Page 26 of Red Dragon’s Flame

He’d said he’d come and rescue her—and somehow, impossibly, he’d done it.

She swallowed against her parched throat, and croaked out the first idiot thing that came into her head. “You promised to wear your loincloth.”

He swung around to face her, startled, and then a smile started to creep across his face. “Sorry to disappoint you,” he said. “It’s been at the cleaner’s since my last battle.”

“Hard to get blood off the fur,” she acknowledged.

The smile widened—and then faded as something indefinable filled the air between them.

For a long moment they just stared at each other. Then he came across the room and sat down in a chair pulled up next to the bed.

Up close he was breathtaking, his presence almost overwhelming. Brown hair with golden lights in it. Chiseled cheekbones. Eyes like a Caribbean ocean, that gave her the shivers when she looked into them. Devon had never actually seen anyone this hot in person—only on TV and the covers of romance novels. She sat up so she wouldn’t feel as much at a disadvantage. It didn’t help much.

But at least someone had given her a shirt with no blood on it.

He poured a glass of water from a pitcher on the night table and gave it to her. She sipped gratefully.

“I’m Mikah,” he said. “In real life. How are you feeling?”

Strange. Disoriented. Sore. Relieved. Apprehensive. “Devon,” she said, in response to the introduction.

As for the rest of it… “I’m feeling a little bit like I got hit by a truck,” was all she could get herself to admit. More like she’d been sat on by an elephant and then beaten with a mallet.

But she was alive. Alive and moving and breathing on her own. She still couldn’t believe it. The memory of being on the edge of death was too close to the surface, like if she thought about it too much, it would somehow happen.

And she didn’t know how or why it hadn’t happened.

He nodded. “You were pretty badly hurt. Are you having any trouble breathing?”

She shook her head. Now that the fire was back inside her—the fire that had kept her alive all these years—she could breathe just fine. But that was impossible to explain to a stranger.

He watched her intently, his eyes full of questions, but she could feel him debating internally over how much to push her.

He was kind, she realized. And caring. He didn’t want her to be scared or overwhelmed.

Too late.

She wondered if he’d be so kind when he realized how dangerous she was. Dangerous to him, and everyone around him.

“I have to get out of here,” she said abruptly, putting the glass down on the night table.

It was too abrupt, she realized. She didn’t know how to talk to people—she’d never learned how. But she couldn’t stay here. Automatically her gazed flicked to the window, and the night sky outside. A sky made to hide dark wings.

Mikah reached out and put his hand on her blanket-covered legs, in a gesture clearly meant to be soothing. It was anything but—she could feel the heat of his skin through the blankets, and it gave her the shivers.

“Because of those creatures?” he asked. “With the wings?”

He’d seen them. And he wasn’t freaked out? This guy was absolutely no normal accountant.

She nodded slowly.

“I agree,” he said. “You can’t stay here. I—”

He was interrupted by the door opening. Devon, all her attention on Mikah and the windows beyond, was taken completely by surprise.

Flames erupted out of her hands where they lay on the covers, enveloping Mikah’s hand. He jerked back and she shot away from him, scrambling to the far corner of the bed and huddling against the headboard, knees against her chest, wrapping the covers around herself.

The man in the doorway stopped dead. He wasn’t an attacker after all, just an incredibly good-looking guy with no weapons—just a tray full of food that smelled delicious.