Page 20 of Valor’s Flight (The New Protectorate #5)

Chapter Twelve

Taevas hadn’t anticipated anything more than this moment in his entire life.

It felt bigger than the day the clans finally selected him as Isand of Isands, Dragon of Dragons, Lord of the Clans.

It was more momentous than the day he signed the Peace Charter.

It was the culmination of a decade of self-denial, yearning, and frustration. It was her.

Taevas attributed the way she stared up at him with wide eyes as being star-struck.

It happened enough. He was the Isand, after all, and he could only imagine how shocking it would be to have someone like him in his home unexpectedly.

She clearly hadn’t been able to recognize him in his other form, but there was no possibility of that now.

Hoping to give her a little time to recover herself, he forced his hands away from her waist. “Easy,” he murmured, looking her over hungrily. He couldn’t touch her, but gods, he could look. He’d become an expert at it.

“Take deep breaths now, metsalill.”

His fingers flexed. The urge to stroke her arms, to soothe, to feel the heat of her on his palms again, was almost impossible to resist. He managed it, but only barely.

Hoping to distract himself, he asked, “Maybe you would feel more comfortable if I had something to cover myself?”

Dragons didn’t bother themselves about nudity.

Clothing was for decoration and status more than anything else.

He was lucky that he could afford to have much of his wardrobe imbued with magic that allowed it to survive his shift, but many dragons either couldn’t afford such luxuries or didn’t bother.

They lived in the nude half the time anyway, so what was the point of being ashamed of it when they had two legs rather than four?

Taevas had vague memories of his clothing being exchanged for little more than rags during his captivity, which explained why he currently stood nude in Alashiya’s kitchen.

It was a smart move on his captor’s part, considering his clothing could’ve had tracking devices sewn in, but it filled him with a deep, keen-edged rage at the thought that other beings had laid hands on what his nymph made just for him.

Alashiya gave him a blank look. “Cover…” She blanched. “Oh, yes! Um, I have— I should have something.”

She looked harried as she scurried out of the kitchen, her eyes always carefully averted from his cock. Taevas watched her go with a chuckle. It was for the best. He didn’t think it would do her any good if he explained why he was half-hard.

Would she bring him the robe he’d commissioned?

He had mixed feelings about the garment now, after having seen her work her fingers to the bone on it.

It bothered him badly that she worked so hard, but it was undeniable that the piece was a marvel.

He could already imagine how grand he’d look with it on — and the pride with which he’d display her skill.

But his nymph didn’t bring him the robe he’d paid for. She crept back into the kitchen with what looked like a bundle of off-white linen. “Here. This should fit,” she muttered, thrusting it into his arms.

Taevas took it with an arched brow. Shaking out the bundle, he discovered a breezy pair of pants.

They appeared to be about the right size, though his tail would prove problematic.

He’d just decided to use his thumb claw to split a small hole in the fabric when a troubling thought occurred to him.

Turning a sharp look on her, he asked, “Who do these belong to?”

It wasn’t unreasonable to assume they might be a commission for someone else, or perhaps something equally innocuous, but Taevas’s riotous instincts weren’t in the mood to be reasonable.

It didn’t matter that there were no fresh scents of anyone else in the home, nor that he hadn’t seen Alashiya so much as pick up a phone to speak to another person since he’d arrived.

My territory, the new, unreasonable thing in him growled. My nymph.

She’d said what he thought was a man’s name once before. Adon. Were they his? They’d be having a tense discussion if so.

“Does it matter?” Alashiya gave him a peculiar look. “They should fit.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to snap that it did matter — very much, in fact. If he was going to wear another man’s clothes, then it had damn well better not be an ex-lover. Just the thought made him itch to shred the pants into ribbons.

Ridiculous, he scolded himself. Taevas A?daja didn’t get jealous. He didn’t throw temper tantrums. So he clenched his jaw and moved to put on the damn pants.

Alashiya made a tiny squeaking sound. “I, uh— I’ll give you some privacy!”

He looked up in time to see her rush out of the room again. The hem of her skirt fluttered as she slipped through the doorway, as soft and pretty as her. His annoyance took a backseat to a bloom of warmth.

This is the same woman who threatened a dragon with a wooden spoon, he thought, shaking his head. And yet she runs when her man puts pants on. Oh, my Shiya, we will have so much fun together.

It was almost unbearably charming. He fought a smile as he listened to Alashiya move about somewhere just out of sight.

Resigning himself to his task so he could more quickly reunite with his nymph, Taevas delicately sliced a hole suitable for his tail before he slid his legs into the pants.

The fly was the old-fashioned button-up kind, which he detested, but after some cursing, Taevas managed to get the pants up and suitably fastened over his needy cock.

His body screamed from the effort, but he ignored it.

The soreness, the acute pain of his still-healing wounds, the nausea that churned in his gut, the fever that still burned beneath his skin, and the deeply concerning stiffness of his wings — all of it could wait until he had Alashiya in his sights again.

“I’m decent, metsalill,” he called out. When he didn’t receive a reply after several beats, Taevas blew out a breath. So shy.

Smoothing his hair back behind the points of his ears — and making a note to braid it as soon as he had a proper shower — he padded out of the kitchen and into the hall.

The darkness didn’t hinder him as he peered down the length of it, wondering what lay beyond.

Alashiya never went that way. She seemed to exist entirely in the garden, kitchen, converted living room, and bathroom.

He only vaguely recalled the shape of the house from his delirious trek up the hill and wondered at its size.

From where he stood, he could make out four closed doors and then another one at the far end, which presumably led to more rooms. It was quite a large dwelling, though it was painfully low to the ground and in hideous disrepair.

His young cousin Artem had told him horror stories about his Chosen’s dwelling, which had needed to be nearly torn down to the studs to be suitable for a dragon’s mate and young, but Taevas suspected Alashiya’s home was far, far worse off.

It was a good thing he wouldn’t be wasting his time repairing it, since she’d be much better off in the ’Riik.

Trying not to show his disgust, he turned away from the dark hallway to cross into the living room. Hiding his opinion on the state of things got harder.

He’d only been able to inspect it from the doorway while he recovered in her kitchen, and from there it hadn’t seemed so bad. Stepping over the threshold changed his opinion.

The only saving grace was that it was, without a doubt, entirely her.

The very walls were saturated with her scent.

He could see her touch in every square inch — from her cozy nest to her chaotic workbench to the antique armchair in the little nook by the window and the stack of ancient paperback novels at its feet.

It was a cozy little burrow for a woman straight out of a fairytale.

Unfortunately, it was also entirely unacceptable.

Dragons took tremendous pride in their roosts.

In fact, a dragon could not be considered grown until they’d left their parents’ nest and made their own dwelling.

The quality of their roost told the world how much they valued that which was most precious: their nest. The nest was the heart of the home, where Chosen and young were kept safe.

One could not have a Chosen without a good nest, and they couldn’t have a nest worthy of a Chosen without a fine roost.

A good roost was required to be high up from the ground, for ease of take-off and landing as well as security.

They needed to have strong walls, preferably made of stone or more modern materials like steel and concrete, to keep out the weather and enemies alike.

Of course, they had to have a nest — the primary bedroom — which came with even stricter requirements like dragon-grade bedding, low light, easy access to a nursery, and more.

Alashiya’s home met exactly none of those requirements.

The walls were flimsy wood and chipping plaster.

It was a single level on what could only generously be called a hill.

Electricity had clearly been added after it was built, because the wiring was on the outside of the walls and evoked old memories of the transition from gas to electricity.

What little insulation it possessed appeared to be supplied primarily from fanciful quilts that had been strung up via pins in the plaster.

The only source of heat was an old iron stove in the center of the room, which was such a terrible idea it nearly drove him to madness.

Not only was it dangerous merely in its design — the gods knew the last time the chimney had been serviced — but Alashiya slept beside it in a pile of flammable bedding.

The walls of the home itself were covered in fabric.

The room was full of piles of yarn, thread, and just about every flammable thing he could imagine.

As a dragon, fire couldn’t harm him, but he balked at the damage that could be done to Alashiya with one stray spark on a blanket.

He knew what it was like to lose everything to flame, the complete devastation of one’s entire life being reduced to ash.

To think that might happen to her was utterly unacceptable.

Taevas surveyed the room with a clenched jaw, his claws curled into tight fists, and tried to get a handle on his revulsion. It was then, of course, that he realized what he’d been too distracted to notice: Alashiya wasn’t there.

He turned on his heel and, one hand on the door jamb, swung into the hallway. The door to the bathroom was open, the inside dark. The kitchen was empty. He held very still as his heart began to pound. Straining to listen to a sound, any sound, Taevas held his breath.

Nothing.

“Shiya, where did you go?” Dread made his tone harsh, very much the bark of the Isand, when he demanded, “Answer me!”

There was only silence. Alashiya walked with featherlight steps, but even they would’ve been heard in the complete quiet. He was attuned to any slight rustle of cloth, the rasp of breathing, the shift of weight on old floorboards. There was nothing but a whistle of wind from down the hall.

Ignoring the rising discomfort in his battered body, Taevas took off.

The home got stranger as he went, but he barely noticed anything beyond the closed doors as he chased the lingering scent of her in the air.

He barreled down the hall, through the door at the far end, and past another string of closed doors.

Moonlight came through a ragged, barely covered hole in the ceiling — no doubt a result of the tornado that could’ve killed Alashiya before he ever got the chance to meet her.

The length of the hall seemed to be somewhat U-shaped, with the kitchen and the living room at one end. At the opposite end there was a tiny entryway with the patina and cobwebs of an abandoned room. The front door, with its peeling paint and rusted fixtures, was left open.

Taevas stood there for half a heartbeat, too stunned to do much else besides stare into the darkened treeline, before instinct kicked in.

His focus narrowed into a familiar point.

It was the mindset of a dragon who’d spent his formative years fighting for his life in the sky, where an enemy could appear from above or below in an instant.

He didn’t think about why she might’ve run, only that she was out there in the dark woods, alone and defenseless.

Distantly, he also recognized that she couldn’t be allowed to tell anyone of his presence, but that concern took a backseat to his immediate worry for her safety.

Her scent was a faint thread in the air. It nearly blended in with the smell of sun-warmed soil, green things, and fresh air. But even diluted by the summer air, he had no trouble picking it up.

He followed that instinctively, the claws on his toes digging into the soil with the force of every step.

She’d gone for the trees. Taevas hissed with pain as he tucked his wings close to his back, wary of getting them caught on spindly branches.

Dragons were shit in tight places. Their wings were exquisitely sensitive, and his were injured, making the hunt through a birch forest even less desirable.

But he forged ahead, chasing that wild scent. Her name bubbled up his throat and pressed against the backs of his teeth, but he suspected calling for her would only send her deeper into hiding.

He couldn’t risk that. All he had was his nose and the hope that she’d slip up. Nymphs were wild creatures built for this terrain. If she hunkered down somewhere, he doubted he would ever find her.

He hadn’t spent ten years pining after her ghost only to lose her the very moment he finally held her in his claws. Taevas A?daja didn’t give up. He didn’t lose. The needy beast in him refused to let it happen.

He was the motherfucking Isand, and she belonged to him.