Vyktor’s fist hit the table, making the rock crumble beneath its fury. He seethed with pure rage, his teeth bared as he advanced on Eldor.
“How dare you take what was mine and use it for your own ends.”
“I used her for our ends,” Eldor growled, not moving an inch. “She wanted it. The only one unhappy about this is you, Vyktor, and I do not like your reasons for it. You were always going to have to release her when you returned home. At most, you have lost a day or two with her. I saved you a messy goodbye. You should be thanking me.”
Vyktor’s anger was so intense he was forced to turn and walk away. He was not sure he could contain himself if he spent another moment in Eldor’s presence. He stormed through the passages of their temporary roost, out to one of the balcony perches. He stepped to the precipice, ready to take his dragon form and search Aria out. But as he looked at the human landscape stretching out to the distant horizons, he realized the magnitude of his task. To find her, he needed to know where she had gone. He suspected Eldor would not tell him that, and even if he did, it could be a lie. She was probably deep in the heart of human territory by now, totally out of reach.
Filled with a sadness that threatened to consume him, and an anger that was unable to be sated, Vyktor returned to his chambers. He had not cried since he was a whelpling. Even when severely injured he had kept his emotional reactions tightly contained. But as he walked into his room and saw her collar on the bed, he let out a sob.
Eldor must have removed it for her, and she had laid it out for him to find. Had she been glad to escape? Was she happy now? Vyktor took a deep breath to ward off the tears and laid down on the bed. As he put his head down, a small piece of paper fluttered out from underneath his pillow. He grasped it before it could waft its way onto the floor. Perhaps it was a note from Aria. A goodbye note.
He opened the folded paper and saw that it was no goodbye. There wasn’t a single word on the paper. There was simply a set of numbers, penned in Aria’s unmistakable hand.
It took him a moment to realize what they were. And then it hit him. Coordinates. A date. And a time. His pet had left directions as to where to find her, and it was only three days hence. He felt his heart rise, a smile spreading over his face.
The greatest part of his grief had been in thinking that Aria wished to be free of him. This little scrap of paper told him more than a thousand words ever could. It told him that she wanted him to come and find her. It told him that their connection was more than captor and captive.
He grinned to himself, his spirits lifting from the very dark place they had been languishing in since he had discovered Aria’s absence and had then given serious thought to tearing Eldor’s throat out for setting her loose.
CHAPTER 12
Aria sat on a rock in the middle of the desert and waited. It had been a week since leaving the dragon’s nest, four days longer than she had anticipated, but the delay could not have been avoided. Upon bringing the message from the dragons, she had been questioned intently about the nature of her relationship with them, nailed with inquiries.
She missed Vyktor like she would have missed a limb. It felt wrong not to have him by her side. It was so strange, to be alone in the world again. The relief she had anticipated in being back among real people and being taken back into the military fold was not as great as the sense of loss. When they’d questioned her, they were not concerned about her well-being. They were concerned about the dragons. It made sense, of course; why should anyone care about her when there was a dragon invasion to tend to?
But Vyktor cared. At least, she hoped he did. Had he even come to the location? Had he actually found the paper? Would he know to wait? She didn’t know. All she could do was sit there and wait and hope that the military didn’t come looking for her before Vyktor did. She was supposed to be consulting closelywith them, though ‘consulting’ really meant ‘being squeezed for every last drop of potentially relevant information.’
The night was drawing in and the temperature began to drop. Aria wrapped her arms around her knees, gazed up at the stars and made a wish…
Not a second later, arms descended around her, wrapping her in a tight hug, and a husky voice growled in her ear. “Naughty pet.”
Aria squealed with delight and turned to kiss Vyktor with all the passion she had.
“You snuck up on me!”
“I had to be discreet, pet.” Vyktor smiled down at her. “Can’t alert your government’s many detection systems, can I? They might send another misbehaved pilot after me—and I only have the two arms to deal with you.”
“You’re not mad at me, are you?” Aria looked up at him under her lashes.
“Pet, you are in so much trouble, you could barely begin to understand it,” he said in the most loving tones possible.
“But I did a… it was a good thing! They got the message and nobody got hurt!” She began to squirm in his grasp, but of course it was no good. He was holding her tight and firm—and she loved it. In the days between their meeting, she had often daydreamed of him. Not just his loving care, but also this side of him, the unyielding disciplinarian.
“You did precisely what I told you not to do,” he said. “You disobeyed me in the most dangerous of ways.”
“But I also told you where you could find me! Doesn’t that count for anything?”
“That counts for everything, pet,” he said as he sat down on the rock she had vacated and tugged her over his knee.
“Vyktor! Hey! No!” Aria complained as he began to spank her denim-clad butt with firm swats—not as hard as he was capable of, but more than hard enough to make her butt sting regardless. “Hey! This isn’t fair!”
“This is more than fair,” he informed her. “And you know this is a fraction of what you deserve. I should have you in chains and be lashing your bottom. This is nothing compared to what you have earned with your dangerous disobedience.”
“Vyktor!” She squealed his name in lieu of making an argument.
“You disobeyed me,” he growled down at her. “And you put yourself at risk.”
“Yeah!” She threw the words back over her shoulder. “And I’d do it again. Didn’t you hear me! We got the truce!”
