Page 16 of Ashborne: Defiance

‘She’s a weapon. I refuse to fall to her.’

‘Fall? Voski, your mate isn’t the enemy. She won’t defeat you. She’ll increase you.’

‘The only thing that woman will increase is my sense of impending doom.’

Kham went very still then, his eye narrowing as he stared at me.

I hated it when he examined me that way, as if he could see through skin and bone to reveal my very soul. Which, he could, with the bond. But I could see the inside of him, as well. My dragon was wise, and hilarious, and didn’t suffer foolishness—most especially from me.

But he also found human needs and fears baffling.

I raised my chin and faced him down. He was a dragon. He didn’t understand that human females weren’t the same. And that we couldn’t see into each other’s minds and hearts the same way he and Koa would now be able to.

‘You harm her by your denial.’

‘She harms me with her lies—she followed me here, Kham. Do you understand what that means? I saw her sneaking in the secret chambers of the castle in Fyrehold. She isn’t who she says she is.’

‘And you hid yourself from her, just as she hid from you.’

‘I was hiding to help.’

‘Perhaps she did the same?’

I scoffed. ‘I love your willingness to see the good in others. But you are woefully ill-prepared for the wiles of a human woman.’

‘Or you are woefully swift to assume ill-intent. You might consider how your assumptions of her character would hurt if they were another’s, turned against you.’

He encouraged me to be careful with the hearts of others, yet refused to be careful with mine?

Kham’s eye flashed and he took a single, swift step closer, caution and warning flooding through the bond. ‘Do not turn your dark fears against me. I have proven my love for you.’

I backed off, raising my hands in an attitude of surrender, at the same time I lowered my chin. ‘I’m sorry. I’m… I’m not myself. I’m shaken, Kham. My head spins. My heart won’t slow. You said I was a rabbit—I shouldn’t have been so quick to deny it.’

‘Your fear is worrisome. I know this pricks where your heart is tender. But that’s why I’m here. You know me. You know I’m safe. And I can see my mate’s heart. She chose Grace for her sweet abandon, and bold heart for adventure. She is your mirror, Voski. She will bless you—’

‘You are the first to remind me that our hearts can be turned. Just because we were made to be good, or strong, or something else, doesn’t mean we’ll become it!’

‘That’s true. But my mate is her full self. And she chose Grace.’ He hesitated again, but this time lowered his head so his snout was even with my chest. He stepped closer more softly this time, blowing another breath over me.

I inhaled sharply, but it was impossible to ignore the healing of my dragon’s breath. My heart slowed a hair and some of the exhaustion from the run eased away.

It didn’t remove my fear. But helped me think more clearly.

Which Kham knew. And the fucker used it against me.

‘She was brought to you, at this time, for a purpose—yours, and hers. Koa and I are unified, we accept the bond, and it is… astounding,’ he said, sounding as close to awed as I’d ever heard him. It touched something within me, some soft place that I liked to keep hidden. Made me swallow a sudden lump in my throat.

Dragons didn’t smile, but I felt Kham’s delight as he thought of his newfound mate. ‘She is made for me, Voski. It is a joy you cannot appreciate until you embrace it. But hear me: When you find the One, when you accept her, she’ll add to you, not remove from you. Except, perhaps, for this fear? Perhaps the Creator brings your mate to offer comfort and soothing and to cut out the specter of your past—’

‘Or slit my throat in my sleep? No, thank you, Kham.’

My dragon growled again and weaved on his feet, shaking his head like a dog, as if he’d shake off a weight. ‘Stubborn, stubborn heart.’

‘Realistic,’ I corrected him. ‘Didn’t you say wisdom was found in dealing with the world as it is, rather than how you wish it would be?’

He snorted again to show his distaste for that thought. But even though I felt his reprimand, the thought of letting her close to me, of sleeping near her, of needing her the way I needed Kham, set my heart pounding again.

‘Voski—’