Page 20 of Ashborne: Defiance

A hollow thump, and grunt, and the moon overhead.

And when my vision cleared, I had no air.

Vane stood over me, his legs thick and long from my vantage point on my back in the dirt. Hands clenched into fists at his sides, knuckles and tendons standing proud. His lips peeled back from his teeth, and his eyes were wild.

He’d flipped me?

He was frightened of me?

The dragons groaned somewhere north of us, and desire crackled through me like lightning in my veins, but I couldn’t make a word. Couldn’t breathe.

‘I won’t hurt you.’ It was instinct. That place within me, so aware of him, so needy, also somehow aware of the dragons and if I couldn’t reach him with hands, or words… I had to get through. ‘I don’t want to hurt y—’

With a vicious growl to rival a wolf, Vane dropped to squat, one hand flat on my chest to stop me rising, the other moving faster than I could see. Something flashed, moonlight on a blade. And I felt the cool chill of that razor-sharp edge, right under my jaw.

I gasped the tiniest breath in, but froze.

His eyes narrowed to slits, and when he spoke, he spat the broken words between gritted teeth.

“I will not… allow you to… you cannot… I am not yours,” he snarled. “Leave me or I will cut your throat and leave you for the beasts!”

Fear, as potent as the hunger in my body, sang through me.

I didn’t dare move as I felt the sting of that blade slide just a hairsbreadth into my skin. But my aching eyes welled. I stared at him, silently pleading. Begging.

‘Please, let me touch you. I won’t hurt you. I need you. Something’s happened. I don’t understand. I’m scared. But I know you’re the one—’

The knife flashed and there was a dull thunk just an inch from my shoulder. But Vane leaped to his feet and stumbled back. I sobbed as he screwed his eyes closed and roared. “GET OUT OF MY FUCKING HEAD!”

Then he was gone. Nothing left in his wake but a quivering branch on a nearby shrub, and the not-so-distant call of the dragons rising into the night as they reached their peak again.

In their rush, then easing need that followed, I lay there and wept. My body ached, desperate for him. Frantic because I could feel him drawing away. That persistent tug had started in my chest again. But now it fought the thudding in my heart, the jangle of fear at the real threat that he might kill me if I touched him.

The two sides of my soul were at war, one driven to connect. The other desperate to flee.

I was torn in two.

But, why? Why?

What had been done to me? And how could I survive it?

‘You are safe.’

It was that unfamiliar voice again. Gentle. Tender. The forming of the words just a little bit odd. Had I taken a blow and—?

‘No, Firebird. Your heart hurts. Mine follows. Don’t cry. You are safe,’ she repeated.

It was the she-dragon. The one who’d said she’d protect me. The one Vane’s dragon was chasing.

I was so exhausted, so spent, that even with the pulling in my chest, I couldn’t move. I rolled onto my side, curled fingers into the dirt to ground me, to remind me what was real. And I lay there until the shaking in the ground forced me to sit up, when I found a stunning creature, the size of a small house, peering down at me.

I couldn’t see the color of her scales in the dark, but her eyes were bright. And though she twitched and fluttered her wings, her nostrils flared as she extended her snout and inhaled, then snorted so deeply, some of the pine needles were thrown up.

My eyes weren’t dry, but against the backdrop of the ache of missing Vane, a new, warm joy emerged. This one free of fear.

I pushed up to sit, and she nudged me with her snout. A moment later, I reached a tentative hand out to touch the end of her nose with one palm, stunned by the warmth under her scales, and the smoothness of her skin.

Why does she let me touch her?