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“You’re not officially my mate, yet.” Kai smiled. “Regardless of what that scrap of paper says, you need to wear my name on your arm and claim me in front of the clan to truly make it official.”
Jane stuck out her tongue and then replied, “You might’ve won this round, but I’m still ahead.”
Kai walked a little further away to give him room to shift. “Only because you cheat.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault you lost five points for punching my brother in the face.”
Kai grunted. “He started it.”
She placed a hand on her hip. “Still, you promised not to hit him. You could’ve pinned him with one of your special moves instead.”
“He scolded you for ‘shacking up with a dragonman’ and then yelled at me for defiling his sister. He was the idiot who punched me. He learned his lesson in the end.”
Jane still remembered Rafe’s black eye from the video conference a few days later. “Just be glad he hasn’t withdrawn his help in tracking the hunters.”
“For all his faults, Rafe cares about your safety. He’ll do whatever it takes to ensure it.” Kai gestured toward the basket. “Now, stop stalling and get into the bloody basket.”
Before Jane could reply, wings grew from Kai’s back, his nose elongated into a snout, and his arms and legs stretched into longer limbs with talons.
It may have been a cloudy November day, but Kai’s golden hide shined even in the dim light.
He was beautiful.
Kai squatted before jumping into the air. A few beats of his wings later and he hovered in place to the left of where she was standing.
Taking her cue, Jane climbed into the basket and rearranged his clothes on the floor. After she picked up the thermal blanket she needed to keep warm, she shouted, “I’m ready.”
Kai bobbed his head before slowly lowering over the basket. Wrapping herself in the blanket to help keep out the wind from his wings, Jane sat down on the floor so she wouldn’t have to watch the ground speed past below her. She’d survived the flight with Nikki because Jane had been concentrating on Kai’s injuries. She didn’t have anything to distract her this time.
She swore amusement danced in Kai’s eyes before he delicately gripped the rings in his talons.
As her bastard dragonman lurched into the air with more force than was necessary, Jane closed her eyes and shrank into her blanket. He’d done that on purpose and she’d get him back later.
For the moment, Jane focused on staying warm and keeping her eyes closed.
The ride was smoother than she’d imagined, but the air whooshing above her in combination with the beating of Kai’s wings reminded her they were several hundred if not thousands of feet up in the air.
Humming a popular song she’d heard on the radio, Jane shifted her mind into reporter mode and ran through everything she wanted to find out about not just Kai’s family, but Clan Snowridge as well. Bram and Evie were counting on her and Kai and she wasn’
t about to let them down. Not just because Bram had approved her podcast idea, but also because Stonefire was her home and she would do whatever it took to make it a safe place for all.
~~~
Kai looked down for the fiftieth time, but Jane was still huddled inside her blanket.
Leave it to him to have a mate who didn’t enjoy flying.
His dragon spoke up. She will. Give it time.
Says the beast who wants to do a sharp dive and then pull up again.
It’s fun.
Not to Jane.
His dragon huffed and concentrated on flying. Without his mate or dragon to talk to, his mind fell back on the upcoming meeting on Snowridge.
It’d been a few years since he’d seen his mum and sister. Mostly because of his cowardice, but also because of the terse relations between the two clans.
