Page 41 of Ashborne: Defiance

‘You didn’t have to.’

I wanted to curse. ‘I’m not her father, nor her wing leader!’

‘You’re the only person she knows who understands what she’s facing more than she does. But, by all means, leave her to drown in her own uncertainty. It will serve both of them well.’

I hunched my shoulders against a new burden of guilt, then frowned harder. ‘Why are you taking her side? You’re my bonded dragon. Shouldn’t you be more concerned with me?’

Kham sighed. ‘You still don’t understand, do you?’ he said, far more tenderly than I’d like. ‘You’re precisely who I’m worried about.’

I opened my mouth to argue with him—he had no reason to be concerned! But I realized I’d sound like a fool when I’d just told him the opposite. So, I kept my mouth shut.

15. Time to Fly

~ VOSKI ~

We stood in the clearing, sunlight blazing on the dragon’s scales, both of them lifting and fluttering their wings, crooning to each other, touching noses and rubbing each other with their snouts.

‘Get a room,’ I muttered into the link with Kham.

‘To what purpose?’ Kham asked me, genuinely baffled.

I rolled my eyes. ‘It’s what we say when a pair are too physically affectionate in public. It means, go be in private.’ It was the wrong thing to say. Kham rumbled and his mind immediately filled with images of precisely what he’d do to Koa if he got her alone. My frustrated body leaped in response and I hissed a curse. ‘It was a metaphor!’

‘No, it wasn’t,’ Kham sent back smugly, rubbing his snout along his mate’s neck. ‘Wait until you surrender to the bond. You’ll see.’

‘There will be no surrendering,’ I sent with a scowl as I looked down at the harness in my hands. I had to get both Grace and myself safely to the castle. It was usual to fly double with an inexperienced rider. Kham would accept anyone I trusted on his back. And he’d take his mate’s rider even without me. But I shuddered at the thought of being pressed against Grace, holding her back to my front for hours as we flew back to the Fyrehold royal estate.

I dearly wished I had a second harness for Grace, and could let her take her first flight alone. But it wasn’t possible—she couldn’t have ridden out a launch and landing alone her first time on dragonback. I knew that. It would only waste time if we tried.

Grace stood a few feet to my right, watching the dragons with bright, avid eyes. She practically bounced on her toes. In fact, I was certain if I hadn’t been there to see it, she would have.

She was thrilled, and itching to get on board.

I knew that feeling.

I found it disconcerting in her.

Without a word, I walked to Kham’s side, grasped his mounting strap and pulled myself up, walking up his leg, then shoulder, to clamber up to my usual seat at the base of his withers, between his wing ridges. Muttering to myself, I clipped one of the straps that I’d removed from his harness back in, because I’d have to ride with Grace and we needed an additional safety strap for her.

“When I’ve got this fixed, I’ll help you climb up to mount,” I said quietly, re-testing the clips on the strap rather than look at her excited face. “You’ll sit at the front. When you’re clipped in, I’ll climb up behind you and—”

“I watched. I can do it.”

Kham huffed as she darted to the strap, looped it around her forearm, then began to climb.

“Wait—Grace!” I spluttered.

“I’m fine!” she panted and even though I wanted to crawl down and throttle her, the reality was I’d only put her at greater risk of falling since I’d have to use the same straps to get down to her. Then I blinked because I’d never seen anyone use the technique she was using, and I couldn’t tell if she was insane, or extremely clever.

I’d been a big part of Bren’s training when she was Flameborne—the term we used for those chosen by a dragon, who wanted to be trained and eventually earn the pin of a Furyknight. I knew the limitations a woman faced with our dragons and gear. Their upper-body strength just wasn’t a match for the weight of the harnesses. The brute strength needed to heft their own bodyweight had to be built over time. It was true for men as well, though Bren had taken longer than the men I’d worked with.

Had I been given the time, I would have crawled up behind Grace, bracing her so she could rest along the way, and if she fell, I’d catch her in the hollow of my body, because I was strong enough to hold us both.

But Grace was already inching halfway up Kham’s side. She’d looped the thick leather around her forearm, and used it like an anchor to pull herself up a step, then gritted her teeth and held her weight with the other hand while she looped the anchor arm again and pulled herself up another couple of steps.

She was straining. And terribly slow—it would never work as an actual mount technique. We had to be able to mount quickly in the case of battle. But it was effective. It gave her time to stop and rest when she grew breathless.

I worried about the constricted blood flow of the arm she used for the anchor though. And the fact that she’d run ahead and begun without instruction. But she was already high enough to hurt herself if she fell, so I bit my tongue and saved the lecture for later.