If she could only transfer some of what she held inside to Ash...
Dani leaned in and touched her lips to his.
He didn’t even twitch, and his lips were cold. She deepened the kiss, spreading her fingers along his face, willing him to live. Pushing everything she had to him. Tearing down a small part of the walls she’d spent years building, so she could offer a piece of herself to him.
Were his lips just a touch warmer? She plundered his lips, pushing so hard the kiss was as much nipping teeth and probing tongue as lip contact. Her fingers sprouted claws, pricking into his skin.
She willed him to live, pushing the words voicelessly to him. Dammit, Ash. Don’t do this. Don’t die. You will live...
Then a shudder ran through him, and she sensed the slightest twitch from his energy.
She pounced on it with her own, envisioning it entwined around his. Forcing it back to reluctant life.
LIVE! She mentally shrieked at him. I WILL NOT LET YOU DIE.
A hand fastened overtop of hers, and pulled the claws away from his skin. She pulled her lips away. His long fingers shook, but the eyes that blinked at her showed silver slowly flooding through the black.
A single tear formed at one corner, sliding down his face as water, not crystal. As though the Dragon in him had been burned away.
“You will live,” she whispered. “We are coming for you.”
Her fingers sank straight through him—he was fading away. But the eyes that caught and held her own were now pure silver, and filled with a despair that was fathoms deep.
“You should have let me die,” he said, and was gone.
* * *
Dani sat in Cara’s garden and stared at the moon.
She’d awakened after dreaming of Ash. Had he really been dying? Or was it just a dream?
It had been too damned real to be a dream. Tyrez believed these dreams to be living, not mundane.
Ash had almost died. Might still, before she and Tyrez could get to him. Her mind buzzed with what would happen when Razir came for her tomorrow.
A footstep sounded from along a path—there was no mistaking the looming shadow.
The Dragon had been elusive as hell, only coming into the house to pick up food before he carried it outside.
Broody was an understatement for describing his mood. She supposed he had lots to brood about, considering he’d just lost everything he’d ever known. But she had something she needed to say to him.
He paused when he saw her, and then turned, as though he might vanish back down the path.
“Wait, Tyrez,” she called out to him. “Come sit with me?”
“I do not wish to disturb you,” he said.
“You’re not. I would appreciate company.” She patted the spot beside her.
He strode to the bench and sat down, as close to the edge as possible. His shoulders were so broad that even with that precaution, he was dangerously close to bumping against her. As he was naked, except for his scales, she had to force herself not to notice.
He was a very big man. Or rather, Dragon shifter.
“Do you sleep out here?” she asked.
“Here. Or sometimes I gate elsewhere. There are some realms I can visit that are not Dragon territory.”
Her heart twisted. “Why don’t you sleep in the house? Cara’s other spare room has a huge bed—not quite as big as yours was, but I don’t think your feet will hang far over the edge.”
