I pressed a hand to my head to make sure the lack of sleep wasn’t causing me to hear voices that weren’t there. This mind blending was so odd. The rumble of his chuckle resounded in my head and my eyes snapped up to where he still sat, unmoving. His eyes closed, and head propped against the cushion.
“Don’t act so surprised. I told you about the mind blending,” he said aloud without opening his eyes. There were deep grooves bracketing his mouth and carved in the space between his brows. The urge to smooth them away was so all-encompassing; I had to twist my fingers into the heavy velvet of the seat cushions.
I tilted my head, considering his words. “Does this mean I’ll be able to hear your thoughts, too?” I asked.
“I pray not, but eventuallyit may be possible.” His blue eyes brightened. “Do you want to know what I’m thinking right now?” His voice was silky, intimate, and I was suddenly reminded of the fact we were alone in the small, enclosed space, not that I’d truly forgotten.
“It would probably help to get to know you, considering that we’re mated now.” I deliberately mistook his meaning. I’d never flirted with another man before, but it was easy with him. “Not to mention that it’s freezing, and I’d much rather think about something else. We can’t all turn into fire breathers.” I pulled my cloak more tightly around my shoulders to ward off the bite of chill in the air and emphasize my point.
“Come here,” he said and splayed his legs even wider in blatant invitation.
One I very much wanted to accept. I remembered the warmth of his skin. How satisfying it felt to be in his arms. But the yearning inside of me was so great, it scared me to give into it.
I shook my head. “No, I didn’t mean—”
“It’ll save us both a lot of time if you just do as I ask, Elena.” His tone brooked no argument. “Now, come here.”
Considering the pitiful state of my frozen fingers, despite the many layers I was wearing, I did as he asked and crossed the jolting carriage to his side, practically falling into his arms from weakness. His warmth called to me and I still craved the comfort of his touch. Neither boded well if I was to keep the proverbial distance between us. He opened the placket of buttons at his throat and guided me underneath the voluminous material of his shirt. I groaned aloud, not caring if he heard, as I snuggled into his heat. It felt just as good as I remembered. Better.
He gathered my fingers in his and I watched, speechless, as a brilliant gold glow shined between our clasped hands, melting away the chill. That was new. Rhys chuckled above me and settled my body against his, one of my hands still clasped firmly in his, like it was hard for him to let me go, too.
I supposed there were benefits to being mated toa dragon after all.
“Definite benefits,” he said into my hair, his voice hoarse with exhaustion. “But I’m too tired to illuminate them just now, pet, much as I would like to.”
His warmth, the cinnamon-smoke scent of him, was too alluring to fight so for a moment I didn’t. I laid my head on his chest and allowed him to cradle me like a child as he stroked his hands from my head down to my ice-cold feet, his warmed hands heating me down to the bone.
Half asleep, I nuzzled into his shirt without thinking and his hand stilled on my ankle. “Who are those people?” I asked drowsily. “Your guards. Are they from your clan?”
His other arm rested under my back, cupping my hip and cocooning me against his body. “You have been sheltered, haven’t you?”
The comment bristled, but I let it slide because moving away was unthinkable. “I’m sure you know what it’s like, at least partially. After,” I paused, cleared my throat, “after I learned I couldn’t shift, the threat was too great for me to stay at the castle. My brother needed me to go somewhere safe. Not much has happened at the temple in the past hundred or so years and they like to keep it that way.”
“My guards are Dragon-Clan.”
That caused me to look up at him, my eyebrows in my hairline. “What?” I pressed a hand to his chest as I straightened in surprise. “But I thought they—”
“When the curse befell the Dragon-Clan, it froze them in their human form.” His voice grew harsh and the hand on my leg clamped down reflexively. “Now they serve the clan in the only way they can until the day comes when we can break the curse.”
I said nothing. I couldn’t. I’d never heard of a shifter clan protecting those they deemed weak. Like me. The only reason I was alive was because no one had successfully managed to kill me yet, but they sure kept trying. That and doing so would start a war—one that was probably inevitable. After that, my thoughts turned inward, and I was grateful Rhys left me to them. I chased them around and around until I fell asleep.
The rest of the journey north wasn’t pleasant, and I was loath to say it, but it would have been all the worse if Rhys hadn’t allowed me the use of his chest for a pillow now and again. A few hours outside of the Corinthine Wood the carriage slowed, jolting me awake from a contented half-sleep against his chest. I blinked up at his face, finding his eyes on me, his expression almost soft in contemplation.
The carriage came to a stop, and I straightened, pulling back the curtains covering the small window. A light dusting of snow covered the groundand the tops of the trees outside—or it would have if there wasn’t a regiment of Rhys’s clan marching across the road and back up the direction we’d just come from.
Rhys pulled me back down to the seat, though the worry of being so far away from everything I’d ever known turned my stomach to lead. “You should rest.”
“Is this where you were attacked?”
His hand came to rest on my back automatically as we settled back down on the seat. He was quiet a moment before he spoke. In the silence, I tried to read his mind as he could read mine, but there was only silence on the other end. “Yes,” he said. “We’re a brief journey from where we’ll move to the ship.”
I closed my eyes and tried to rest as he said, but couldn’t shake the feeling of desolation, that hung like chains around my neck, with the increasing distance between myself and the place I had always considered a home.
“Gods, woman, do I need to provide you with a distraction to get any rest?” he asked some time later, the rough tone of his voice startling me from my frenzied thoughts. “Is that the only way you will relax?”
“What kind of distraction?” my mouth asked, before my brain had time to think the question through. His eyes heated and so did my cheeks. “No,” I squeaked out, “no, you can’t.Wecan’t.”
“If the last few hours are any indication, I think I most certainly can.” He arranged me across his lap as though I was featherlight. I didn’t have any time to protest—and I wasn’t sure I would have. One second I was blinking up at him and the next I was arranged across his thighs and captured in his powerful embrace.
