Page 30 of Upon Buried Embers (Upon Buried Embers #1)

Rohan

It’s after dark and she hasn’t returned.

I pace my cabin, cracking my neck. I shouldn’t have left her there to begin with, but I wanted her to make a choice on her own.

I wanted her to make the choice to come to me, and she hasn’t.

I continue pacing, giving her a little more time.

For her to have run to my dragon’s den, crying on her own and searching for safety after overhearing Rhett telling me to sell her on… what has her Master done to her for her to go there?

She’s coming around to them, but she’s still scared of them.

Scared of everything it seems. That’s why I tried not to look at her body too much. Fear of what I would do, the control I would lose.

I’ve seen some scars on her, little lines on her back in particular, but nothing that shows anything horrific.

I stop my pacing.

I know better than anyone that scars don’t have to be visible to exist.

I chastise myself, running a hand down my face.

This tiny woman has me conflicted. I’m a hard man, never been soft to anyone apart from my mother. Yet with her, I find myself wanting to protect her.

I keep telling myself it’s because she’s different too, not like other Dragorie. But it’s more than that, I feel it.

Know it.

Looking at the door, I decide enough is enough. She isn’t ready to make a decision, so I will continue to do it for her until she can.

I leave the cabin.

She should be here by now.

She looked so scared at the thought of me selling her, but she’s mine. I found her and I’ll keep her.

I’ll figure something else out. I have to.

Until you have no choice.

I growl the thought away and grit my teeth.

Fuck it.

I pick up the pace and before I know it, I’m running.

A Dragonbond doesn’t run unless in battle, and certainly not for anyone else, but it seems for the Little Whisperer, I’m doing a lot of new things.

Like having someone wash me, braid my hair.

Now I’m running to her, too?

Pathetic.

But what if she isn’t there anymore? What if she managed to leave despite me telling Drogonah to watch over her?

I sprint harder, ignoring those on patrol in the distance as they look toward me in alarm.

“What’s wrong?” One of them shouts, weapon ready.

I wave them off. “Nothing!”

Why are they acting like if I’m running, it has to be because we’re under attack?

What if I just wanted to run?

If they so much as breathe a word that they saw their Dragonbond sprinting like this, I’ll put them on horse shit duty for a week.

Putting those thoughts aside, I push myself harder.

Before I know it, I’m in the cave and rounding the corner, only to stop short.

My dragons are not in their stone beds… they’re in the center of the cavernous space.

What?

They’re all laid down, sleeping. Drogonah is on the outside, out of his bed which he never does, and he peeks an eye open at me, huffing slightly.

What’s happening? Where’s my Little Whisperer?

I go to him, running a hand up his snout. “What’s going on?” I mutter, and he turns his head to the path between sleeping dragons.

Confused, I make my way through the dragons. We have nine of them so far, and as I continue to walk between them, unable to see above, I realize I’m going in some sort of spiral pattern.

I frown at the unusual behavior.

I run my hand over the dragons I pass in greeting, shushing them when some wake. Drogonah at the end, and then Blaise, Agnar, Solia, Doren.

The heat coming off them is enough to even start bothering me.

As I enter the last of the spiral containing Hakkon, Hedoric, and Alter, I pause, seeing Escor at the very end.

But that isn’t what’s surprising. It’s the little red-haired elf curled up in between him and his tail that has me shocked.

Escor lifts his eyes to me, gums peeling back in a silent snarl. One stern look from me and he stops, lowering his head back down next to the elf.

I walk toward them and crouch down, moving the hair out of her face. She sleeps softly, face smoothed out, small hands resting under her cheek. I can’t help but notice how beautiful she is. Even malnourished.

She’s been squashed down over the years, and if what she says is true about how old she was when she was given to Emerish, she had no chance to grow in a way I’m sure she was meant to.

She may be an elf, of nature and animals, but she has a low ember burning within her that I want to nourish and set alight.

What an odd feeling for me.

But it’s a craving I must sate. Like having my eyes on her, feeding her every chance I get, wanting to be the only one to touch her hair….

My eyes lock on the other sleeping dragons once more, and the realization hits me square in my chest.

They’re protecting her in this spiral.

My dragons are protecting her.

Pride fills me. They know she’s soft, vulnerable. She may very well be a spy for the Elven lands, but there’s no lie in how skinny her body is, how she flinches at the lift of a hand, and my dragons sense that.

They have a need to protect her as much as I do.

I eye Escor.

Some more than others it seems.

A sigh comes from her, soft and wispy. Everything is soft with her.

Her voice, the way she moves, how she touches things.

Will she touch me softly too? She does when she washes me.

I lean forward and run my finger over the tip of her ear, loving the way she shivers from it.

It makes me want in a way I haven’t before. Want in a way I’ve always held back from.

But with her, that want is a burning need that will set me alight, and I’m not sure how much longer I can withstand it.

Do not get attached, Rohan. You know how this will end.

The inner thoughts are banished when she rolls to her back.

My eyes travel down her slender neck, anger flaring at the metal I want to remove, but haven’t figured out how to yet. Then, unable to stop myself, my gaze drops, running over the small mounds of her breasts, hidden from sight within my tunic.

I felt them on me in the tub, when I came all over her back like some animal just from the touch of her bare body against mine.

Pathetic.

I’m a pathetic man around her, and I can’t afford to be.

Yet some part of me doesn’t care.

Her hand falls to the side on top of Escor’s tail, and I run a finger down her palm. She curls her fingers around it, squeezing just a little, and the pressure has my cock twitching.

Fuck.

How can someone so innocent be so alluring?

I pull my hand away, gentle enough to not wake her. I turn, walking to Hedoric and sitting down against him, crossing my legs at the ankles.

There, I watch over her with my dragons.

There, I stop myself from claiming her in a way I shouldn’t dare.

There, I sit and plan on how I’m going to get out of a deal I made before I met her.