She nods, slow, still looking at me like I might sprout scales and lunge at her.
“I’m not feral,” I tell her. “I will keep you safe. I will get you home. You have my word.”
She pushes out a breath. “Okay. Good. I get it. I’ll ignore…it. When are we going to leave? Are you going to shift and fly us out of here?”
I shake my head.
“I’m afraid that it’s too dangerous. I don’t have red markings. If I attempt to fly us out of here, they’ll see me and know I’m a Draiger. They’ll come for me. Especially if I have you. There are hundreds of unmated males in this jungle and over that coastline. They’d kill me and probably kill you too, in the process.”
“Then how are we going to get home?”
“We will have to hike.” I point southeast, toward the river valley. “We’re looking at two to three days in that direction…there’s civilization. A Mistveil town. We technically still have a peace treaty with them. At least, I hope we still do, after today. We need to go there and ask for help. It’s our only chance.”
Her eyes get even wider, and then they start to fill.
“Two to three days’ hike.” Her voice cracks on the number. “Through a jungle that is crawling with feral Red Dragons.”
I want to tell her it’s going to be fine.
I can’t.
Because it might not be.
We’re in big shit.
12
Carla
I can’t stop shaking.
It comes in waves. I’ll think I’m okay, and then I’ll remember the weight of that male’s hand fisting in my skirt, the sound the fabric made when it tore, and my whole body starts up again. I press my palms flat against my thighs and breathe through it. In through my nose. Out through my mouth. Then do it again.
He’s dead. Magma killed him. I watched it happen.
It doesn’t seem to matter. My body hasn’t gotten the message yet.
One thing is for sure: dragon shifters are nothing like humans. Not even close. I’ve worked alongside them for years. I’ve booked their appointments and ordered their supplies and laughed at their jokes in the break room, and I thought I understood what they were. I didn’t understand anything. Humans don’t snap necks with their bare hands. Humans don’t talk about putting whelps in a woman’s belly like it’s normal. Humans don’t stand around naked in a jungle like it’s normal.
“We should probably get going,” I tell him.
Magma nods. “We will soon. We have to…” He huffs out a breath, and for the first time since I met him, he looks uncomfortable. “You smell like a human female. Feral dragons will be able to smell you if they get anywhere near here. Your scent is going to lead them straight to us. They’re not like regular shifters. They are more dragon than human.” He pauses. “It’s strong, and it’s very feminine.”
The male’s face flashes through my mind. The way he inhaled with his nostrils flaring wide. The way he groaned afterward, like I was a meal he hadn’t ordered but planned to eat anyway.“You scent so good, female.”He said it more than once. I thought it was just him. Just one disgusting individual being gross.
Apparently not. Apparently, I’m walking around this jungle like a lit flare.
“We don’t want that.” My voice comes out thin, but it comes out. “What do I need to do to get rid of it?”
I keep my eyes on his face. It takes effort, because his cock is still erect, still jutting toward me, and he isn’t making any move to cover it. He doesn’t even seem aware of it. He’s aroused by the fight. From killing someone. That’s what he told me, and I’m choosing to believe him because the alternative doesn’t bear thinking about. It’s strange to me. It’s beyond strange. A man takes a life, and his body responds like he’s on a third date that’s going well. But there it is. It’s a dragon thing, clearly. File it under things I never needed to know.
The problem is, looking at his face isn’t much safer than looking anywhere else, because Magma naked is…a lot. He’s enormous. His arms are like tree trunks. I don’t think I could get the fingers of both hands around one of his biceps if I tried. His shoulders are so broad they block out a chunk of the jungle behind him, and his abs…
Wow. Just…wow.
They’re stacked in ridges all the way down, the dark ink of his tattoos winding over them like the artist couldn’t stop once he started.
Okay. Now I’m being weird. I’m standing here checking him out like he’s a centerfold, and it isn’t right. It is so far from right. A man tried to force himself on me not so long ago. I should not be eyeballing anyone’s abdominal muscles. There is something deeply wrong with me, or maybe this is what shock looks like. I’m going to go with shock.
