“Skaldr,” Attor rumbled. “Caution would be wise.”
“What?” Skaldr raised an eyebrow, looking almost angelic. “I’m passing along what he said. Ash should know the hare was his way of apologizing for not moving his ass faster when she got scared and yelled.”
Then the cocky arse smirked.
Race’s jaw clenched, and Skaldr laughed.
If only he knew the truth. Race might have marked her, but there was nothing between them. He made that pretty clear. Skaldr was barking up the wrong tree.
So, she didn’t bother giving him the satisfaction of a response in his stupid game.
“You shouldn’t have, really,” she told Koal. “But thank you. It’s just as well, I am rather hungry.”
“Oh, good.” He turned the hare, the fat sizzling over the flames. “It’s almost ready.”
Race said something to Attor, then, without so much as a ‘I’ll see you soon or next century’ to her, he strode into the forest.
“He said to take care of you,” Attor said quietly, drawing her attention away from the trees. A furious warmth burned her face.
She kept her attention fixed on the roasting hare.
“And we will,” Koal added, his sharp features softening as he studied her. “Most would have crumpled after being dragged through a portal and released into this gods’ forsaken world. But you did well.”
Ash blinked at him, not sure whether to laugh or cry with her emotions all over the place. “Yeah, well, I’m not most. Stubbornness is about all I’ve got going for me.”
A faint smile tugged at his mouth then faded. “Just be careful where you point that stubbornness, Ash. Some fires can’t be controlled once lit…”
Did he mean Race?
“But stubbornness is what kept many of us alive,” he continued. “My parents had it too. Malcarion’s rebels raided and then burned our village to the ground—took them both. My brother was twelve. They cut him down before my eyes.” His expression darkened. “That’s the day I swore I’d never bend.”
Ash’s chest tightened at his pain. “I’m so sorry.”
“It might have been a long time ago, but you don’t forget that kind of brutal slaughter.” He shoved more peat into the fire, his copper eyes dull.
Trying to ease the tension, she said with a trace of wryness, “For the record, I don’t bend either. Just…occasionally, maybe, twisted out of form.”
Some of the shadows in his eyes lifted, and he chuckled. “Then maybe you’re stronger than you think.”
For the first time in days, Ash let herself breathe, and she even managed a little smile in return. But just as fast, the band around her chest cinched again, her thoughts straying to the vexing black dragon.
Where had he gone off to in such a hurry?
Race stalked through the forest, each stride harder than the last, as if distance could dull the fury clawing at him.
His dragon pushed under his skin, restless.Go back. She’s ours.
Jaw clenched, he raked both hands through his hair, snagging them in his braid, and exhaled hard, the taste of her still lingering on his tongue. Her blood. Her heat. Her damned defiance.
He’d bitten her, marked her—now she sat with Koal, herfinalchoice.
A snarl ripped free, scattering birds roosting in the trees. He braced his hands against the rough bark of a trunk, his claws threatening to burst free. His body wanted violence, his dragon demanded blood—the whelp’s blood—and all he could do was stand here, choking on both.
Because she was right. He was just her protector.
He hauled off his clothes, tossing them aside, then released the beast within. Wings erupted, talons tore through flesh, and his roar shattered the afternoon silence. The urge for blood and violence consumed all thought except one. To kill.
The forest reeked of prey. A herd of long-horned stags bolted at the sight of his shadow, but his dragon was faster. He struckwith his talons, then his teeth. Blood sprayed across the leaves and down his throat, hot and coppery, but it did little to cool the fire inside him.
