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When her lungs felt like they were going to erupt in her chest, she broke the surface, sucking in large gulps of air.

Rivulets ran down from her short hair and made streams along her cheeks.

She blinked several times to clear the water from her eyes.

The kiss from the air made her shivers return.

Morlie stared down at her flesh and saw the goosebumps rising on her arms.

She considered the lunacy of staying too long in the cold water and risking getting sick again. Morlie exhaled as she reached for the small cloth from the basket beside the tub. After she poured cleaner from the jar on the tray at the edge of the bath, she washed up quickly.

Searching through the water, she removed the stopper before she got out.

She grabbed the towel from the rack and rubbed her skin vigorously, trying to force the chill from her flesh.

Feeling more like herself, she collected her dirty things from the floor and carried them to the basket in the closet.

Once there, she grabbed a short top and a shorter skirt.

Eilidh and the others were probably already downstairs in the hall having dinner.

Morlie decided the best way to handle it was to hang out in a group, eat and dance, and then laugh around a roaring fire to keep her mind from straying to things she didn’t want to think about.

Once her shoes were on her feet, she headed from the room. Once again, she refused to peer out the large bay window no matter how much it called to her.

Determined, Morlie left her room and went down the stairs toward the grand hall.

She tried to focus on the noisy room that greeted her ears as she continued.

A breeze came in through the doorway at the bottom of the stairs and caressed her face like a lover’s touch.

Her body came alive. With each step she took, her stomach ached as she descended.

Halfway down, she gripped the railing as her gaze locked on the woods beyond the opening in the distance.

The bumpy reclaimed wood pressed Into her palm as she stood there, taking one breath after another, trying her damnedest to control the trembling building in her core.

Her body started to ache as sweat broke out on the back of her neck, which caused one, two, and then three droplets to roll down her spine.

She licked her lips and pushed forward. She told herself she was tougher than whatever the hell was going on with her body.

Am I ?

She gritted her teeth at the end of the stairs and turned toward the archway leading into the hall.

She could smell all the excellent food wafting through the air, greeting her and urging her to go in and eat.

Just like all the other nights she had come to the hall, it was teeming with Drahks eating and socializing even as lovers caressed and held each other close.

A few dragon-shifters glanced her way, some smiling while others stared, and their looks penetrated her as if trying to assess something within.

She wanted to rage that she wasn’t a lab specimen and didn’t appreciate the analysis.

But these people had taken her in and been kind to her.

She didn’t want to take out her incongruous feelings, detonating like a bomb.

The mushrooming of emotions flooding her mind and body wasn’t their fault.

Morlie stood at the door telling herself to enter, but even as she moved her foot across the threshold, two things overwhelmed her simultaneously.

The first thing was having her olfactory sense inundated by the heavy scent of sulfur.

She felt choked by it from the significant number of Drahks packed in the space of the great hall.

Placing a hand on her stomach, she parted her lips and only breathed air through her mouth to fight against the acidic odor.

She glanced across the room to the T-shaped table and saw Eilidh, Linda, Saphira, Angius, Fafner, and Irad talking, smiling, and sharing food like always.

Just go into your friends, Morlie , she commanded herself.

Morlie .

That’s when she realized the second thing that happened and rooted her feet to the ground, her name on the wind. That same breeze gliding along her skin and brushing her flesh caused her ears to tune to the whisper within it.

Morlie .

She turned her head toward the door and found herself beguiled by the sweet fragrance of nature as she searched the woods. She wanted to tell herself she was going mad. The stress of the last two days was playing tricks on her mind, and she was going insane.

But the vibrations rocking her body were nothing compared to the pulsing that began at the juncture of her thighs. The skin on the inside of her thigh above the mark, around the bite, throbbed in time with the rhythm of her heartbeat, and her heart beat in tempo to the bewildering call of her name.

Morlie. Morlie. Morlie .

Without thought or making a clear decision about what she was doing, she turned from the hall, even as she felt multiple eyes on her. She didn’t care. At that moment, she only wanted to answer the call, wrapping around her soul and pulling her forth.

She bolted out the door. Her strides ate up the ground beneath her hard and fast as her feet pounded into the packed dirt beneath her feet.

If anyone called her name from behind her, she couldn’t hear it.

She set her focus. If she was cracked in the head and found herself running through the forest and beyond the border for nothing, at least she would have tasted a bit of freedom.

“Morlie!” The loud rumbled call of her name erupted in the forest overhead.

Boom. Boom. Boom, her heart pounded.

Haa, ah, haa, ah, haa, ah, haa, ah, haaaah... her breathing rushed in and out of her lungs.

She burst into the darkened interior trees and felt the slash of one branch after another, and twigs snapped beneath her feet. She didn’t fear running into anything because her vision illuminated a hazy path. It wasn’t crystal clear, but she could see enough not to slow her stride.

Then the wind was knocked out of her briefly, and she was catapulted forward and then back as a strong arm wrapped around her waist like a vise and dragged her back against a broad, hard chest.

Firm lips pressed along the shell of her ear, followed by a growl that furled into one word. “Mate.”