I stop chewing.
My gaze snags on movement between the trees; narrows on a spot at the mountain’s base. On a lazy waterfall that slips down a mossy cleft in the cliff, pours into an azure pool, and feeds into a slow-moving stream. And amidst the steam rising off the pool’s rippled surface, a broad, masculine figure—
Him.
My hand lowers as I take in the powerful scape of Kaan’s back, his bulging muscles inked with so many moons.Onethat threatens to jolt me into thinking too much.
Feeling too much.
I’m about to look away when he spins, the warmth in his molten eyes infusing me with the same ravenous thrill I feel when soaring through the clouds on Líri’s back. At the same time, a push of wind brings his scent straight to my nose—dense and robust.
Dashing thoughts ofanythingelse.
A rumbling sound boils in the back of my throat.
I shove up and charge through the meadow, the heavy strip of meat swinging from my clenched fist. An offering I hope he’ll appreciate.
Líri releases a warning growl.
I whip around, snarling when a deeper growl thunders down from where Rygun’s nesting atop the mountains above the low-hanging clouds.
Líri snuffs, slitting a narrowed glower through the trees before she stuffs her bloody maw back into the beast’s torn-up belly, giving me her back. Reluctant submission for me to move away from her protective space. Intohis.
But submission, nonetheless.
I charge toward the spring, watching Kaan lather his body, smearing suds across his muscles while he sings.
Charming me forward one smooth word at a time.
She’s a storm of wild unkemptness moving through the trees; hair windblown to the side, blood smeared all over her face and hands, dripping from the chunk of meat hanging from her clenched fist. Savage hunger glints in her eyes as she approaches with long, feline steps, now close enough that I hear the icy crust of snow and loose twigs crunching beneath her feet. See the fluttered pulse of her carotid—racing.
Just like mine.
Holding her fervid gaze, I continue to soap myself, movements slow and unthreatening, humming the soft tune I first played for her many phases ago. When she was frail and solemn, mourning the loss of her family and the horrendous abuse of her dragon. When I was soothing her in a different way.
Convincing her tolive.
I can tell she registers the tune, registersmeby the upward tilt of her bloody lips. By the heat in her too-black eyes, her pupils so blown there’s only the slightest hint of a blue ring cut around the edge.
A token of hope that I’m not too late. That I can still reach her.
Something.
She prowls free of the canopy, onto the craggy foothill softened by lush ferns with frosted tips, leaping from stone to stone. Paying my small camping space not a single glance, she sets the meat on a mossy rock beside the spring.
An offering.
I raise a brow, humming through the chorus as she jerks free of her jacket—movements swift and sure. She gets to work on her pants, underwear, boots, finally gathering her tunic up over her hips, waist, chest, exposing her body in all its shapely glory. Exposing my málmr still safe between her heavy breasts, punching me full of so much pride my next breath chokes, gaze skimming over her dusky nipples.
Dipped waist.
Wide hips.
Fuck.
I fill my lungs until they’re brimming, hone my concentration, and drudge through the next verse as she drops the filthy tunic—her inky hair an untamed shadow framing her body, making her pale skin stand out in stark contrast. Like a Moonplume pitched against the dark.
Savagely beautiful. As though she was born to be this feral and free of …everything.
