Page 18 of An Accident Waiting to Dragon

“Why are you here?” she asked.

Asher hesitated. Only a smidge, but she caught it. “Delilah got in touch to say that she’d lost her courier. I volunteered as a tracker before I knew it was you.”

It was really stupid that her heart sank at his choice of words, which only added to her growing irritation. “How very gallant of you,” she said in a flat voice.

“You know I didn’t mean it that way.”

“I don’t actually,” she said in a voice heavy with finality. “After all, we’re strangers now, aren’t we?”

Not a statement of regret or wishing. Simply what was.

Asher said nothing, but this time, for some odd reason his usual silence felt like…hurt.

Which couldn’t be right. After all, she’d only stated a truth. A truth that had been going on for a while. So why did it feel like a rock had settled in her stomach?

Maybe it would be better to avoid any topics involving the two of them. Focus on getting the egg to its destination safely.

Gwen cleared her throat. “What do you think was driving that storm?”

After a second, he answered. “A thunderbird maybe, but it would be far from home.”

She cocked her head, thinking. “Maybe a demigod?”

His grunt was basically a “could be.”

“Or worse,” she muttered, propping her chin on her knees. The power and control of that storm had been…specific.

The island was growing larger and larger on the horizon. At the speed they were going, it wouldn’t take much longer to get there.

Gwen sighed. At least then, she could get some physical distance between them. Maybe facing Asher in a space where they weren’t quite so reliant on each other would stop the memories. Stop her from wanting things that couldn’t be. This felt so much like the dreams that haunted her almost every night. The ones where Goran had never died, and Asher had returned to her from his mission as a spy in Thanatos’s court. The ones where she and Asher were actually mates. The ones where he touched her and she touched him, and they…

Stop it, Gwen.

She must’ve made a noise or something because Asher turned his head just slightly. “All right?” he asked.

“Fine.”

Or she would be once she got away from him, and the confusing, muddled mess his nearness was turning her into.

Asher was involved in Goran’s death. She should hate him. She should want nothing to do with him. She should focus on her damn job.

Get to that island. Heal up enough to get off it. Then get her delivery made and get the hells away from him. End of story.

So why did that plan feel so…wrong?

CHAPTER SIX

Asher

* * *

The storms still hung in the distance, flashes of lightning penetrating the blue skies several miles out. At least they weren’t close.

Yet.

Asher dragged himself up the beach, then waited to shift until Gwen climbed down. Somewhere along the way she’d gone quiet on him, like she’d remembered that she hated him. So she said nothing now.

Neither did he.

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