Page 22 of An Accident Waiting to Dragon

“Your father always said the first rule of being a pixie was never to use all your power at once.” He tried to sound reasonable.

Apparently, he’d failed because that only earned him another glare. “I don’t need you to give me lectures on my own abilities. I know what I’m doing.”

Asher tried to keep his own frown tucked away, but it took effort. There was pissed at him, and then there was unreasonable. “Did I say otherwise?”

Hells, he’d been damn impressed so far.

“But you are questioning my ability to know when to use my power or not.”

“I’m not —”

“I’ve been doing fine without you around,” she snapped. “I’m a-fucking-mazing at my job, and definitely not a little girl anymore.”

That was for damn sure.

Gwen blew out a huffy breath. “You haven’t changed a bit. Coming here, all heroic, to save poor little Gwen, right? Throwing my father in my face.”

Screw not being allowed to be irritated. “Not even close to right,” he didn’t bother to keep the growl out of his voice this time. “Delilah sent me.” He shoved more fish in his mouth and angry-chewed.

Surprisingly, Gwen didn’t say anything in return. Not that he looked at her. He couldn’t. Seeing the heat of blame in her eyes when she used to look at him with something closer to adoration was like being slowly gutted with a dull paring knife.

“Let's just focus on getting out of here,” Gwen finally said.

Asher shot her a discerning look, taking in the way she hunched over her food, the way she turned slightly away from him, the way she wouldn’t meet his gaze, focused on her now picked apart fish bones and the mangled mango.

“Fine by me,” he said.

With a huff, Gwen got to her feet and wandered down to the water to wash off her hands. “We need a plan in case the wraith comes for us before we manage to get off this rock.”

Something in her voice, the way she held herself, the solid confidence of knowledge and experience reflected in her pale eyes caught him.

Gwen was different.

Well, of course she was. Time changed everyone.

But before…she’d been softer, sweeter, more…innocent. He didn’t see much of that in her anymore. Instead, it was replaced by a hardness around her eyes. Same as him.

Was she lonely, too?

Even surrounded by his people, with position and purpose to center him, not to mention friends, if he let himself call them that, Asher damn sure was.

She shot him a questioning frown when he didn’t answer right away, and Asher deliberately schooled his expression. He didn’t want her to catch sight of the longing in him. He wouldn’t hurt her more if he could help it.

When her frown deepened, he rushed to redirect. “I had a satellite phone with me, but I must have lost it when we took that dip in the ocean.”

Gwen tugged at a gold chain around her neck, pulling out a charm that was a thick golden disk. “This is a tracer. I turned it off when I realized I was being followed by something in Australia. That was to get Delilah’s attention, also in case it’s how I was found, but I can turn it back on. She’ll send more help.”

Asher shook his head. “She found your flight plan. They’ll have an idea of where we went down. When I don’t check in, Ladon and Meilin will send more after us.” Although that would take several days from either the green dragon mountain or from the Australian colony. “Let’s give them a day or so to get closer. If we can’t get ourselves off the island by then, then we’ll turn your tracer on.”

At least she didn’t scowl or try to argue this time, simply slipping the necklace back under her shirt with a nod. “In that case, our next priorities are water and shelter.”

Asher nodded.

She looked around them. “We should split up.”

“No.” The word came out as more of a harsh growl than he intended.

Now came the scowl as she whipped her gaze back to him. “It’ll be faster.”

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