Page 66 of An Accident Waiting to Dragon

“A pixie,” they said. “Asher brought us a pixie.”

Asher shifted back to his human form and joined her, slipping his hand into hers with a barely there smile just for her.

“Are you here for good, or just come for your belongings?” a rough, male voice called out.

They both turned to find Ladon and Skylar Ormarr bearing down on them, trailing a large entourage of dragon shifters in their wake. Ones who exchanged glances.

Asher’s hand around hers tightened, and then he was pulling her quickly toward Ladon and Skylar at first. The queen nodded at Gwen, who nodded back. She’d already met them after saving Asher and safely delivering the egg to Meilin together.

Only as they drew closer to the king and queen, Asher simply said, “We’re staying, but introductions and niceties come later.”

He said this without pausing in his rapid walking, practically dragging Gwen past the group who watched them disappear with a combination of surprise, curiosity, and smirking knowledge.

Which would have been hilarious if it wasn’t directed her way on her first day in the mountain where she’d live the rest of her life. Heat flamed through her face.

“What are you doing?” she whisper-hissed at Asher.

He grunted.

Gwen grinned, but still squeezed his hand. “More information please.”

“If you think we should stick around and make nice when there are more important things to be doing, then we really need to talk about your priorities.”

His meaning couldn’t have been any clearer…or spoken any louder. The heat in her cheeks flared all over her body.

Luckily, that’s about when they passed into a blessedly empty tunnel that took them deeper into the mountain.

They emerged into a much larger cavern, and Gwen stopped dead as the hall opened up into what she could only call an atrium. The place was massive. Essentially, the mountain itself had been gouged out from the base to the top like a cone.

The ground level, where they stood, reminded Gwen of a busy downtown street in any human city, except round. “Buildings” lined the rim, the faces built into the rock itself and taking up maybe two stories. The floors above that point appeared to be suites and rose up to the top of the cone. Under every balcony a giant slab of rock jutted out. Dragons flew overhead circling up to land on a perch where they’d shift, then walk inside.

“Wow,” she whispered.

Asher, used to the place, took her pausing to stare as a chance to shift again. “Follow me, love.”

Love. He’d started calling her that again, and it sent a shiver of delight through her every time. She hoped it never got old.

Unfurling her wings, she followed her dragon as he launched into the air. He flew up and up until he slowed and landed on one of the slabs, shifting quickly to walk down its wide balance-beam length and hop onto the balcony floor. Gwen landed beside him only to immediately be tugged into his embrace, his mouth on hers.

Hungry. Impatient. Driven.

Immediate need consumed her—sparkling and building—condensing in her core, molten and raw, stoked by fires that had been left as embers for far too long.

Asher devoured her and she gasped into every kiss, every touch, every growl in his throat, turned on even more when he pinned her to the wall, pressing into her, taking her hands to hold them captive above her head.

Gods, he felt good.

This felt so…

He yanked her away from the wall, spinning them and using one hand to pull her arms around his neck.

Clinging to him, turning hazier and more flushed with every kiss, unconsciously Gwen started to tuck her wings away.

“No,” he said roughly. “Leave them out.”

Her belly turned squishy at the simple knowledge of why he was asking her that. A pixie’s wings weren’t like a butterfly’s, which were ruined if you touched them. Instead, their wings were an erogenous zone.

And Asher knew that.

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