Page 72 of Balance

My thoughts were swirled in a haze, realization and denial at war. We hadn’t completed the mating bond, even though her mark remained strong on my skin. This shouldn’t be happening.

“Okay,” Bianca answered, brushing her fingers along the bridge of my snout once more, then moving ahead of me into the woods.

Damen cleared his throat, looking pointedly after her. He had no idea, of course, of my inner turmoil, and it wasn’t like I could let her run off on her own, or chase after her, naked.

I had more class than that.

Growling under my breath, I stalked off after her, barely noticing Damen and Julian jumping back in surprise.

“What in the world is his problem?” I heard Julian ask Damen, but the onmyoji’s response was lost in the wind. The only thing important right now was following her.

Chapter Sixteen

Bianca

Hold

Despite Titus currently being a dragon, and therefore not being much of a conversationalist, he happened to make a fine companion. I’d stolen a lantern on the way out of camp, since we were entirely off-trail at this point and had taken to traipsing around in the woods.

Not that it mattered much, Titus’s sheer size was doing an excellent job at keeping unruly prickly branches away.

Honestly, I wasn’t certain we would accomplish much tonight, but Titus had mentioned that we were close to Miles. So once he’d caught up, there was nothing much for me to do but follow his lead through the dark.

I swore to the gods and goddesses above, after all this, Miles had better have a darn good reason for being out here. ‘He felt like it’ was not an acceptable excuse. Mark my words, I would get to the bottom of this, and he would learn that this behavior would not be tolerated.

It was ridiculous we had to travel a million miles just to rescue him.

We all had lives. Take the dragon, for example. Titus probably had violent things that needed doing, and he’d had to put everything on hold, just for this. I didn’t know what kind of work he’d been focusing on lately, but it was probably very important.

I couldn’t believe Miles would waste everyone’s time. How inconsiderate.

Though, if time was such a factor, the bigger question was: why weren’t weflying? Now that we were doing this seriously, hiking through a dark forest probably wasn’t my most brilliant idea. There was surely a better way. On top of that, I was hungry. The faster we found Miles, the more quickly he’d be able to cook for us. It would be only the beginning of his repentance.

Titus had wings, kind of. Did they not work properly? Granted, they were proportionately puny in comparison to the size of his body, so maybe—

I walked directly into Titus’s face as he stopped, twisting his long neck to turn to me. Garnet eyes met mine once again, and I forgot to breathe.

He tilted his head, eyes unblinking, and it almost seemed like he was trying to tell me something.

“What?”

A low sound rumbled from his chest, and his nostrils flared as he exhaled, a thin wisp of smoke curling through the air in my face.

It was almost like he was offended, which was absurd. I’d done nothing wrong.

At that thought, he moved back, unfurling his wings—which, in reality, were a great deal larger than they appeared while tucked away along his slender body.

“Oh…” Was he saying he also wanted to fly? Great minds really did think alike, but this not being able to communicate thing was getting rather annoying.

I almost preferred him naked and human. He wasn’t half bad to look at; I really wanted to know about the mark on his thigh. But seriously, it wasn’t like I could ask him to ditch the plaid and jeans—as much as I was into the sexy mountain man look—for the sake of curiosity.

After all, I was a woman with standards… and my pride.

Titus snorted, although I couldn’t fathom why. He returned to all fours, his wings remaining unfurled at his side. His tail curled around my legs, and he stepped forward, bringing me even with a pure white wing that seemed to glimmer in the lantern’s soft glow. It was structurally similar to a bat’s, yet was bigger than I was tall.

I raised my hand to touch it. Inches away, I paused, glancing at him—just to make sure.

His head lowered, and his stout nudged my arm.