Even the memory of her citrusy aroma—I was hard as rock, despite being up here among the clouds.
Gritting my teeth, I steered for the mountains, landed on a ledge, and made a rather tortuous shift back to human. As I let my large Dragon scales drop away, I didn’t grow my scale clothing in its place.
The cold mountain air drifted across my naked, heated skin. My entire body trembled. Here I was, again. Only it wasn’t likely I’d be interrupted by the Dire while on this mountain.
That had been humiliating. There’d been no disguising what I’d been doing, or what I had been forced to do to myself to achieve it.
Most of the time, I managed to hide Xumi’s damage. To keep a stoic face and pretend I was every inch of who I used to be. But it was all feigned.
After years of serving the Guild, I had many gruesome things contained within that mental cage. It was therefore, beyond ironic thatsexhad done this to me.
The one constant about Dragon sex was that the participants walked away without emotional entanglements. It didn’t matter, most times, whether it was with a male or a female, or all of the above. Sex simply provided release.
I’d lived most of my life by that code. Even indulged in benefits with Haki many times, until he found his soul mate. Since then, I’d been forced to entertain myself.
Until Xumi.
Xumi had changed everything.
I stood on the ledge, rigid and aching. Folded strong fingers around myself, and stroked.
Anna.Her curves. Her beautiful eyes. Her scent. My fingers danced over my sensitive skin as I imagined hers in their place, and I groaned, low in my throat. My knees gave way, and I fell to them, my head tilting back.
But then the memories returned. That of a powerful, cloying musk that hooked into my soul and ripped control away from me.
Xumi had taken what had been intimate and personal, and twisted it to serve her. Perverse.
My lip pulled back from a canine tooth as I battled. Held onto Anna with a sense of desperation, as though she were the key to my freedom.
Maybe she was. But as before, memories alone of her were not enough. What Xumi had done to me had gone on for weeks, to the point where I’d contemplated ending it by the only means open to me.
Haki hadn’t arrived a moment too soon. I owed him everything.
But as I kneeled there on that cold mountain stone, my hand fell away. Anna flitting through my day couldn’t save me from the chains upon my soul. Xumi had twisted me until I doubted there was anything normal left.
I flung back my head and roared into the wind. My wings burst free, and within seconds I was airborne once more, still rigid and aching, but unable to resolve it anytime soon. Not without giving in, as I had on the plateau.
And that way—led to madness.
31
Sebastian
As I be staring out at the lake, I tied my braided hair into a warrior’s knot.
Movement overhead caught my eye. A massive, powerful form, winging his way into the clouds—the Dragon, Talakai. Seeking solace in the wind?
I briefly wondered what it would be like to fly. Of course, my beast came as close as it could to such, without actually sprouting wings.
A cluster of students skittered by where I be on the bench, shooting me quick, nervous looks. My expression forbade interaction. I ignored their curious stares, closed my eyes, andreached.
As a manipulator of life essences, I be able to hook into the great balance of life and death—and in return, it gave me both insight and power. But all day, my efforts to do so had been fruitless. My entire focus kept returning to a certain individual, despite all my efforts to stop it.
I’d never experienced such a loss of control, not even with Isobel. It deeply troubled me. With the cause now safely away, I could send my senses out, and what I found surprised me.
They be still here, although dispersing with every moment. Animals of every type and description, from the smallest rodents and birds to the great horned herbivores. The largest hadn’t been brave enough to emerge from the forest, but they’d gathered, and only now moved away.
They be as attracted to her as I. And her pull be powerful, because they’d come while she’d been surrounded by shifters that clearly be predators.
