Chapter Fifteen
Dela
“Dela,” he said, pained. “Listen, we don’t have time for that.”
“Time? We don’t have time? We have all the time! And he has none. ‘Cause he’s dead. You killed him! Holy fuck. You killed him!”
Ember stepped closer, and I automatically stepped away again.
His frustrated growl was somehow sexy and scary all at once.
There was so much power in that noise—in him.
I’d only begun to realize how much he’d been constraining it before.
It was so much that it left me hot and sweating as if the room’s temperature had spiked.
But that was understandable. I’d never seen a dead body before, so how would I know what the experience was like? Now there was one impaled on the wall, hanging limply. I turned away, not wanting to see it anymore.
“I’m sorry,” Ember said, taking that moment to dart in close and grab my hand.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as he dragged me along. A warning sign or a renewed indication of how I always seemed to react when he touched me?
“What are you sorry for?” I asked.
“Everything,” he growled. “You being here. You seeing that. You being in danger. You having to come with me now. I’m sorry for all of it. It should never have happened. But it has, Dela, and you need to accept that, and so do I.”
“How can I accept that you killed him?” I asked, running to keep up so that he didn’t pull me down as we headed back out of the tunnels.
“Because he was trying to kill me first,” Ember said. “And now his partner is running away, to get back up, to come and kill us both.”
“What?” My voice was little more than a mouse squeak. “Why me? What did I do?”
“Nothing,” he said, pausing to pick me up again as the last of the cavern’s light faded. “They just don’t think you should be here.”
“So, they resort to killing me? What the fuck kind of place did you bring me to?” I looked down where his arms held me tightly, almost protectively.
Somehow, on some level, my animal brain registered that he was no threat to me.
To others, yes, but he wouldn’t hurt me.
How could I let myself forget what he’d just done, though?
He was dangerous. What if he lost control of that murderous rage and instinct and accidentally turned it on me? Was that possible?
“I didn’t bring you anywhere,” he said. “I don’t have that kind of power.”
“Someone did,” I replied, to which he was silent.
He knew more than he was telling me, and I decided to confront him about it.
“Why are you hiding things from me?” I asked, pushing aside the dead body for a moment. We would circle back to it, though. There was no way I was done with that!
“Because.”
I rolled my eyes, turning my head to stare at what I hoped were his eyes. “You’re going to have to do better than that, Ember, if you want me to trust that you’re the good guy and not a murderous bastard.”
His biceps twitched, tightening around me. I stiffened, reminded of the strength in them and the way he’d held me as we kissed. It came flooding back, and I drew a long breath, trying to calm myself.
“Stop that,” he growled. “I don’t have time for distractions.”
“Stop what?” I asked.
“Whatever it is that’s causing you to smell so good.” His voice was the lowest I’d ever heard it.
He could smell me? What? “I’m not doing anything.”
What could I be doing that smelled good? I’d been thinking about the kiss and how it made my body tingle and my nipples hard, and then he’d—
“I said stop it.”
My eyes felt ready to explode. Holy shit, could he smell that I was turned on? How was that even possible?
A light ahead distracted me, and we shot out through the opening onto a wide flat plateau.
Far below us, a rocky landscape spread out into the distance.
The sun shining down gave the charcoal a bit of life, illuminating bits of green here and there, but overall, it was a rather bleak place to look upon.
The scene was dominated by the biggest mountain I’d ever seen. It was huge, shooting up into the sky, reaching for the very heavens. Around the peak swirled clouds fraught with blue, obscuring the tip from view.
“No time,” Ember said, spinning me around, locking eyes with me. “Dela, we have to catch that other man. If he isn’t stopped, your life will be in danger, regardless of where you go.”
“O-okay. So, stop him? I certainly can’t help you. I’m not a fighter.”
“I know,” he said. “But I’m not leaving you behind either. Which means you have to come with me.”
“Then why did we stop? I’m so confused.”
“Because I’m about to do something you’ll call impossible. You’ll want to panic and freak out. But if you want to survive this, you cannot freak out until later. Your life depends on you doing exactly as I say.”
“That seems to be a common theme.”
He grabbed me by the shoulders, his blue eyes burning into me. “There is precisely no time for this, Dela. Get your shit together, or else even I won’t be able to protect you. Okay?”
“Okay, sure,” I said, shaking my head, unnerved by his intensity, while loving the way he held me so firmly. It was intense. “No freaking out.”
“Good. Because your life is banking on it.” He looked around, then up into the sky, and nodded to himself. “Now, jump on my back. Piggyback.”
“What? That was it? You—”
“Now!” he barked.
I moved at his command, obeying him instantly, leaping on his back, my legs wrapping around his waist and my hands over his shoulders without choking his neck. I could feel his body between my hips as I squeezed his sides hard. It was firm.
“There, I did what you asked, now—what the ever-loving fuck is happening?” I shrieked as he changed under me.
Not his clothing, but his fucking body. It grew swiftly, sprouting what had to be deep scarlet scales the size of medieval shields. His neck shot away, and behind me, giant bulges pushed out from his shoulders until they exploded into massive red wings.
“Remember,” he said—only it wasn’t his voice. It was inhuman, yet still Ember, “panic later, Dela. Right now, you need to hold on tight.”
“Uh.”
“Hold on, Dela!” he shouted, spreading his wings.
“Ember?”
“Hold on, Dela!” he repeated and launched us into the air.
My scream was buried in the mighty swoosh of air as his wings swept down, lifting us higher and higher. The ground shot away, leaving the plateau far below us as massive muscles drove us into the sky.
“If you panic now,” he growled as I started to hyperventilate, “you die, Dela. Get a hold of yourself.”
There was a slight pleading tone to his voice.
“It’s a-a-a …” my voice failed me. I couldn’t bring myself to say it. Just the thought of it was preposterous. Yet there I was, on its fucking back. Riding it—him?—like he was a horse.
A really, really, big horse. And red. With wings and a snout and scales, and, and, and …
“Dragon,” I whispered, the word slipping out at last. “I’m on the back of a fucking dragon. Goddamn, I must be tripping. Someone slipped me some drugs. That has to be it. There is no way this is actually happening.”
“It is happening,” Ember growled. “This is real, and I need you to hold on.”
“Uh, to what?” I asked, leaning forward and pressing myself down to his neck. “Why?”
“That will do,” he said. “And because we need to go faster.”
“Faster?” I squeaked, even as his wings beat harder, shooting us forward.
I was forced to squint against the wind as we picked up speed. Tears streamed down my face as I tried to spy on what we were going after. Up ahead, a black dot slowly resolved itself into something moving. A bird?
“Trust me,” Ember rumbled in his strangely melodic voice. “Trust me, Dela.”
Strangely, I did. Maybe he’d drugged me with his kiss. I swear I’d seen that in a movie once, fake lips or something, dabbed with poison. Maybe that was it? Ludicrous, of course, but what else could it be? How was I supposed to trust someone like him? Clearly, I couldn’t use my feelings.
But I’d felt it before in the tunnel. When he’d grabbed me. And kissed me. Oh, god, that kiss—so blisteringly hot. Through it, I’d sensed that he had no desire to hurt me. Only … to protect me? I had no idea why, but it made sense.
“Those people back there,” I said, raising my voice to be heard over the wind. “They were really trying to kill you?”
“Yes,” he said heavily. “And now you.”
“I don’t understand, though. Why me?” I called, cupping my hands to shout.
A gust of wind bumped me, and I shouted, wrapping my arms back to his neck. That was the last time I tried that.
“You’re a human in the land of dragons,” he said. “That alone would be enough. But if word gets out that you’re with me, it will be worse.”
“Why is that?”
He didn’t answer. I started to push him for an explanation when a ripple ran through his body, heading down his neck and out into the rest of him, causing me to tremble from it.
“Hold on tight,” he said, driving forward hard, his neck flattening, showing me why he’d been silent.
We’d caught up to our quarry.