Medea snorted. “Her issues carry Samsonite.”
Urian came up between them. “Enough getting along, you two. It’s starting to creep me out. The last thing any of us needs is a meeting of the two evils.”
She rolled her eyes. “Already had that. My parents. Besides, Falcyn doesn’t strike me as evil.”
Falcyn cocked his head at that, instantly intrigued. No one put him in any other category. Ever. In fact, most ran from him as if he werehisfather—the fount of all evil itself. And the majority of beings had no idea what spawned him. They only assumed it, given the nature and position of his father. “Really?”
“Hmmm.” She swept a probing stare over his body. “While you are definitely cantankerous, you don’t take pleasure in hurting others.”
“And how do you know that?”
Medea smiled. “Been around real evil long enough to know the difference. Trust me, sugar, you ain’t got it by a long, long shot.”
Falcyn slowed as she quickened her steps to catch up to Blaise. What the hell wasthat?
A compliment?
He wasn’t quite sure, since he didn’t normally get them from anyone.
Kicks in the ass and teeth?
Those he took routinely.
But strokes to the ego? Foreign, alien beasts he had no concept of. Weird. And it left him with a strange feeling in his stomach.
Maybe those were the aforementioned hunger pangs.
Yet it felt like a hunger for something other than food, for once. And made him harder than he’d ever been in his life.
Urian reached over and brushed his thumb against Falcyn’s jaw. “You’re gaping, brother. Might want to close that before you catch some flies.”
He slapped at Urian’s hand. “Don’t be an ass.”
“Can’t help it. Spent too many centuries as the right hand of evil, myself. Left a black mark on my soul.”
As they neared the edge of the woods, Falcyn had the eerie sensation of being watched. Thankfully that curbed his attention where Medea was concerned, and distracted his gaze from straying to her constantly.
Damn, she was a lot more distracting than she should be. If his body didn’t stop, he was going to start cutting pieces of it off.
Falcyn rubbed at the hairs on the back of his neck that had risen. “Blaise?”
“Yeah… I feel it.”
Medea’s dark eyes met his and did the strangest things to his stomach. Which made him even harder, damn it all. “What is it?”
“Not sure.” Falcyn walked backward so that he could scan the meadow as he tried not to think about why he wanted to stay close to her to protect her from whatever threat he sensed. That was an innate dragon trait. One he didn’t want to scrutinize, because the ramifications terrified him.
He saw nothing around them.
Not that it meant anything, given the powers some of their preternatural brethren possessed. And he really missed being in his dragon’s body right now. A dragon’s sight was very different from that of a human’s. Much sharper and clearer. And while a trace of that followed him into a human body, it still wasn’t as good as it’d be in his other form. Which was why Blaise wasn’t blind as a dragon.
Only as a man.
Then Falcyn heard it.
A mere wisp of breath. So low as to be virtually inaudible. To a normal creature. But he wasn’t normal. Too many centuries of fighting for survival had left him paranoid and highly attuned to everything around him.
Like Medea’s soft lily scent.
