Page 35 of Prison Moon
Thoughts of her being safe now eased a bit of his tension. Nothing would sneak up on her in his lair. They could stay there until it was safe to go on to Dra’lera. He wasn’t sure how she’d react to being there, though. She was trapped and even though she was his, he didn’t want her to feel as if he were forcing her to be with him. Not that he’d let her go. If she decided to leave, he’d just follow. She was his. Once he built her a fire and fed her, he’d take her to the healing pools deep within the mountain and let her know. He’d claim her until her body craved his in return, until the very sight of him made her want him.
Sarra was sitting on his hoard when he ducked inside the cavern and scuttled in. She scrambled off the mound of coins he’d spent a few centuries collecting and flattened her back against the wall as he drew near her. She was still afraid of him. He could smell her fear and hear her heart as it pounded in her chest. He kept his distance as he set the baskets down. She stared at them for long minutes, her brow scrunched in what he assumed was confusion before looking up at him. She started talking again, her arms raising to gesture wildly to him, then the basket and teshen. This game she played was confusing most of the time. Today was no exception.
* * *
Sara had heard the dragon before she ever saw him. The harsh whooshing sound his massive wings made as he cut through the air had been loud inside the cavern. The sun had lowered in the sky, so when he perched on the edge of the cave and came inside, his massive form blocked all the light.
He carried something in both hands. Sara hoped it wasn’t another dead animal. The last one was still stinking the place up. When he dropped whatever it was by her feet, she stared at it in confusion for long moments. It was the baskets with the supplies Toren had packed, along with a pile of dry tree limbs she assumed were for a fire. The dragon hadn’t moved since coming inside and as Sara looked up at it, something about the way it studied her made her uneasy. Is this the part where he finally eats her?
She ran for the dragon’s hoard and scrambled onto it best she could. Trying to get away from him was pointless but that didn’t stop her from trying.
She crawled all the way to the back wall, pressing against it. The dragon didn’t seem phased at her running and spread his right wing, holding it in front of her and blocking her view. Her pulse leaped a moment before she heard him inhale as he raised his head, his wing pushing her back to the hoard bed she was sitting on, and the darkness in the cavern lit up as he belched fire. She gasped as heat filled the cave, light shining through the membranous wing to highlight every vein and as scared as she was, the wing was oddly beautiful to look at.
When he moved his wing, her eyes widened. He’d made her a fire? She looked up at him, his massive head near the ceiling and just sat there staring. It was hard not to. She was in a cave on the side of a mountain with a fire-breathing dragon and so far, he wasn’t trying to eat her. Unless that’s why he’d made the fire.
As ill-timed as it was, the moment she thought of eating, her stomach growled. The dragon looked her way, then turned toward the opening of the cavern. Was it leaving again? It sat there staring out into the darkening sky beyond the mountain and didn’t do anything else. Maybe he wasn’t leaving.
Sara watched him for long minutes before sliding down the hoard pile, wincing when things started shifting, the noise loud as she slid closer to the fire. Maybe if she could get her hands on one of those burning limbs, she might be able to fend the thing off if he decided to eat her.
The dragon never moved as she slid the rest of the way down to the floor and crawled to her feet. She made it to the fire and was kneeling to grab one of the smaller burning sticks when movement in her peripheral caught her attention. She froze and turned to look at the dragon. His head was down, his back bowed and his hide—Sara squinted. He looked as if he were—rippling.
She lowered her hand and straightened, her eyes widening when the dragon’s entire body seemed to convulse, his head swaying back and forth a few times before the dragon hissed out a breath as it seemed to shrink in on itself. Sara blinked, then stared wide-eyed as the blue scales shrank, changing from blue to pink before giving away to flesh, the dragon’s limbs shortening to arms and legs until nothing remained but a man crouching where the dragon had been only moments ago. When he stood to his full height and looked her way, the world went out of focus, her legs turned to jelly and she released a pent-up breath as she sank to her knees. “Toren?”
Sara blinked repeatedly, trying to clear her vision and wondered if she’d finally lost her mind. Her heart started racing as he walked toward her. When he stepped into the ring of light cast by the fire and kneeled down to where she sat, her racing heart slammed against her ribcage. “Toren, what—I don’t—“
“Sarra? What is wrong?”
The concern in his voice and the slight fear in his eyes was ignored as she ran her gaze over him from his broad, muscled chest to the tightness of his abdomen, his narrow waist and lean hips to long legs, then back up again. He was whole and unhurt and—
“What—“ She shook her head. “Toren, you’re a fucking dragon!” No wonder the damn thing always seemed to be where she was.
“What is wrong, my Sarra?”
She laughed, then tears filled her eyes. If one more crazy thing happened today, she was going to lose it. She lunged for him, wrapping her arms around his neck and held on as if he’d get away if she let go. She squeezed her eyes shut when he pulled her close, that delicious scent of his skin filling the air. “I thought I lost you.” She saw him fall over the cliff’s edge again, then plummet into the ravine. The trees racing by below her as the wyvern carried her off, then the dragon as he came after her. Her blue dragon. Toren.
Pulling back to look at him, she was awed. How was this even possible? “You’re a dragon.” She inspected him again. He looked exactly as he had the last time she saw him. When she looked closely at the skin on his shoulders and saw that faint blue skin and small, scale-like design, she laughed. “You’re a shape-shifter. Shit like this isn’t supposed to happen in real life.” How does at massive dragon shrink down into a man? It was—unfathomable.
So were aliens and spaceships and creatures hellbent on capturing you a month ago, she reminded herself.
She closed her eyes and leaned forward until their foreheads were touching. “I don’t understand any of this.”
“You need not fear me, Sarra. I still smell the scent of it in the air.”
“You smell fear?” She lifted her head, her eyes scanning his face. She was afraid. Even looking at him, knowing this was the same guy who’d protected her since the moment he’d rescued her, the fact he wasn’t what he seemed scared the hell out of her. What else didn't she know about him?
She pointed at him then held her arms out to the side and made as if she was flying.
“The dragon?” She nodded. “You’ve no reason to fear the dragon. I’d never hurt you. You know this, right?”
It took several deep breaths, and Toren’s fingers brushing through her hair, to bring her racing heart back to a normal pace. As they sat there in the silence, every moment since the dragon—Toren—had swooped off the cliff by the jungle ruins and snatched her from the air played back in her mind’s eye and she wondered had he always been with her?
The ruins she and Marcy had hidden in had held the same spicy sweet scent that clung to Toren’s skin. Had he been there as well? The moment she asked herself the question, something he’d said to her days ago clicked.
“I caught your scent on the breeze, heard the sound of your voice echoing off the walls of the temple lair.”
Yes. He’d been there. The ruins were a temple. It explained all the dragon drawings on the walls and the huge statue. The sound she’d heard while standing in the doorway to the lower chamber in those old ruins came back to her then. She’d thought it had sounded like a sigh when she’d heard it. If Toren had been there, that sigh could have very well been him. It would explain why nothing came near those ruins. The other aliens knew something was in there.
It was still too fantastic to believe. So was being abducted by aliens but she’d finally accepted that. She let the last bit of fear go and smiled to reassure him she was okay. “So, you’re a dragon, huh?” The words hung in the air long moments before she laughed. “I gotta say, as outlandish as my life has been the past few weeks, I never saw this one coming. I guess maybe now I really am one of those romance heroines. I’ve been saved by the hunky shape-shifting dragon hero. That automatically qualifies me, right?”