Chapter 12
ísarr
“We should get dressed,” Bianca murmured, her cheeks beginning to turn pink, but not from the cold.
As if she’d suddenly become aware of our position, inflagrante and in a very exposed spot.
Not that there was anyone there to see us; I wouldn’t let them.
I wasn’t kidding when I’d said that dragons didn’t share.
We were possessive bastards, every single one of us, and she was part of my hoard now.
There was still a niggle of worry at the back of my mind, fearing that perhaps she was wrong and that I would one day freeze her by accident.
She was right to point out that I hadn’t, even in a moment when I was most likely to lose control.
Every part of her skin still felt rosy and warm, and though ice had frozen in weird, swirling patterns around my feet, nothing had touched her.
“There’s no rush,” I told her, shifting my hips to make her aware of my cock still lodged inside her. It felt amazing—her tight heat clasping me—and I did not want to leave. She was of a different mind, though, her mouth pursing even as her body clenched around me in pleasure.
“There is if Kevin might stumble onto us. You said he was alive and headed in our direction, didn’t you?
” Her hands left my shoulders to pull her shirt and sweater back down, though it was a difficult squeeze, as tightly pressed together as we currently were.
A very primal part of me leaned in and pressed her more snugly against the tree.
Now she was pinned against my chest, impaled on my still-hard cock, with nowhere to go.
That primal part of me very much wanted this Kevin to stumble into this clearing and see that Bianca was now, irrevocably, mine.
Her eyes flashed sapphire, dancing with heat, with that spark of rebellion.
I leaned back and gently let her down instead, helping her dress with rough strokes of my hands, unable to stop touching her.
“Fine, we’ll be like civilized humans. But I’ll have you know that in the old days, where I was raised, that would have been a perfectly acceptable way to dispose of a rival.
” I curled my lips into a humorless smirk and then had to hold back laughter—warm and foreign—when that made her squeal indignantly.
“You, Isárr, are a caveman,” she said, jabbing her finger into my chest. I tucked myself back into my pants, giving her a look that told her how unimpressed I was with that statement.
Cavemen? No, I was all dragon, and that had always been the problem.
At least Bianca was smiling. Even though she tried to act offended, she liked it, and she couldn’t hide that.
Once we were both dressed properly again, I dusted off the pair of hats she’d been wearing and spent a moment carefully making sure her head and ears were covered.
Her skin was so soft, so fragile, and I didn’t want her ears to get cold, not even a little.
“I will bring you to the cabin and then I will fly out and fetch this Kevin for you,” I said once I was done.
She shook her head, a mutinous expression appearing on her face.
“Nuh uh, I’m not letting you deal with Kevin on your own.
He’s bound to say something idiotic and wind up dead.
” I wasn’t sure what that said about me—or him.
Did she think I killed so easily? Granted, I had fantasized about killing the man for abandoning my Bianca, my Elskling.
Hmm. Perhaps she had a point; I felt the bubbling surge of rage rear its ugly head just thinking about it.
“Fine,” I agreed, and rather than shifting into the full form of my dragon, I whisked off my coat and shirt and unfurled my wings instead. It was a neat trick, one I’d practiced to death back when I still lived in Norway with my family, before they cast me out.
When doing it, I could still hear my grandfather’s booming voice as he told me it was about subtlety, about a gentle touch, and about absolute control.
The problem was that I’d always been able to do any task they set for me.
And then I’d sleep, or there would be a snowstorm, and things wound up frozen anyway.
I swept Bianca into my arms and leaped skyward with a few hard downward strokes of the blue, leathery wings.
She squeaked in surprise as we lifted off, clutching at my shoulders and hair with her fingers.
They were cold without gloves, and I immediately sucked the coldness out of the air around them.
“What, you think I’d drop you?” I asked her, laughing at the ridiculous thought.
Never. I might be a failure of a dragon in many ways, according to my family, but I’d always excelled at flying.
She stuck out her tongue, all pink and wet, and my still-eager cock twitched in my pants in response.
Damn it, now that I’d tasted her, there was no going back.
I hungered for her the way I’d never hungered for anything or anyone.
Leaning in, I kissed that teasing mouth, and she softened in my arms, losing all her tension.
“Whoa, ísarr, you really know how to treat a girl, don’t you?
” she quipped when I raised my head. She was smiling, rosy, and her double pair of hats had begun to sink down over her brow and partially over one eye.
“Elskling, you’re going to be the death of me.
Once, this was a quiet hill with nary a visitor, and now?
Now you’ve got me hunting for a male idiotic enough to abandon a lady like you in the snow.
” She was still giggling over my word choice when I picked up the pace with my wings and zeroed in on the location where I sensed the human slogging through the woods.
My sharp eyes could see him through the bare branches of the trees, walking in jerking, halting motions.
I circled overhead, studying before I sought a landing spot.
He did not look up, but then, prey rarely did.
Not humans, and not deer. It made them easy to catch.
We were not here to catch, though, I reminded myself as anger stirred.
My mate—my fragile little Elskling—wanted this idiot rescued for some unfathomable reason.
“Does he always walk like that?” I asked when I realized he had nearly gone headfirst into a tree before righting his course at the last moment. Granted, he’d spent a freezing night outside; it was a miracle he was even alive. Perhaps that had affected his sense of equilibrium.
“Like what?” Bianca asked, and I realized she had not seen him yet.
I swooped a little lower and pointed, warning her to stay quiet as we did.
My senses were tingling with unease, something dark settling in the back of my mind.
This wasn’t right. We should be out here looking for a body—sad as that was, perhaps—but there was no way he could have survived the storm without shelter.
He was not close enough to any shelter I knew of that made sense.
Hillcrest Hollow lay farther south. I was the only one who made their home on the north ridge—for good reason.
There were no caves, and the hollow with the thick brush that would have provided shelter from the wind was in the other direction.
I also smelled no smoke on him or anywhere in the vicinity, and he would have had to make some to survive.
“No,” Bianca whispered. “Kevin is not the most savvy outdoorsman, but I’ve never seen him move like that.
” She sounded horrified, which came through perfectly even in her hushed whisper.
I glanced once at her face to see her wide eyes, glinting like chips of ice.
I felt the first stirrings of worry for this guy myself, wondering if he’d encountered what we had in our dreams.
I was this close to turning for my cabin to drop Bianca off when the male abruptly tumbled face-first into the snow.
She squeaked in worry, and I was arrowing down and landing in the clearing up ahead in response before I could think twice.
Whatever this was, surely I could either freeze it or burn it before it could ever harm my Elskling.
The woods were quiet, save for the creak and moan of the branches overhead.
It felt like the cold stuck to my skin in an unnatural fashion.
I did not get cold; it was impossible. Bianca shivered in my arms, and it took me a moment before I could order my arms to let her slide to the ground and put her on her feet.
“What is that?” she whispered, her blue eyes shifting from my face to scan uneasily around her.
She clutched the front of her jacket and huddled, cold, but not cold.
I was still drawing the iciness from the air near her body; she should not feel the cold anymore than I did.
I shrugged because I wasn’t certain, I just knew that every instinct in me warned me to get us out of here.
Screw that hapless mortal in the snow ahead; he was not worth the risk to my mate.
I pulled her back into my arms, tightening my muscles in preparation for a launch.
Bianca’s hands clutched at my bare chest now, failing to find purchase against smooth skin and muscle.
Her blunt nails didn’t cause any harm against my thick skin either, but I felt the sharp bite of them anyway.
In all the time I’d known her, which was, admittedly, short, she’d never smelled of fear quite like she did now.
He came around a tree with a groan, arms around himself as if braced against the cold.
His face was pale, lips dark purple, and his nose and ears dangerously white.
I paused because he looked exactly like I expected him to after a night out—miraculously not dead.
Covered in frost, severely hypothermic, at risk of losing anything that stuck out of his clothes.
“Aaaaah, help, please,” he moaned as his eyes lit on us.
There was no sign of any recognition in his face, not even when he looked right at Bianca.
He didn’t respond to my appearance either, even though I had my wings out and wasn’t wearing a stitch of upper body clothing.
The helmet I’d fashioned into a crude disguise dangled from my belt, and I had not even thought to reach for it.
It wasn’t needed; this guy was in no state to remember any of this later—if he lived.
At least he was in the right place for survival, barring the risk of accidentally freezing him entirely. I could help him.
For Bianca, I would. She was already forgetting all about her fear from moments ago and stepping out of my arms to rush to the male.
“Kevin! Oh no, come on, here, take my hat.” She’d taken the bigger black one off to offer it to him, her hands reaching forward without hesitation—kindness and concern her only motivation.
I saw the flicker of change and lunged in the nick of time.