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He wanted to go to her, to kiss her.
But there was a dead body and a severed limb on the ground just a few feet away and a sad child watching over his unconscious mother. Sorin didn’t give a bloody damn about the boy’s mother. But the boy and the body were problematic. He wouldn’t kiss Gia again with a child watching and he’d rather not make his first attempt to woo her with the rotting flesh of a corpse choking the air.
He did have standards.
So instead of stealing another kiss, he said, “As I said, a brave female, to taunt one such as me.”
GIA HAD BROUGHT A SMALLday pack with her, expecting she might have to take an extended long route home. Her skill as a shadow witch had come in come in handy, letting her carry enough gear for both her and Amy, as well as Amy’s son, and some food. Being a shadow witch wasn’t exactly the highest of skillsets among the Fae, but she had a talent with glamour that was almost unparalleled and those glamours were complex, extending to spells that let her magnify the carrying capacity of any given item on her person, without it actually affecting the overall physical weight—assuming she was the one carrying it. Had her shade died on the mountain, Gia would have been forced to dump a fair amount of gear, but she could still do limited glamours on her own, without her shade.
Her mind shied away from the changes that would have happened if she’d lost her shade, just as she shied away from thinking too long about the dragon who’d saved her companion.
Now, as the next storm blew in and the night grew colder, she focused on setting up a rough camp. Her belly growled demandingly and she was both cold and hungry. She’d spent time outside with the dragon instead of setting up camp earlier but she couldn’t find it in herself to be annoyed.
She’d carry the image of him with her until the day she died—his impossible masculine beauty, the tracery of veins pulsing gold under his skin, and the outline of fiery wings stretched out behind him, as if he could just leap into the air and take flight, like a golden angel come to life from the pages of history.
Wyn eased closer to the fire and she gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “Would you feel comfortable watching the fire? I want to rig up some sort of cover so we don’t have rain blowing in all night.”
He glanced at her pack, then up at her. “You have something in there?”
“Yes.”
“How? The pack isn’t that big.”
She chucked him under the chin. “A bit of magic, my dear.”
“Wow.” A sweet smile lit his face. “You have so much magic. All I do is...know stuff.”
He could do more than that. She sensed an immense power inside him, but it was immature still, not yet ready to be released. “Wyn, sometimes knowing stuff is what keeps us alive, so don’t knock it.”
With a teasing wink, she turned to her pack and freed the waterproof covering that, once unfolded, would do a decent job at closing off most of the entrance, stopping both rain and the wind.
Her heart fluttered in chest as she met Sorin, the dragon shifter, on his way in while she searched the edges of the crevice, looking for the best way to rig up the temporary door.
In the back of her mind, her shade stretched out, whispered. A dragon. A dragon saved us.
Gia’s cheeks heated as she mentally silenced the shadow. Not now.
Sorin stood close enough that she could feel his body heat—it was like standing next to a bonfire, almost overwhelming. Almost.
“What are you doing?” he asked, glancing at the rolled up material she carried.
“Blocking as much of the rain and wind as I can.”
It was too tight a fit for them to both stand there so she cut around him, unrolling the waterproof material with a snap of her wrists.
There was a protrusion just out of reach that would serve as a decent anchor. Sorin reached over and took the edge of material she’d been trying to tie down, took care of it himself. She mumbled a thank you under her breath and moved to the bottom two tie-offs, effectively narrowing down the entrance to a third of its true size.
Heart racing from his nearness, she edged around him and pretended to focus on checking each tie-off instead of looking at him as she said, “Thanks for the assist.”
“I should thank you. I was coming in to tell you that I’d guard the entrance from the outside in my dragon skin.”
That was so unexpected, she turned and look at him. “Sleep out in that?”
“If I’m in my dragon form, it wouldn’t be too uncomfortable.” He smiled, his teeth glowing white in the flickering light cast by the campfire. “The cold has little affect on me in either form, and rain is merely an annoyance when I’m in my dragon skin—water just rolls off my scales. In fact, the way water droplets shimmer against the gold is quite beautiful.”
His voice and eyes were hypnotic. It would be so, so easy to lean in, kiss him.
Because her lips were almost buzzing just at the thought, she sidestepped to get around him, moving deeper into the small cavern. “Do all dragons suffer from such modesty?”
