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“Me, too.” I chewed on my bottom lip. “After the girls fall asleep,” I blurted before I lost my nerve.
His eyes bulged. “What?”
Unable to hold his piercing gaze for long, I twisted the hem of my belt. “That’s when I’ll kiss you.”
“Oh!” His smile was so wicked, I wouldn’t have been surprised if devil horns sprouted from the top of his head. “I can put sleeping herbs in their food.”
Scowling, I shook my head. “You’re not drugging my nieces for a kiss.”
“I wouldn’t.” He let out a nervous-sounding burst of laughter. “I was just joking.”
“I know you were.” I forced a smile, though my stomach was churning. I was going to kiss them. I wondered if those kisses would lead to something more. Was I ready?
When he stepped even closer to me, his breath tickling my nape and turning my legs to limp noodles, I had my answer.
Yes, goddess, yes. “I really do like you a lot.”
I didn’t protest when he took me in his arms, nuzzling my brow with his smooth cheek. “Good,” he whispered hot and heavy in my ear. “Because now that I’ve found you, I’m never letting you go.”
“Oh,” I clung to him, digging my nails into his shoulders, wishing I could surrender to him this very moment.
A tug on my gown, and I looked down at Ember and Aurora, blinking up at me with those wide silvery-blue eyes, reminding me of baby birds chirping for food.
“We’ll take those berries now,” Aurora said.
Before I could answer, the girls were digging into my pockets, squishing the berries between their fingers while shoving them into their faces.
“Oh elements,” I cried. And we had two more days of this.
* * *
I’d drifted off inNikkos’s arms during the flight, lulled to sleep by the steady beating of his wings and his heat that wrapped around me like a cozy blanket. I woke when he came to a jarring stop, landing on a thick tree branch. When I looked into his eyes, he held a finger to his lips.
My heart quickened, and I looked for the girls and Blaze, relieved when I spotted them across from us on the opposite tree branch.
“What’s wrong?” I whispered.
“Smell that?” he whispered back.
I sniffed the air, instantly regretting it. The smell was more powerful than an outhouse stench. “Disgusting,” I hissed. “What is it?”
He tightened his grip on me. “Trolls.”
“Ewwie,” Ember cried, plugging her nose. “It stinks!”
Blaze nudged the girls. “Shh.”
“Are they near?” I asked.
Nikkos nodded. “We can’t stay in the mountains tonight.”
Blaze jumped off his branch, and Nikkos followed. They catapulted so fast into the sky, the contents of my stomach rose into my throat.
“Where are we going?” I asked Nikkos once we were high above the clouds.
“We have to go to Ulula,” he answered, his wings heavily beating.
I wrapped my arms tighter around his neck. “Is it a town?”
