Page 62 of Beautiful Beast

I threw myself away from the window and to the floor, covering my head to protect it from the inevitable debris. But nothing came. After a moment, I heard a voice and chills ran down my spine. “Lena?”

There was no more dragon. Zovai was outside the window, looking in with a grin, moonlight on his entirely bare torso. “What—” I blew out a breath. “I thought you were going to crash into the mountain.”

He laughed quietly. “You don’t have more faith in me than that? I carried you all the way here and didn’t drop you.”

I went to the window and brushed my fingers over the sill, so close and still so far away. “My first thought when a dragon flies straight toward me is not that you’ll shift.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “But maybe I can make you see differently.”

“How?”

“Fly with me.”

The air between us went still. He pushed himself further up, so his face was nearer to mine. Far enough that I could see he was not merely bare from the waist up. The skin flowed downward, turning to red that matched his scales, and though I could see nothing, I flushed.

Zovai leaned in and brushed his mouth across my skin just like he had in the workshop. “Fly with me,” he whispered again.

“We already did that.”

“Not in my claws. Not as cargo. Not as a prisoner. Fly with me.”

Terror and exhilaration rolled through me at once. What had I just thought to myself? That all my choices were my own. Did I want this?

Stepping out the window meant more than just a flight. I knew that. And once I did it, there was no turning back.

But then again, from the moment we locked eyes in that garden, there had never been any going back.

Like he sensed my hesitation, Zovai pulled back and looked at me. “Will you trust me?”

He didn’t ask if I did trust him, but if I would. A request.

“Yes.”

Zovai’s smile took my breath away. “Hold on.”

He dropped out of view, and his dragon form swept out from the mountain and circled tightly, coming as near as he could to the window while being so large. The tip of his wing touched the window sill, and I moved before I could second guess myself. I crawled across his wing and onto his back.

The enchantment that threw me to the floor earlier must have known that he would not let me fall, because there was no resistance.

His scales were hard and rough beneath my legs, but up close they glittered. I looked back. “Varí.”

A soft growl floated through the air. He is fine.

I nearly fell off Zovai’s back.

“Can you hear my thoughts?”

Warm laughter in my mind that felt like being wrapped up in sweet incense. No, I cannot read your mind. Though there are some dragons who can. It is not a skill of mine. Hold on.

He dropped without warning, and I screamed, unable to stop myself. The scream gave way to laughter as he leveled out, flying toward one of the nearby peaks. This was so different from being carried.

Like those first moments, I threw my arms wide, closed my eyes, and imagined I was the one flying. “Stars, I wish I had wings.”

We’ll be your wings, Lena.

I gasped. Endre swooped down beside us just as Sirrus spun over us, rolling so he was briefly upside down overhead. “You’re here.”

Couldn’t let you two have all the fun.

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