Looking at him, Dani’s heart twisted.
He was more aware than he appeared. Tyrez spoke without opening his eyes or even twitching. “I told him not to bring you.”
His deep voice was devoid of emotion.
Dani said the first thing that came to her. “Now that I see you, I’m glad he did.”
Tyrez still hadn’t opened his eyes, as though he wished to deny her existence. His big hands lay upon his thighs, and now she saw one curl into a fist. “You don’t belong here.”
“Ash doesn’t agree.”
His lips twisted. “Ash believes this can be fixed.” Annoyance in the tone now, and Dani experienced the briefest burst from him.
It rocked her to the core. Pure and intense rage—but twisted so that it bordered on insanity.
It scorched right through her.
He’s changed a lot. But down deep, he’s still Tyrez.Was Ash wrong? Had his love blinded him to Tyrez’s slide into madness?
Dani stopped at the edge of the water. Other than the curled fist, Tyrez hadn’t moved, or even opened his eyes.
“Go away, Dani. There is nothing for you here.”
There was a finality to the words, but she’d never been good at following orders.
A series of steps had been carved in the rock at the edge of the pond. The water lapped against the scales on her thighs and then up to the ones at her waist. Then it was beneath her breasts, lifting them as they floated.
When the ground dropped away, she was forced to swim. She stroked over to the rock on which he sat and found that it extended from a ledge. She was able to stand, and as she moved closer to him, rose until it was shoulder deep.
Still, he hadn’t moved. But as she stood there, waiting, a muscle jumped in his jaw. And his eyes opened.
They gleamed at her, and the rage in that metallic gaze took her breath away. The cut-glass look betrayed the tension in every fibre of his being. Now that she stood this close, she saw the slight tremble of muscles held too tight for far too long.
“Go away,” he repeated through clenched teeth. “Or I won’t be responsible for what happens.”
She snorted a grim laugh. “There is nothing you can do to me that has not already been done.”
The eyes blazed blue-green fire. “Don’t be so sure.”
But she was. Because she knew this Dragon. Ash was right. The very fact that he was warning her away, proved that Tyrez was still in there, trapped in a vortex of rage.
And she’d put him there. She knew that now with a certainty that tied a knot in her gut. This was what happened when a soulbond went bad.
She needed a plan, and now she came up with one. If she was brave enough to see it through...
Dani started with an apology. “I am here to say I’m sorry. That I was wrong to walk away. I thought you and Ash belonged together, that I was just an accessory. An accident. But you don’t believe that, do you?”
The luminous eyes closed again, for a moment. “What I believe no longer matters. It is too late to change anything. Maybe this is the way it was meant to be.”
His voice dripped not only with rage, but despair. It solidified Dani’s resolve. Beneath the water, as she modified her scales, her heart pounded so loud she was sure he could hear it.
She steeled herself to poke the bear. “Right. You were meant to be sitting here, slowly going mad and lamenting the whims of Fate. I never thought you were the type to sulk, Tyrez.”
A tremor ran through the big form. “I am not sulking.” The words were a snarl.
As Dani moved closer, the ledge lifted beneath her feet. The water slipped from her like a cool caress, revealing smooth, naked skin.
His eyes slipped from hers and dropped to the stylized Dragon tattoo on her chest and then lower. She’d arranged her scales, so they propped her breasts high, a bustier of glittering black that reflected green and blue in the moonlight.
