Page 95 of Spirit Rites

He laughs and shuts the drawer. “Nothing but what I said. Here, how about this?”

“One of your shirts.”

He nods. “Yep. I think you’re most relaxed when you wear one of my shirts.”

“Riiiight.” But I take the shirt from him. Or I try, but he doesn’t release it.

“But if you want to get naked for me, I will not object. Not in the least.”

I grin and snatch the shirt from his hands, shaking my head as I do. “Forget I said that,” I call out over my shoulder as I head into the bathroom.

“Never gonna happen, Angel.”

I slip inside the bathroom, still smiling. I pull my hair down while I’m in there and brush it before changing into his shirt. When I leave the bathroom, he’s already sitting on the bed. Shirtless. My breath catches in my lungs, even as I act like it’s no big deal. He pats the bed next to him, and I walk over and climb onto the bed next to him. “Is there a reason you’re not wearing a shirt?” I ask as casually as I can.

He lifts an eyebrow. “My mate’s orders. Remember?”

Idoremember then. I settle next to him against the headboard, but he puts his arms around me and he pulls me closer to him. If I were any closer, I’d be on top of him. His arms stay around my side and his fingers brush over my hip. “You saw the start of the fight, I’m assuming.” I nod. “And did you see the part where the guy we were fighting transformed into a guivre?”

“Yes.” My voice is soft as I remember.

“It was almost impossible to fight like that. It was so close, and we just weren’t prepared for it. His surprise shift was just too much, and it nearly cost us both our lives. At one point, I thought we had it. But then everything changed. I’m still not quite sure how it all happened. But one minute, I was on myfeet, fighting. The next I'm soaring through the air with its claws digging into my shoulders. We flew forever. I fought for a while, but I couldn’t do anything more than give myself more wounds.”

“How did it finally drop you?”

“Honestly, I think it got tired of carrying me. I don’t really have any other answers, other than that.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t break your bones on impact.”

“Yeah, I don’t really remember a whole lot by that point. I remember it flew low to avoid something, maybe trees and then suddenly, I was falling. I thought it would come back for me, but it never did. I managed to walk for a little while, before I passed out. I guess Rysden’s soldiers found me.”

“They did.”

It’s quiet between us for a few seconds, and we’re both lost in our own thoughts. I turn to look up at him. “Did you hear there was a sighting of a dragon here?”

He frowns. “Really?”

“Yeah. It happened while I was with you. Zarreth told me about it. What do you think about that?”

He continues to frown. “I have no idea.”

“Have you ever had dragons here before?”

“No. They never come this far south. Actually, they never leave the Dragon Kingdom. Period. If we see it again, we’ll have to see about contacting Rauk, King of the Dragon Kingdom.”

“You don’t sound very thrilled about that,” I point out.

“I’m not. Rauk’s not exactly,” he pauses. “He’s not the nicest guy.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, for starters, there’s the fact that he killed his father in cold blood.”

I swallow. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Like I said, not a nice guy. I haven’t actually been around him all that much. They keep to themselves up there inthe North. I find it really odd that a dragon was flying around down here.” We’re both quiet a minute, lost in our own thoughts. “Anyway, there are much more important things than talking about a dragon sighting.”

I turn to him. “Yeah. What did you have in mind?”