Page 3 of Into Ember

Trees. I am looking at the trees. The trees are right there and they have never done anything to me.

My eyes go back.

“Elara.” I say it out loud, to myself, like a woman calling her own dog, and somewhere behind me Gunnar makes a sound like a man dying happy.

Third time.

A third time, and what the hell is wrong with me?

Leif catches them at it, because of course he catches them — he’s been watching me this whole time with that maddening cat calm, entirely unbothered, like being naked is exactly how he wanted me to see him.

“Somebody please give him pants.”

“Working on it.” Brock is already shrugging out of his jacket, which is not pants, but apparently we’re starting with achievable goals.

I turn around while they sort it out. All the way around. I stare into the dark between the trees, and behind me there’s the sound of fabric and Gunnar refusing to let a single second of this go — “Commander” — and underneath all of it, under my feet, the ground is humming.

Faintly.

And I know the notes by heart.

Not dealing with that right now. I have a full enough evening. The sky is on the wrong side, the cat is a commander, my face may never come back down to a livable temperature, and every single thing I’ve said out loud since this morning is currently under review by new management.

A hand lands warm between my shoulder blades — Erik’s, I know it without turning, the same way I knew what was standing behind my kitchen wall — and steers me gently around, and we start walking.

I keep my eyes forward.

Mostly.

“Does somebody want to tell me where the fuck we are?!”

Chapter 2

Leif

She’s mine.

I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.

On Earth, I knew it. I just thought it was me.

I have spent centuries overruling instinct. Hunger, rage, fear — every impulse that ever made me less than useful. Control isn’t something I do. It’s what I am.

This is different.

It’s not one voice anymore.

My dragon knows it too.

On that side he was a weight. Distant. Muffled, like a storm on the far side of a mountain. Here he is wide awake, pressed up under my skin, looking at her through my eyes.

The sound I made against her neck wasn’t a decision. I would like to claim it was.

It wasn’t.

He wanted her scent and he took it, and neither of us was ready for what we found. Her scent changed the moment we crossed. On Earth it was night-blooming cereus. Faint. Easy to argue with.

Here, she smells like this side of the sky.