Izzy gripped her hands behind her back. “Don’t I get to protect you?”
“I don’t want you anywhere near?—”
Izzy closed her eyes. She’d pushed him. Again. And now they were here. Again. Suddenly, she didn’t want to be so close to him. She didn’t want to feel the heat of his body or see the gleam of his scales. She wanted to go back inside and pretend none of this had happened.
He’d said it enough in the days after Rayan’s death. He didn’t want her grief, and he didn’t want to share his either. There was no “them.” He wanted to be alone. Or rather, he wanted her to leave him alone. Company was fine, so long as it wasn’t hers.
She held her breath, waiting for the end of his sentence. This was the last time she would ever put herself in this position.
But this time he didn’t say the words. A calloused finger settled on her chin and tilted it back up, so very gently. And she couldn’t help but open her eyes once more.
“Gods, Izzy.” He sighed softly. “Okay. You can come. But you have to listen to what I say. When we’re in the field, I’m the commander.”
She gave him a shaky smile, not sure whether she’d won this battle or lost it. Maybe it didn’t matter, because she couldn’t bear to watch him go into danger alone either way. “Aye, sir.”
His scowl deepened, but she didn’t take it back. And neither did he.
Chapter
Eight
Luka couldn’t do it.He couldn’t hurt her. Not again. Not even to protect her. Gods, that look on her face. The way she’d closed her eyes and braced. He never wanted to see that again. Ever.
He turned away, swallowing the emotion that still shuddered through him, and quickly finished stripping. He wrapped everything in his dark cloak and pushed it beneath a dense shrub. Then he rolled back his shoulders and took a deep breath. This was going to hurt, and he had to do it silently.
He glanced toward the mountain, checked the patrols along the battlements—no one was looking into their shadowed nook up against the wall—and then let himself settle, opening his mind fully to the beast. Allowing himself to feel the rush of heated power that he’d blocked off for so long.
His beast uncoiled deep in his belly, shaking out its wings with a groan of aching relief. Scales flashed up Luka’s arms and over his neck and face, rippling over his chest as his beast twisted.
His tendons stretched and spread, while muscles for flying, leaping, roaring, and belching flame screamed from long disuse. His senses billowed out in a rush. He could feel the wind and the cool droplets of mist in the air. He pushed further, sensingthe mountain’s peaks and ridges, rocky and barren, strewn with thorny lace bushes and brambles. Beyond them, hidden gulleys lay green and verdant in the humid dark, their heated pools feeding the lush shrubs and flowers growing on their walls.
His awareness dipped lower, through the layers of sand and rock, down to the very depths of the mountain. To the magma, glowing, potent, and calling to him. The energy and fire sang loud enough that his ancestors had followed it for months, flying through storms and over deserts just to reach it.
And below that lay the subtle hint of something more. Something that the people of Hugaeb had worshipped for centuries before the Verturian drakes had even arrived.
Luka dropped to his knees, dug his hands into the soil, and whispered a prayer. A quick recognition of the gods of Chaos and Order, their Mother of the Weave, even the older gods of earth and air and fire.
The drake in his belly growled, low and long. Warmth ran up through the earth, through the rocks and stones and sand, seeping into his skin and winding around his heart. Pooling deep in his belly.
He stretched his fingers, reaching deeper, searching until he found a scorching strand of something vast and magical, andpulled. Scalding heat rushed into him, drawn up through the earth, pouring into his beast in great, agonizing waves. He—they—threw back their head, shuddering as they held in a violent roar. Luka clenched his jaw, forcing himself to stay silent. His body shook as his spine cracked and his skin split. His beast howled, vibrating with the growing tidal wave of power that raged through them. And they transformed. Green-black shimmering scales spread out in a rush, leathery wings unfurled, viciously curved claws gripped the earth… and a heart fifty times bigger than that of a human beat heavily in his chest.
He was the beast now, and the beast wanted to fling itself into the sky and soar. He wanted to be free after so long in a cage. He wanted to revel in the earth and the sky and the flames still singing through his bones. This was always the moment—as skin and bone knit together once more, as magic coursed through every organ, every muscle of his body, healing and repairing—when he felt most vibrantly alive.
And then he smelledher.
The beast didn’t care about Luka’s plans and reasons. It thought staying away from Izzy was stupid. And nowhehad control.
He stalked over to her and lowered his head to nuzzle her. She smelled of warm skin and the geranium she added to her soap. Her skin was cold from the night air, and her hair blew in soft strands barely touching the scales of his face, but the beast felt every one. He let out a long, rumbling purr, and Izzy laughed softly. She lifted her hands to stroke his snout, and he purred louder.
You’re a menace,Luka grumbled within the beast, but the beast didn’t listen.
He pushed closer, sweeping a wing around to hold Izzy cocooned as he gently rubbed his snout over her face and neck, breathing her in, marking her with his scent.
“I missed you,” Izzy whispered.
“I missed you, too,” the beast rumbled. He hadn’t intended to say it, but Luka couldn’t hold the words in.
Izzy blinked up at him, her eyes soft and sparkling too brightly in the low light. Gods, now he’d made her cry. Deep in the beast’s belly, Luka froze. She was going to ask him why he did it, why he broke them apart before they were even together. And—in this body—he would tell the truth. He would admit what he did, and then he would have to face her grief. The grief andblame he’d hidden from for all these years. And the worst part was, she would almost certainly forgive him.
