Chapter 13
Chapter
Thirteen
Terror ripped through her as a tall form took shape in the gloom.
“No!” Ash stumbled, landing hard on her backside, the snaps and crackles growing louder. She scrambled backward until her shoulders hit bark, her breath hitching, lungs refusing to work.
“It’s me.” Race was suddenly there, crouched beside her, his eyes blazing red as they swept the trees. “Are you all right? What happened? Where the hell is Koal?”
“I thought, I thought…” she could barely get a word out.
“There are no strange dragons here.” Cold fury bled off him as he gently brushed her hair from her damp cheek. “Conceal your powers, Ash.”
“What?”
He nodded to her clenched fists.
Oh, shit. The snapping and crackling was coming from her.
Lightning licked at her skin, and it stung. She swallowed hard and mentally forced the power deep within her until it ebbed. “I’m okay.”
Race surged to his feet. “I’m going to fucking kill him—”
Twigs snapped nearby.
“Ash, it’s me!” Koal burst through the underbrush, mud-splattered and panting, a huge six-legged hare—nearly the size of a Labrador—dangling limp from his hand.
Race was on him in an instant, hauling him forward by the shirtfront. “You left her alone?”
“Race, stop!” Ash scrambled to her feet. “It’s not his fault. I just—after what happened—I panicked.”
Koal hastily lowered his head. “I was close, sire. I heard her and knew she wasn’t in danger, but I was mid-hunt…” He lifted the dead animal, his gaze still downcast. “I returned immediately.”
“Not in danger?”
“Race.” Ash grabbed his arm. “Please, it’s my fault—”
“It only takes a heartbeat for anything to change.” His glare pinned Koal with murderous promise. “I should paint the forest with your blood for causing her distress.”
Koal exhaled slowly. “Aye, I understand. But I couldn’t stay. She needed privacy.”
Power pulsed off Race, singeing the cold air with the acrid odor of burning ozone. Smoke curled from his nose. “Then don’t fucking volunteer.”
“Race, stop, please.” Ash pushed at his chest, trying to move him. She didn’t understand his rage. He seemed beyond reason. “Let him go.”
He spun to her, hauled her against him so fast that the breath punched from her lungs—then the world folded in on itself.
They reformed inside the cave, near the pit. Race released her and raked a clawed hand over his face, scales popping along his jaw, rasping against his palm. Then he turned and strode for the exit.
Ash flung her backpack down and sprinted across the cave—damn, these shifters moved fast. She blocked his path. “What,” she panted, “was that?”
“Leave it alone, Ash.” His jaw clenched hard enough for her to see, a nerve pulsing hard under his skin. Their breath fogged the bare space between them as they glared at each other.
“No. You don’t get to growl and storm off after that caveman display.” She didn’t understand him or why he was so furious. As if the mere thought of harm touching her was unbearable?
And yet…it felt like more than that. Like something too deep. Too raw… Like memories he didn’t want?
“Are you okay?” she asked quietly, her gaze searching his hard, implacable features.
His jaw hardened further, if that was possible. “We’re leaving.”
She sighed. So much for worrying about him. “I thought you couldn’t access the portal until evening, when the guards change?”
“It is evening on that side.” He sidestepped her and stalked out of the cave.
Ugh, maddening man. Ash stomped after him.
“Are you all right, female?” Attor asked, seated on a flattened boulder near Skaldr. “Heard you call out.”
Bloody dragon ears.
“My fault.” She managed a rueful smile. “I finished up sooner than Koal expected and shouted for him. These bleed-cedars can be scary.” She glanced around for him.
“He’ll be back. He’s lucky he still breathes,” Attor replied, tone dry.
Right. Ash slipped past Race as the tension thickened between him and the other two shifters, neither side backing down. Hell, it felt like sandpaper scraping her skin.
God, stubbornness ran hard with this lot, and Race was probably the worst.
“Eracier.” Skaldr’s tight voice broke the heavy silence. “You haven’t seen the horrors of those mines. They cart off fledglings for weeks. When the wagons return, there’s always one less. The rest, crippled, hollow-eyed—”
“Why would they do that?” Ash’s stomach lurched. “They’re children.”
“Because the fucking usurper made it law!” Skaldr jerked to his feet, shoving a blood-matted strand of red hair from his eyes. “Six winters and older? Into the pits. Because the bastard needs more riches.”
“Come with us, Eracier,” Attor said. “Just this once. See for yourself.”
“Maybe you should.” Her pulse drumming, her gaze darted to Race. “While we’re still here?”
“Stay out of this, Ash,” he growled.
Heat scorched her cheeks, but she refused to back down.
“I would have stayed out of it if I hadn’t been dragged here, but I am.
I’ve seen that village, felt the despair.
You can’t look away when your own people think you can help.
I admit I don’t know how you’ll do it, but they—” she nodded toward Attor and Skaldr, “seem certain you can.”
Anger swallowed his claret irises to nearly black.
Ash’s heartbeat stuttered, then steadied. She’d watched pack animals square their shoulders with their alpha. She did the same, her chin lifting in quiet challenge.
Race skewered Ash with a flat look, frustration strangling him that she’d dare challenge him in front of this lot. But her terror from the whelp leaving her alone gutted him, reminding him far too much of his own helplessness in Tartarus.
And his rage resurged like wildfire. His dragon prowled inside his skull, claws scraping against bone.
Both man and beast wanted Koal dead.
About to end this blasted conversation, his gaze caught on her kiss-swollen lips, her taste still ghosting his tongue, her scent tangled in his head, and his body tightened.
Ours, his dragon chuffed—
“Eracier,” Attor’s voice cut through the storm in his head. Mid-morning light flittered through the treetops, carving sharp hollows under the older dragon’s eyes. “The land is failing. Badlands reignite, calderas boil. We’ve lost families and half of our flyers. Our numbers dwindle. We need you.”
Race remained silent, remembering all too well how this realm repaid loyalty—with iron shackles and over five centuries of agony.
But witnessing Ash’s disappointment, his mouth tightened. She had no idea what he’d endured. He didn’t want to be drawn back to this place of his betrayal.
Skaldr’s fist slammed against the cave wall, stone splintering and dust flying. Race didn’t flinch.
“What do you need—blood? Begging? More children to be sent into the mines to search for his fucking riches?” Skaldr snarled. “Our realm is being burned to the ground, and you’re gonna just vanish again?”
So, Malcarion, the bastard, hadn’t revealed what he’d done. Everyone believed Race a coward who’d fled as his kingdom fell? “Ash, we’re leaving—”
“Typical,” Skaldr spat, pressing his injured hand to his bandaged wounds. “Lemuria is dying, and he’d rather opt out and take off, too busy playing lone wolf to deal with an actual throne thief.”
Race pivoted toward Skaldr, his talons surging, black and deadly.
“Sire,” Attor cut in, leaping up from the boulder, placing himself between them. “I don’t know what happened to you for you to lose all empathy, but the world your sire died for still bleeds.”
Fuck, he couldn’t deal with them and worry about Ash, too.
“Let’s go,” he told her.
She frowned at him, her displeasure evident that he refused to help before she pivoted for the cave entrance.
“Leave the bag. You don’t need it.”
“Right. Going home.” She turned and stalked to him. “So that’s it?” she hissed. “You’re just going to leave? Not help them at all?”
His mouth tightened, anger gnawing at him. Without replying, he hauled her close and dematerialized them, their molecules scattering…
The strain of carrying another across so many leagues dragged at him, testing his limits. He kept his magic steady through the void, fighting the natural resistance of traveling so far in one jump.
When they finally coalesced, it was into twilight and suffocating heat. Ash’s grip stayed locked around him, her heartbeat thundering against his chest.
“I feel like jelly,” she whimpered.
“Breathe. It will ease in a minute or so,” he said, though his own legs felt ready to give out. The air reeked of scorched dust and minerals, burning his nose.
With a groan, she slipped from his arms to her knees, wiping the damp strands of hair plastered to her face. Her eyes widened, darting over the massive black crystals surrounding them. “Where—where are we?”
“Heard it’s called Black-Shard Basin now.” His heightened senses caught the march of guards in the distance. He lowered his voice, waiting for them to leave. “Once, it used to be the footprint of an ancient gate volcano.”
The caldera had brimmed with life—lush greenery, a mirror-lake at its heart, and the portal had to be summoned—not with this barrenness.
“Guess we’re leaving, then?” she murmured, wiping her brow with the back of her hand. “Me, packaged for return like a misshipped parcel.”
He kept his gaze fixed on the splintered rocks, knowing if he looked at her, he’d cave. “You don’t belong in this dangerous world—”
“Yeah. That’s your go-to for pushing me away, isn’t it?”
“Dammit, Ash.” His gaze snapped to hers. “You know that’s—”
“Not true?” She tipped that little stubborn chin up a notch, her eyes scalding him. “But it’s all you’ve ever done ever since—never mind. Let’s just get this over with, so I can go home and forget this ever happened.”
He opened his mouth, then shut it. She was leaving. Pointless in raking over the same old. Yeah, he was a bastard, not good for any female.
All he had to offer was rage and pain.
Now she knew.