Chapter 8
Eight
Anna
His jaw dropped in time with his arm. “What do you mean, no? The hunters will come looking soon. We can’t stay here, Anna.”
I clenched at the sound of my name on his lips. His entire tone changed when he said it, like he was savoring the tastiest bite of a perfectly cooked steak. A throaty, masculine purr.
Orb-damn it all, it sounded amazing. Intoxicating. My skin flushed as I fought down a sudden urge to go to him. To wrap myself up in him and wear him like a second skin. I just wanted to be that close to him. Forever.
“We can’t leave without finding my friends,” I said, stubbornly pushing through the near feverish desire to jump him. He had rejected me, left me in a cage. I could not, would not, forget that.
The dead hunter’s body next to us chose that moment to relax, some of its muscles losing tension. And it voided itself.
That did more to help my restraint than anything else. The smell that wafted up only further killed it. I never thought on my wildest days that I would be thanking a dead corpse for shitting itself, but the times were indeed strange, and there I was, doing just that.
“Ugh.” Caz looked down at the corpse. “We’re not staying here. Where are they?”
“I don’t know. I looked a lot of places down there already, but I didn’t see them. So, maybe up here?” I pointed the direction from which he’d come.
“Maybe.”
I glanced at him, the doubt in his tone sounding confident.
“I looked in rooms as I came, I didn’t see anyone in cages,” he said, answering my unspoken question without even looking at me.
I wondered if that was the mate bond letting him get a read on me or just him guessing my thoughts well.
I couldn’t feel a thing from him yet, which made sense given we hadn’t so much as kissed and the bond was brand new.
As we darted down hallways left and right, I couldn’t help but wonder what our communication would be like once we had mate marks and could actually sense one another.
I shivered. That was a big assumption my dragon was making on my behalf.
That I was going to eventually cave and accept him.
“Are you okay?” The question came right on the heels of the spine tingle.
“Fine. I just want to find my friends,” I said, playing it off. I didn’t want him knowing I was already thinking about the future and whether there would be one or not. He had some things to answer for first.
Like why the hell he’d left me in the cage in the first place. From the few whiffs of power I’d gotten off him, he was very strong. Easily enough to have the resources to have simply bought me, Milly, and Ella. So why hadn’t he?
You know the reason why. Because you’re broken, and he can sense it.
“Ella. Milly,” I hissed as we entered yet another room. “Are you here?”
They weren’t, but a pair of hunters were. “What are you doing here?” said the nearer of the two, a tall, thin man with a beaked nose and a harsh center-split to his ponytail. “You don’t belong here. You should be in your cage, clippy scum.”
“Oh, fuck,” I yelped as Caz surged past me into the room, snarling like a feral werewolf.
He hit the tall hunter like a boulder in a landslide, flattening him to the ground.
Ice formed in his right hand, and he drove the makeshift spike upward into the jaw of the second hunter.
The icicle burst out of the man’s mouth in a spray of blood and gore before it broke off of Caz’s hand.
The wounded shifter fell, clutching at his throat.
Caz’s knee caught him in the temple, and he collapsed like a sack of potatoes.
I eyed my mate as he stalked from the room, the two hunters unconscious and bleeding behind him.
“Nobody talks about my mate that way,” he grunted, as if that was all the explanation needed in the world.
“Damn. I knew new mate bonds could make people hair-trigger jealous, but don’t you think that might have been a bit much?” I asked, following after him.
“They’re still alive,” was all the answer I got as we continued our search.
Apparently, he didn’t care about the aggression our newly awoken mate bonds were generating in him.
We searched room after room with no sign of them anywhere.
“We’re running out of time,” Caz said as yet another hunter slumped to the ground unconscious, courtesy of a lightning-fast left hook that I had barely seen him throw. “We need to go now, while we still can, Anna.”
“But my friends,” I protested.
“I will find them.” He grabbed both my hands to lock eyes with me from under his hood, much of his face still obscured. “I swear to you on our mate bond, I will ensure they are tracked down and safe.”
“How can you promise that? These are hunters we’re talking about.” I couldn’t just leave the only two people in my life at their mercy.
“I have resources at my disposal,” he said, looking away. “I will find them. Now please, can we go before more of them wake up?”
“You don’t seem to be having any problems with them.”
He shook his head. “Fighting them isn’t the issue.”
“Then what is?”
Behind us, I heard a shout followed by the sounds of more voices.
“We’re out of time, Anna. I’m sorry. We have to go.”
“But—”
Caz was done listening to my protests. He snatched me up into his arms, holding me easily against his chest as he dashed for the stairs and ran up them half a flight at a time.
It all happened so fast, I didn’t have time to think about how good it felt to be in his arms or how deliciously firm his chest was under my one hand as I held on for dear life.
Behind us, the hunters sounded more alarms, waking up all their kindred. The chase was on.
We burst out onto a roof. A maze of buildings rose up around us, some higher, some lower. The Desolate Quarter of Kylma was no joke. And waiting for us …
“Someone’s here!” I hissed as the other shifter came jogging over.
Caz stopped and put me down, though his arms stayed tightly around me, pressing me against his chest and threatening to drown me in the heady aroma of masculine musk that poured off him. It was so strong, so addictive in its nature that I nearly swooned, despite the danger of it all.
“That’s Ri. He’s with me,” Caz grunted after looking at the approaching shifter. “We’re going now. Are you ready?”
Before I could ask what I needed to be ready for, massive wings sprouted from his back, the motion shredding parts of his shirt to reveal a formidable array of abs underneath two chiseled pecs that flexed in time with his brilliant silver-white wings as they tensed.
“Uh.”
“Time to go,” Caz urged, taking me by the waist and pulling me close once more. I stepped on his feet when instructed, and tried not to plaster my cheek to his chest. If I did, I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to peel myself away.
“I’ve never done this before,” I said, hating how quivery my voice came out. I would not turn into a scared mess in front of him. I wouldn’t.
“Just hold on tight to me, Anna. That’s all you have to do,” he rumbled, gently stroking my hair, pulling it back out of my face and tucking it behind my ear. “You’ll do great. I’ll protect you. I promise. You’ll always be safe with me.”
He bent down slightly and pressed his lips to my forehead. I inhaled sharply through half-lidded eyes at the touch. They were so warm and soft. I couldn’t stop myself from wondering what it would feel like with him kissing other parts of me. Kissing all parts of me.
Then he leapt into the sky without warning, and I buried my face in his chest anyway, unable to look down.