“Fair enough.” She took a deep breath. “Do you feel anything toward Nikolai?”
His arms tightened around his legs.
“It’s okay, Lucas. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“No. I get it. I just don’t have an answer, really. The guy is irritating as hell and effing terrifying. But he saved my life. And I really don’t know how I feel about all that. It gets all jumbled up when I try to sort it.”
Well, that was better than an outright “I can’t stand the man, keep him away from me.” She rubbed her hands together.
“Let’s go flying.”
He stared up at her, eyes wide. “Seriously?”
“When troubled, Dragons go up.”
“You are troubled?”
“Aren’t you?”
“Yeah, but I’m not a Dragon.”
“You could be.”
His eyes flared emerald, and suddenly, the air between them zinged with intensity, a whirlwind combination of fear, despair, and panic, followed by a pulse ofneedso powerful that it robbed her of breath. Her body tingled all over, and she didn’t think it was only due to the crystal dust.
“C’mon Lucas. You need the practice.”
It was the wrong thing to say. His mouth straightened, and he looked away from her. What lay between them snapped like an overburdened string.
Annoyed with herself, Aria added, “I could use the company.”
Lucas stared off into the jungle. “I’m not the company you are looking for.”
What did that mean? “You’re the company I’m asking for.”
Mai scurried into the surrounding bushes as he stood up. “I don’t know what I’m doing, I’ll only slow you down.”
“Fly with me, Lucas.”
His eyes flashed back to hers, and for just an instant, the zing returned. She suddenly, desperately, wanted him to come with her.
“Please.”
Did he hear the plea in her voice? She didn’t understand it herself. Why was it suddenly so important that he fly with her?
“Aren’t you afraid of being seen in daylight?” The note in his voice deemed it a last-ditch effort to derail her intention.
“We’re in the middle of the jungle, Lucas. The others fly in daylight all the time.”
He swallowed and frowned. “Okay. But turn your back while I morph.”
Aria arched a brow. “I have seen naked men. Seen you naked, for that matter.”
She sensed his discomfort with that reminder. “Well, I’d rather have some privacy today, okay?”
She grinned at him, but his frown only deepened. So she turned her back, shedding her scales as she did so and rather deliberately offering a view of her smooth, naked buttocks as her tail burst free.
Her efforts were rewarded by a strangled sounding moan that sent a thrill straight through her. It was all she could do not to turn around as she continued her shift. Helping Nikolai had drained her, but the crystal she’d just taken helped boost her shift to beast. Still, her Dragon was at its smallest self by the time she’d grown the last scale.
