Ashem, still carrying Juli, was waiting for them at the top. “Which one?” he asked.
Rhys gestured to a door on the right.
Ashem opened it. “I’m not flying out again. Juliet is exhausted. I’ll go to my rooms at dawn and pretend I came in during the night.”
Rhys nodded. “Diolch, fy mrawd.”
“Goodnight, gwaladr. Kai.” Ashem carried Juli into the room Rhys had indicated. A moment later he emerged, nodded to them and tromped back down the stairs and out to the ledge.
The hallway filled with awkward.
Kai cleared her throat. “So, who cleans this place?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Juvenile dragons. They take care of Eryri as part of their training. It teaches discipline.”
Interesting. “Did you have to clean rooms when you were a juvenile?”
Rhys’s mouth quirked. “Yes.”
Even more interesting. She couldn’t imagine human princes cleaning rooms to build character. Then again, she wasn’t exactly intimate with monarchy. “Which room is mine?”
Rhys moved to the door across the hall from Juli’s, pressing his palm flat against it. The door swung open.
Most of the outside wall was open to the sky, so that the room was lit by the glow of unfamiliar stars. Distant waves crashed, and the cries of nocturnal birds drifted through the air like an exotic lullaby.
Kai made out the outline of a bed and the reflection of light off a pool set into one corner, big enough to bathe in. A bookshelf sat against one wall, a desk against another next to a huge wardrobe.
As Kai moved past Rhys into the room, he said, “Wait. Press your palm against the door.”
She raised an eyebrow. He was so close, she could reach up and press a palm against his cheek, which sounded much more appealing than the door. She wondered what he’d do if she did. She wondered what she would do.
His eyes had gone luminous, like Kai had seen Ashem’s do when he was feeling strong emotions. Or strong...other things. “So it will recognize you and unlock for you.”
She lifted her hand and set it against the heavy-looking wood. Fiery lines appeared in a pattern like revolving wheels. Kai yelped as they snaked up and wrapped around her wrist, tightening to an almost-unpleasant squeeze. She tried to pull away.
Rhys put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s memorizing you.”
His touch—the first time he’d touched her as a man since her parents’ basement—sent fireworks rocketing through her body, and Kai had to fight not to lean into it. The fiery vines sank back into the door, and his hand fell away.
Kai inhaled, breathing him in. “There’s a lot more magic here than there was at the other cave. Or the waystations.” That was what Ashem had called the smaller caves in which they’d stopped during the trip. Apparently the dragons had set routes, like sky-highways, that they followed across the world when they traveled, hopping from waystation to waystation so they didn’t have to spend the night in human towns.
Rhys looked amused. “The cave was our version of roughing it.”
Remembering the hoard and the library, Kai filled her voice with exaggerated sympathy. “Poor dragons. So rough.”
Silence fell. Kai knew she should go into her room, but she hesitated. His presence was as confusing as it was comforting, and she didn’t want him to go away. She wanted...what? She’d settle for knowing him better, but even that would have to wait until she’d logged a few hours in a bed. And Rhys.
But not in the same bed. Maybe. No.
Glad the darkness hid her blush, Kai asked, “Where’s your room?”
Rhys tilted his head, indicating the next door down. Neither of them moved. The inches of air between them grew heavy with expectant heat.
Then Rhys stepped away. Kai grimaced. Maybe all that heat was in her head.
Trying not to feel her sharp-edged disappointment, Kai peered into the dark room. She wished she could conjure a fireball to see in front of her without blowing up half the mountain.
When she turned back to the door, Rhys was gone.
Deflating a little further, Kai eyeballed the pool. She hadn’t showered in days. A lot of stinky days. It was probably best that Rhys kept his distance. Oh, hell. What that why Rhys had kept his distance? She dropped her nose toward her armpit and sniffed.
Something thumped behind her. Kai yelped and spun. Dammit!
Rhys had returned. “Your bags.”
“Oh! Thanks.”
He didn’t look like he’d noticed her smelling herself, but it was sort of too dark to tell.
Kai’s duffel bags sat on the color-splashed mosaic floor, flamboyantly mundane. That had been nice of him, to bring them up. But then, beneath all the stress of making world-moving decisions, Rhys had always been genuinely nice. Kai found herself smiling. “And thank you for the room.”
He shook his head. “Thank you. For coming here. Do you need anything else?”
“Um...” She stuck her hand in her pocket and her fingers brushed her dead phone. “You guys don’t use electricity, do you? I didn’t even think about that. My phone died. If my parents can’t reach me, they’re going to throw a fit.” She didn’t really have any idea how to handle that whole thing yet. They were going to find out she wasn’t in Boulder sooner or later—probably sooner, since Christmas was only a few weeks away. Which felt bizarre to think about, here in a tropical paradise. Maybe Juli would have some ideas.
“I can get you something to charge your phone.” He smiled.
Kai’s own smile widened. She had the sudden, insane urge to babble how much of a relief it was to be close to him. How being apart felt like someone was trying to pinch her soul in half. How every second she was with him made her want to drop her shields, to know him, but also deepened her fear that he would reject her, or that she’d find out his feelings for her were nothing but magic-forced want. How—
He crushed her to him with such speed and force that she squeaked in surprise. But when he would have let go, she wrapped her arms around his waist, grabbed his fantastical dragon-king coat and refused to budge. Visceral want crackled between them. Not lust, though that was definitely part of it. Just...need for closeness that made it impossible to move away.
For long minutes, she pressed her face into his chest and he cradled her against him. His cheek rested on top of her head, his arms hard and warm against her back. Safe. Protected. Treasured.
She took an unsteady breath as he pressed his lips to her forehead.
Then he let her go.
“Next door,” he said, his voice rough.
“Yeah. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?”
He nodded.
Kai cleared her throat. “We should probably talk about...things.”
“We will.” He retreated into the hall, lingering. “Goodnight.”
“‘Night.”
He walked away.
Kai closed the door, leaning against it until her breathing steadied and her heart slowed. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she eyed the tub sunk into the ground.
First, bathe. Second, don’t think about Rhys.
She groaned as she slipped into the water a few minutes later. One out of two wasn’t bad.
Chapter Ten
Closer Than Family
Dawn was an edge of orange and pink in the eastern sky when Juli heard the door open. She shot up, clutching the smooth coolness of unfamiliar sheets in an unfamiliar room that smelled like earth and, more distantly, the sea.
“Peace, joon-am.” Ashem closed the door quietly, his tall, broad form hardly more than a shadow.
Juli relaxed, the strength of his presence blanketing her. He crossed the room, standing before the bed. If Juli hadn’t been intimately connected to him, she would’ve had no idea that he was about
to collapse from exhaustion.
She pulled the thin covers back—there wasn’t exactly much need for them in the hot, humid air of the tropics, though it was far cooler inside the mountain than it had been outside. Scooting over, Juli held out a hand to him. It had been so long since they’d been alone. She missed him. Tired he might be, but it had been a week, and he wasn’t going to sleep until he’d thoroughly satisfied their need for closeness.
Ashem shook his head and offered his hand. “No. I’ve waited long enough to bring you home.”
Tingling heat prickled in Juli’s chest. They’d been intimate for months, but she couldn’t stifle a nervous excitement at finally getting to see his home. Their home.
“I thought no one was supposed to know we arrived with Rhys.”
He smiled. Even with her, he didn’t do that often. Which might have been for the best because every time he did it stopped her heart. “Didn’t you hear? The king summoned me before he left Eryri for the Sacred Isle. He arrived home in the evening, and you and I arrived at dawn. I’ve alerted those who need to know.”
Juli raised an eyebrow. “The sentries didn’t see you come in.”
He shrugged, tugging her up against him. “I am Azhdahā.”
He twined his fingers through her hair and kissed her until warmth unfurled from her center and her toes curled.
Juli tugged him toward the bed. As he had last night, Ashem scooped her up. He dipped his head and nipped the sensitive skin just below the corner of her jaw. “I will have you, Juliet King. But I will have you in my own bed.”
She let her head fall back, giving him easier access. “But Kai and Rhys—”
“Are adults. It’s time they started acting like it.”
He snagged their bags—Juli had never had much in the way of possessions, and she hadn’t minded leaving most of those behind—and carried her down the stairs, over the island and to the hall that led to the kitchen and living room. It ended in a door Juli hadn’t noticed the night before.
Out of habit, she reached out to touch the minds around her, as faint as the fading morning stars. As far as she could tell, everyone at the top of the mountain was sleeping.
The door opened to a set of stairs that spiraled downward. Windows here and there along the outer wall let in the rising sun. Between windows, stylized carvings of dragons played in the ocean, flew over plains or fought other dragons.
The spiral staircase let out into a wide, high-ceilinged rotunda with a mosaic ceiling in a hundred shades of deepest blue, black and purple interspersed with white and silver stars. Ten widely spaced doors lined the walls. From Ashem’s thoughts, Juli gleaned that only two were occupied, both on the western side of the circle. One was Evan’s. The other, Ffion’s.
She shuddered and laid her head against Ashem’s chest. He’d only been part of her life for two months, but if anything happened to him... She swallowed down a sick feeling and hoped Ffion found peace.
“Once I’ve seen to a few things, we’ll check on her.” Ashem pressed a hand to a door depicting a desert garden. It swung open, revealing white stone walls and floors tiled in blue and gray. Scents rolled out to meet them: cardamom and mint, like Ashem.
He stepped aside and set Juli on her feet. The furniture was sparse and austere, but the rooms were large and there were wide windows looking across the sea to the north. A nice rug, a few tastefully chosen decorations and some comfortable chairs would go a long way toward relieving the spartan man-feel, and then the rooms would be perfect.
Ashem scowled. “Woman, stop decorating my rooms.”
Juli smiled sweetly. “Our rooms, del-am.” She looked around again, the reality that this was home sinking in. Now that she was here, Juli couldn’t help the nerves that bubbled up inside her. She was human in a place of dragons. She rubbed her left arm, fingers gliding over the pebbled scales of her indicium. Could a home be a home if you had no place among its people?
Ashem set down their bags and grabbed her by the hips, yanking her against him. He covered her mouth with a kiss, his thoughts fierce. “Your place is with me. Nothing will change that, life of my heart.” He slid his hands down her back, pressing her closer.
Juli groaned. It had been too long. She trailed little biting kisses down his jaw. He lifted his black-stubbled chin, his breath going erratic when her teeth scraped the sensitive, dark skin of his neck. Murmuring low, sweet endearments in Persian, he lifted her, wrapping her legs around his waist, and headed for the bedroom.
Their bedroom. Their home. Her Ashem.
Someone knocked. Juli felt Ashem reach out with his mind and identify the man on the other side of the door. She looked out the window. “The sun isn’t even up!”
“I have a job, joon-am,” he whispered against her mouth, regretful.
“And now you have a wife. Time to learn a little work-life balance.” She wiggled against him until his attention was completely back on her.
Ashem muttered a few Persian curses, then barked, “Go away, Harrow.” He took another step toward the bedroom.
The knock came again. A male voice with a British accent called, “Commander? We’ve just had a message from a vee stationed in Asia. It’s important.”
Ashem’s sense of duty overwhelmed his lust, and she grumbled. Idiot man and his dependability. She slid her fingernails beneath the collar of his shirt. “He’ll go away if you tell him again.”
Ashem kissed her hard then let Juli slide to the ground. He stormed to the door and tore it open, revealing a man in the hall: white, skinny and improbably geeky, with a retro gaming T-shirt and thick-rimmed glasses. He wasn’t handsome, exactly. His nose was too large and his ears stuck out, but he had surprisingly excellent brown hair.
Ashem scowled over his shoulder.
Juli shrugged. His hair was excellent.
Ashem turned a very displeased expression on the man. “What, Harrow?”
“Yeah. Sorry, chief, but you were gone for a few months and things sort of piled up. I sent you all the important stuff, but this just came in now. I thought you might like to—”
“Stop talking.”
The man’s mouth snapped shut.
Ashem held out a hand and the man, Harrow, placed a cut emerald in Ashem’s open palm. “They surprised a messenger of Owain’s and got this off him. It’s mostly encoded, but I think it might be a communication about where Owain is looking for the Sunrise Dragon. Says something about one of the cities of the Ancients? I thought King Rhys ought to know—”
Ashem interrupted with a growl.
Harrow tossed his hair out of his eyes, but to his credit, didn’t look terrified. “Right. Not exactly urgent on its own, is it? But I’ve put it together with something else. Since you left, people have been going missing. Well, people always go missing, don’t they? But I found a news report about a body on the edge of the Taklamakan Desert. Turns out it belonged to a man who went missing in Belgium. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, you know? But then this morning there was another report. A Japanese woman, found dehydrated and dead in the same desert with no explanation. Owain has been going in and out of the Taklamakan for years. It could be connected to this whole thing with the Sunrise Dragon. That’s been his primary objective since the war began—end things without killing more dragons than he has to, right? I know one of the cities of the Ancients is in that desert—where better to learn about one of their artifacts? At the very least, I suspect we’ll find Owain doing something with humans out there. Lots of humans.”
Dread coiled in Juli’s stomach, and Ashem let loose a string of swear words that made her ears burn. He started making plans, counting available soldiers, estimating flying times...
“No. You are not going anywhere,” Juli snapped. “Not today.” She turned to glare at the tall, pasty man in her doorway, suddenly disliking him. “Go aw
ay...” She groped for his first name.
Ashem supplied it. “Henry Harrow. Wingless. Integrated human-dragon technology specialist.”
“Go away, Henry Harrow. Commander Ashem is exhausted, and he’s going to sleep.”
Maybe there was something extra-threatening in her tone, because—though Harrow hadn’t batted an eye at Ashem’s anger—he flushed and began to stammer. “I, um, I’m—”
“Quiet.” Ashem fastened his gaze on Juli. “If Owain exposes dragons to your people by killing humans, there will be a war. A war we’ll lose. This is what I do, jāné del-am. It means sometimes I don’t sleep.” He switched to speaking in her head. “You’ll have to get used to it.”
Juli raised an eyebrow. “You’re about to get used to a few things, yourself. Like celibacy.”
Ashem narrowed his eyes, but didn’t respond. That meant she’d won. Juli smirked and turned her attention back to Harrow. Oddly, his mouth twisted into something like pity. Juli frowned.
Ashem sighed. “Harrow, have Commander Tane meet me on the northern beach an hour before sunset. Tell him to choose three dragons from the Invisible and prepare them for a long flight. Intelligence only.”
Harrow nodded, his hair flopping. Juli had the annoyed urge to find a pair of scissors and cut it so she could see his eyes properly.
“After you’ve spoken to Tane, tell the king what you’ve just told me.” Ashem didn’t even look at Henry as he began to shut the door.
“Will do, chief.” Harrow said.
The door clicked shut, and Juli felt Harrow’s presence dim as he walked away. For a man who talked as fast as he did, he certainly didn’t move quickly.
Juli frowned. “Why did he look at me like he pitied me?”
Ashem advanced toward her. “He and his heartsworn dislike each other. He’s Wingless. He thinks every Wingless should feel the same.”
Juli backed away, playing coy. “I didn’t realize men could be Wingless.”
“About three-quarters of Wingless are women, but your species is better at reproduction all around.”
Shadow of Flame Page 10