“Time to move.” Attor walked in, sidestepping Bregga. He handed Race a shirt. “First light soon. The others have already left. I’ll see you there, a mile from the basin.”
Race nodded, shrugging into the shirt, and Attor slipped out.
Ash glanced at the steaming mugs sitting untouched, then at Race as he buttoned his black shirt. “I made tea. Drink some. You can’t very well save the world running on dragon fumes alone.”
“I know what I want…and it’s not tea.” His voice, so low and sensual, sent desire resurging like a lit fuse. Her gaze rushed to his.
At his tormenting smirk, her face heated. He knew.
Ugh.She scrambled for composure. “Umm, well, give me a few minutes. I need to put on my boots and grab my bits.”
Soft laughter followed her, and she scrunched her face as she hurried to their room. But all too fast, reality hit her at what awaited them.
They were leaving. Back to the basin and the dreaded portal.
Race ghosted between trunks at the southern side, holding Ash’s hand. Night clung to the dark elms. With bark like coal dust and their crowns so tightly interwoven, a regiment could disappear within the blackness. Jaw clenched, he tried not to let the sheer pitch black overwhelm him.
Ash gripped his hand tightly, her touch soothing, anchoring. But the slight prickles against his skin betrayed her unease, and he masked her power with his mind.
The humid air in this place nearly suffocated him, thick with loam and the rank stench of decaying vegetation, as he slowed.
Shadows flickered ahead. Attor, Skaldr, and Koal emerged from the dense underbrush. A swish of air, and a dozen resistance fighters scaled down the tree trunks behind them.
Every head bowed. “Your Majesty.”
Hearing that title, grief knifed him in the sternum, the same jagged shock he’d suffered when his parents fell. As for his brothers? His shoulders tensed. Questions still burned in his gut?—
Ash’s thumb stroked the back of his hand, soothing the storm that always tore through him whenever he thought of his brothers.
But Race let none of his inner turmoil show, inclining his head at the Resistance.
The soldiers parted, and a mountain of a male strode forward, his scalp shorn to a bristle-length shadow, the sides of his head covered in scars.
Attor gestured to the big shifter. “This is the Resistance’s Talon-Marshal?—”
“Varkyn,” Race said. “I remember.”
“Sire.” The male bowed. “For King Erycian and Queen Serelith, our lives are pledged to you. To justice.”
The weight of those words hung heavy, but Race didn’t falter. “Are we good to go?”
“You have five minutes’ head start. Then we strike.”
Race nodded. “Three days hence, I’ll return. Attor will arrange a meeting place.”
“I’ll set men to watch for your return,” Varkyn said. “Might need another distraction.”
Race exhaled, then drew Ash into his arms. About to dematerialize, he stopped and looked back at the males watching. “Who’s the leader of the Resistance?”
“Why, Attor Vurnoss,” Varkyn said.
His gaze locked with his sire’s head enforcer’s steady, unflinching stare. Quiet, unobtrusive—always in the background, always the one who got things done. He wasn’t surprised. “I thought so. See you soon.”
He held Ash close and dematerialized them, reforming behind the massive crystal rocks on the ridge overlooking the basin. Heat rose in waves, and the sulfur-tinged air shimmered. Sweat trickled down his temples. The caldera below glittered like shattered obsidian in the torchlight.
Ash grasped the rock, peering around it. “So many of them,” she whispered.
“They are hunting us.” He crouched, watching the portal guards pace their rounds, the humid air distorting their shapes, and they wavered like mirages. The red ward runes crackled around the portal.
