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He huffs out a sound of amusement, his stare still fixed to her eyes, her mouth. He contemplates for a moment, and then rolls his eyes and the motion is surprisingly irksome to her. “Fine,” he says easily. “A new deal, then. I’ll do the honorable thing and save your life by flying us off this mountain, and you’ll smile, say ‘thank you’, and stop dreaming of killing me.”

Dawsyn removes the ax blade from Ryon’s wrist. “Not a chance.”

Ryon straightens and then stands, smiling down at the tiny cut on the inside of his wrist. “Perfect,” he retorts, and holds out his hand.

At first, she only stares. For some reason, the idea of letting him take her hand feels like losing. But her head is still thrumming, her legs still shaking, and when she places her hand into his, it is a relief.

He pulls her carefully to her feet, watching the way she winces and frowns. “It will be easier if you put your arms around my neck,” he tells her.

“Should I jump up there, or shall I float?”

He rolls his eyes and then lowers himself down her body. Carefully, he cradles the backs of her knees and her shoulders and lifts her from the ground. “Don’t do a thing, princess, lest you collapse again.”

She wraps her arms loosely around his thick neck. “Bastard.”

His murmured laughter fills her ears. “I liked it better when you called me Ryon. Hold on.”

She feels a shiver run through him and abruptly, the imposing mass of wings stretch and surround her, jolting her with a shock.

She suppresses a scream as they rocket up, a blur of green and white whistling past them. Her stomach leaves her and if there were anything in it, it might have come up onto Ryon’s front.

When they reach the break where the sky meets the treetops, Ryon’s wings open fully, flapping furiously, holding them at a hover, hundreds of feet above ground. With each small plunge and uplift, Dawsyn’s resolve crumbles, her grip tightens.

“Odd,” Ryon says calmly. “You’re not so bold up here.”

She shuts her eyes. There is panic seeping into her chest, shrinking her lungs. She can’t breathe.

“Do you fear heights?” he asks.

His cool breath slides over her face. His lips are close enough to her ear that for a second, his voice is dominant. It overrides the consuming sound of his wings, the sound of her pulse. She presses her ear to his neck and hears his blood moving beneath the skin. The bile in her stomach begins to settle. He offers more snark, but she does not listen now; she only focuses on the darkness her eyelids allow, the thrum of his pulse, the smell of his skin. He can say what he wishes. He can berate her all he wants, so long as he does not drop her. If he is bothered by the way she clings to him, she does not care.

She knows when they begin to soar. Knows but does not allow herself to focus on it. She will see out this journey with her eyes shut, her stomach in knots and her knuckles white. The frigid air stings her face and even with closed eyes, they still water. It would be unbearably cold, if not for the warm body against hers.

At some point, her mind begins to adjust to the feeling of suspension. Her stomach grows used to the dips and dives of flight. Her mind wanders to the hand that carries her upper body. The tips of his fingers curled under her arm, grazing her ribs, so close to her breast.

Fuck. Perhaps she has finally cracked. Maybe she never woke from her fainting spell, and this – a dream where she flies in the arms of a dark Glacian – is all a fantasy, albeit a disturbing one.

Subtly, she inhales, her nose already so near to his throat. Beneath the smell of exertion is the smell of him – heady and rich. It serves her no purpose to dissect why she likes it.

She cannot fathom how he is moving through the air with her in his grasp, but he barely needs to readjust and when he does, his fingers grip her in ways that feel intimate.

She has no need to think of his fingers. Her eyes open. Better the sickening fear than the reckless path her mind is taking, the path her body is responding to.

She is assaulted by the bright white of a sun-soaked cloud. She can feel how quickly they’re soaring in the wind. It drags against her eyes and pulls through her hair, but she sees nothing. No land below, no sky above, just the endless white mist. Like this, she is less afraid.

“How can you see?” she shouts to Ryon.

His voice fills her ears, softer than she expected. “I cannot. But better to stay in the clouds than risk being found.”

“How do you know where you’re going?”

“Guesswork and timing. It will not be long now.”

His wings cease their flapping and stretch wide into a glide. Dawsyn detaches her face from Ryon’s neck to better see them. Thin, almosttransparent membrane wraps tightly around long, spindly bones. His wings turn gray where the light filters through. She gets the impression that the touch of them would be like stroking leather. She can feel his shoulders, his abdomen tightening as he makes adjustments to their path.

Dawsyn wonders how he manages when his belly must be as empty as hers, his body as weary.

“Hold on to me,” he says calmly. And then he dives.