Page 25 of Valor’s Flight (The New Protectorate #5)

Chapter Fifteen

Taevas stared at the ceiling of the room Alashiya had given him, unable to sleep. He could scarcely close his eyes. Everytime he tried, the darkness closed in on him, the shadows seething with everything he’d learned, every worry that bit and scoured his mind.

He needed to focus. His people needed him more than anything, and getting back to them was his first priority.

But he couldn’t stop circling the mystery of his artisan, his metsalill.

She stood in his mind, unmoving, while he went around and around her.

He’d spent so long imagining her that now he felt over-full, as if he’d gorged on a feast he had no right to touch.

But his hunger hadn’t been sated. A bone-deep craving gnawed at him to keep going, to know everything.

Perhaps it was the fact that her real life was so far removed from his imaginings that threw him off-kilter.

He’d pictured a free-spirited creature in a New York apartment surrounded by eclectic decor and a social circle of artists.

He pictured a woman of boundless creativity and curiosity living her life unchained, unwilling to be pinned down by even his admiration.

He pictured exactly the opposite of Alashiya.

She was lush and golden and vital and rooted to the earth. She didn’t live in a small city apartment, but a half-rotten house being slowly consumed by nature. She didn’t have friends. She didn’t have family.

Where had all the money he’d paid her over the years gone?

It was easily a quarter of a million dollars, though he’d long since stopped keeping track.

It certainly hadn’t gone into her home or anything else he could see.

And why didn’t she know him? If not as Isand, then she ought to be familiar with his name, his requests, his many, many gifts.

But he’d seen none of those gifts around the house. Most notably, the custom chair and workbench he’d sent her was nowhere to be seen. She was forced to wedge flattened cushions behind her back as she worked, and often had to stop to stretch when the discomfort became too much.

Had she sold his gifts? It was possible she had some incredible debt or other expenses, but that seemed a less likely conclusion than the obvious: that nothing, including the vast majority of the money he’d spent over the years, had ever gotten to her.

Rage tightened the powerful muscles of his jaw. It wasn’t the time or place to be worrying about whether a skilled embroiderer had been properly compensated. His priority couldn’t and shouldn’t have been Alashiya.

And yet he stared at the ceiling, the pain in his wings almost unbearable, and strained to listen to the softest sounds of her breathing from the next room, as he had every night since the drugs began to wear off.

Taevas was a protector by nature, so it was one of the great challenges of his life, learning to prioritize everything and everyone who needed his help.

His people, the ’Riik, had to come first. Usually he could, after some small internal struggle, accept that. But now…

Alashiya could not be put aside.

She’s part of this now, he decided, as something of a compromise with the ravenous beast in him. My presence here puts her at risk, which means she’s owed my protection. I can get back to my people and take care of her. I’m motherfucking Isand. I can multitask.

He’d get back to his people, and he’d satisfy the thing that drew him to Alashiya. At the very least, he owed her for her hospitality, reluctant though it might’ve been.

His decision didn’t make it easier to sleep.

A nagging sense of unease demanded he get out of the old, musty bed to check on her.

A permeating sense of wrongness didn’t just seep from the sad little room Alashiya had tried in vain to make nice for him with fresh linens and a quick cleaning.

It came from the closed door. The six feet of hallway.

The nest on the floor, unguarded, unscented, unclaimed by him.

Taevas wasn’t an idiot. He wasn’t ignorant of what his instincts demanded of him. He just didn’t want to listen.

A cold, slushy wave of fear churned in his gut. It was one thing to crave, but quite another to give in to that craving. That would mean relinquishing control over everything he’d so carefully safeguarded over the years — an utterly unthinkable path, no matter what his instincts howled for.

His mind never stopped spinning, but sleep eventually claimed him anyway.

Like a switch flipping on and off, Taevas couldn’t recall closing his eyes, only opening them again to a room lit with pale morning light.

A strange shape of it was cast on the floor by a small gap in the fabric pinned to the window frames.

He watched it on the floor for several moments, disoriented, until awareness came back to him. The scent of coffee and the soft sounds of cooking prompted him to move before he’d properly assessed whether that was possible.

Taevas nearly stumbled out of the bed. He caught himself just in time to spare himself the fall, but he still landed hard on the bed.

His head spun. Bile crept up the back of his throat.

A full-body quake overtook him. It was as if his body couldn’t decide whether it wanted to shift or not.

Every muscle seemed to slither under his skin, unsure of their places.

Taevas gasped, claws curling into the bedding, and fought it hard. He barely heard a soft knock on the door, but Alashiya’s voice came through. “Taevas? Are you okay? It sounded like you fell.”

A pitiful noise left his throat. Not a moment later, the door swung open. His vision was too blurred to see her clearly, but he’d know the shape of her, the golden tones of her skin and hair, anywhere.

Alashiya rushed into the room, bringing a waft of rich coffee and cypress with her. “Whoa, whoa,” she muttered, bending a little to brace her palms on his shoulders. “Easy. Don’t move. Are you hurting?”

“I’m okay,” he rasped, muscles shuddering as they finally settled back into their proper places. His mouth filled with saliva as an impression of memory surfaced, one of complete helplessness as he was pricked with a needle again, a threadbare bag thrown over his head and his limbs bound.

I couldn’t shift, he suddenly recalled. I couldn’t control it.

“The drug that was used,” he found himself explaining around gasps of exertion, “I think it was a shift inhibitor. It must still be in my system, doing gods know what.”

Petal-soft hands smoothed over his shoulders and down his arms, tracing invisible but unforgettable paths down the naked skin of his biceps. “Is a shift inhibitor like medicine? Will it wash out of your system on its own?”

Taevas ran a hand over his clammy face. “Most do, but they could’ve used anything. And I was injected so many times…”

I could’ve died.

The thought came to him as clear as day. Of course, he’d recognized that he was likely to be murdered, but there was something more unsettling about the possibility of a careless, accidental death. A senseless one.

Most inhibitors were safe, used only in rare cases where two-formed beings needed to be restrained for their safety or that of others. But they weren’t meant for long-term care, and those that were more potent were far more dangerous. None were meant for repeated use.

Snatches of memory, a muffled argument here and there, drifted from the foggy mass of his memories. “They didn’t know what they were doing. I don’t remember what they said, but I got the sense that they weren’t supposed to have me for as long as they did. Something went wrong.”

Alashiya hovered close. It calmed him, though a new urgency asserted itself when she pressed the silken skin of her inner wrist to his forehead. “You’re warm. Really warm, Taevas. I don’t know what’s normal for a dragon, but you feel feverish to me.”

He opened his eyes. Gods, the sound of his name on her lips was the sweetest thing he’d ever heard. It was on the tip of his tongue to command her to say it again. Just one more time.

She was so close that he could count her lashes. He might’ve even been able to count the hidden freckles across her nose. Breathing deeply, he wrapped his fingers around her wrist and gently guided it down.

Settling her hand on his shoulder where it belonged, he muttered, “I overexerted myself yesterday.”

He expected a wince and maybe an apology for her disappearing act, but he got neither. Instead, Alashiya arched her brows and peered down her nose at him. “It was stupid of you to chase me.”

Taevas opened his mouth, but it was an ancient instinct who replied, “I’ll always chase you, metsalill.”

There was a taut moment of silence as they stared at one another, a scant few inches between their faces. A wild thing beat in his chest — his heart, he thought, though he didn’t recognize the new rhythm it struck.

His claws curled into the bedsheets again. It was a reflex, but not one he’d ever struggled with before. Dragons were grabbers. Acquirers. They often snatched things on impulse, and it took the work of years to train their young to manage it.

It was a humbling regression — one of many, he thought bitterly — to struggle against the urge as a grown man.

If Alashiya noticed his internal battle, she didn’t comment on it. No doubt it appeared to her as yet another of his many oddities and improprieties. She eased back, taking the comfort of her touch with her. “Definitely feverish. You should stay in bed.”

Appalled, Taevas exclaimed, “I will not.”

“You’re sick and clearly not as healed as you thought you were,” she argued, hands on her hips. She wore the strangest outfit that day, composed of what looked like repurposed men’s overalls, and still somehow she managed to be the single most appealing creature he’d ever laid eyes on.

With her curls tied up in a colorful scarf and her eyes as bright as polished cedar, she looked the very picture of robust health when she ordered, “Back into bed. I’ll bring breakfast, then you’ll rest.”

“I don’t need bedrest,” he growled, tail thrashing against the sheets. “And I don’t like this room. I need to get out and—”

“Contact your people. Yes, I know.” Alashiya jammed a thumb over her shoulder. “That’s why you are going to stay here and I am going to walk into town to see if I can find some way for you to reach them that isn’t the Thompsons’ phone or the library’s computers.”

Alarm flashed down his spine. Nearly rising from the bed, Taevas slashed his claws through the air in one clean sweep. “Absolutely not. You aren’t going anywhere alone.”

Alashiya looked distinctly unimpressed with him when she replied, “All right, so let me get this straight: You need to make a call. That has to happen as soon as possible, but it has to be on a special phone. I need to find you that special phone and you need to come with me, except you don’t want anyone seeing you or knowing you’re here.

Please, mighty dragon, explain to me how this is supposed to work. ”

Taevas eyed her with a combination of annoyance and secret delight. “I really don’t appreciate your sarcasm.”

“And I don’t appreciate you being bossy,” she quipped.

Exasperated, he declared, “I am the boss.”

Alashiya didn’t miss a beat. “This is my land, dragon. Whoever you might be out there, I am the queen of this grove. No one is the boss of me.”

He opened his mouth to reply, but for the life of him, he had no idea what to say to that. It was true. He wasn’t in charge of her. If anything, he was in her debt and ought to be on his best behavior.

But he was Isand, and moreover he was a dragon in the clutches of instinct that thrilled at the challenge she represented.

Dragons appreciated strength and bravery above all things, so when Alashiya stood so regally before him, shoulders back and expression serene, while telling him to shove his orders up his ass, Taevas was forced to drag a blanket into his lap.

Half-dead and she can still make me harder than fucking steel. It hardly seemed fair.

Interpreting his silence as having won the argument, Alashiya flashed a satisfied smile that would’ve left him weak at the knees if he’d been strong enough to stand.

“I’m going to town,” she reiterated. “And you can’t stop me.

I think I have an idea of how to get you a secure phone.

And besides, I need to visit the shop if I’m going to be cooking for two. ”

Alashiya turned to leave the room, but was stopped by his tail looping around her wrist. She gave it, then him, an exasperated look. “What?”

“Shiya,” he rumbled, “I’m serious. This isn’t an exaggeration or a joke or a lie.

I’m telling you that the people who’re looking for me are dangerous, connected men.

They kidnapped and held the most powerful dragon in the UTA for weeks.

If anyone finds out I’m here, it won’t just be bad for me.

They’ll hurt you, too, and they won’t think anything of it. ”

Gently prying his tail from her wrist, she replied, “Most powerful dragon in the UTA, huh? All the more reason for no one to notice me, then.”

“What do you mean?”

Alashiya gave him an odd look. “Important people don’t come to Birchdale, dragon, and they certainly don’t know nymphs like me.”