from the entrance. Anything up in the sky will spot even an ant moving.”
After he left, Ash exhaled wearily. Exhaustion hit like a sledgehammer, but hunger gnawed just as hard. She dug into her backpack for the food, her stomach in a knot. But her gaze stayed fixed on the cave’s bright entrance as she waited for Race’s return.
Her fingers prickled faintly with her powers—all too aware that nothing stood between her and the outside.
Outside, Race inhaled lungfuls of cold air, desperate to clear Ash’s enticing scent from his nose, his mouth, his damn lungs.
The feel of her stare on him, like a warm caress, lingered. Hell! He’d been minutes from dragging her to him—and fucking up.
He scrubbed his face wearily. Only those useless gods knew how badly he needed the warmth she exuded, in a life that had been utterly barren.
His dragon rumbled,Go back. We don’t need food.
I know that,he growled.I need a moment to clear my head.
So, he would hunt. It wasn’t as if there was anything else to do until the portal site was safe enough to get them back to Earth.
