To her shock, pain pierced straight through her heart, and she gritted her teeth against it.
Aranta had come for Tyrez.
A shadow passed by overhead as the huge turquoise Dragon rose to meet her. Dani couldn’t stop her hand from extending, as though to stop him.
She let it drop. She had no claim on him. And it was better that way.
Even if her heart didn’t seem to agree.
21
Tyrez stood on the ledge and turned his face into the wind.
Aranta was coming for him. She’d been dancing with the clouds for over an hour. Her scent lay heavy in the air.
Any chance of avoiding this was long behind him. To stifle his illogical dismay, he debated letting his beast slip the bonds of human control. To let it take him away, even if only for a few hours.
The first whiff of Aranta’s pheromones and his wings burst free, standing as stiffly to attention as the rest of him. The scales raced across his naked body as the muscles and bones writhed their way to his beast.
He launched himself from the ledge half formed to Dragon, shifting as only a trained Legion warrior could—smoothly and within seconds. Powerful wingbeats carried him upward to where she circled through the clouds.
The moment she saw him coming, Aranta darted away. Tyrez was much larger than her, but Dragonas were known for their speed and agility.
The chase was on.
As Tyrez began his pursuit, his heart twisted in conflict. This reluctance heralded something changing within him. Something he didn’t fully understand.
Consumed by lust, his beast didn’t care about the dithering of his heart. Tyrez turned his nose into the scented wind. Her aroma flooded through him, triggering the desire to pursue, to capture, and to mate. It fogged his mind even as it sharpened every other sense to a razor’s edge.
He tracked the Dragona as she arrowed through the clouds, intent on leading him on a chase through the mountains that would test his endurance to its limits. If he let his beast take control, he’d be panting after her in a fruitless and exhausting pursuit. It hammered at him, and this time, Tyrez was tempted to give in. It would be so much simpler to let it loose and hide the human beneath the beast.
But something within him refused to do so. Instead, he fought hard to maintain his mental clarity. He was Legion. No Legion warrior ever lost control over his inner beast.
Aranta climbed above the mountains, high enough that the air frosted around Tyrez’s nostrils, and he shivered. But he could handle the intense cold for longer than her, and she soon dipped into a thick cloud bank to disguise a dive toward the snow-capped peaks.
He stayed high, ice fog gusting with each breath as he used breaks in the clouds to track her. Her brilliant red coloring was like a flame in the pre-dawn darkness, whereas his darker shades hid him against the retreating night.
She dropped to just below the peaks, where the air was warmer and she could channel her speed and agility to her benefit. Her smaller, lighter frame enabled her to dart between the cliffs.
Her scent lured him to drop down with her, to pursue her directly. But no male could ever outrun a female. His experience told him to use skill and cunning to win the day.
Such things were the primary traits of a Legion warrior, and they trained extensively in these mountains. Tyrez knew them like his own skin—every pass, every peak. As his keen Dragon vision traced her movements, his memory supplied him with what he needed.
With a satisfied huff, he banked, leaving her behind as she dodged through the channels between the peaks far below.
With him not panting on her tail, Aranta would be looking for an attack from above. If she ducked his first dive, he might not get another opportunity to catch her.
Which was why he had something else in mind.
Tyrez folded his wings and dove, letting gravity carry him down. He braked twice, judging both direction and momentum, his mind tracking where Aranta would be, while keeping out of sight within the mountains.
Timing was critical. She must be in the right place, at the right moment...
The final three hundred feet was a plummet straight down. His target was the serene blue-green waters of a glacial lake. Wings tight to his body, he arrowed in, his entry so perfect he barely created a ripple.
Just as Aranta darted around the mountain peak and flew overhead.
Her brilliant red form was clearly visible from below the still surface as Tyrez’s momentum carried him rapidly through the icy cold liquid. He forced his spine to bend in an acute arc upward...
