Page 457 of Kingdoms of Night

He shook his head fiercely. “You are no one’s dragon, Tanis. But I thought... Well, after the castle...”

Rowan struggled to find the right words that wouldn’t insult her. And maybe he was wrong. That moment in the castle had been a fleeting one, and she’d been seeking human touch after losing everyone she loved. Maybe it had nothing to do with him, and everything to do with her wanting to feel alive again.

The wood in his hands bit into his skin a little harder. He glanced down to see he’d fisted it in one hand and held the hilt of his dagger far too tightly. Rowan had to peel his fingers apart from both, one by one, before he looked at her again.

The silence was killing him, and she had to know that.

But when he met her gaze, he could see the laughter she held inside.

“Rowan,” she said, her voice lilting and soft. “I know you don’t think of me as an animal. If you did, I would question your sanity.”

“Good.” He nodded, even though that wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “I understand that.”

Her breath cleared away the snow in front of her face as she closed her eyes. “But you may call me your dragon, if you wish.”

She appeared to fall asleep after that, and only when he was certain she wouldn’t see him did he allow himself to grin.

His dragon.

His Tanis.

CHAPTERTHIRTEEN

CHAPTER 13

Winter flew by faster than she thought. Tanis could swear one moment it was snowing and blustering outside all the time, and then suddenly it just all disappeared.

The snow melted. The sky opened up into a bright, lovely blue. And then there came the day when she didn’t want to be a dragon anymore. Something deep inside her chest whispered that it was time.

The cold had disappeared in the sun's wake, and that meant she could release her hold on this scaled form. Turning back into the mortal form of herself was strange. She had forgotten, again, how to use her legs. But Tanis took her time steadying herself before she approached the cabin.

Rowan had spent a lot of time improving it after his sister left. He’d had her get as many logs as she could, even in the cold, and then dragged them inside the structure. Though it still lacked a front, that was where Tanis slept and warmed it overnight, it now had a floor. He’d chipped away at the earth for a long time to get enough dirt to fill the grooves. The packed earth looked almost like a regular floor now that it had been walked upon so many times.

She smoothed her hands down the clothing she’d conjured upon shape shifting. It was rather simple and mirrored off of what Aster had worn. Leather leggings, a loose fitting white shirt that billowed around her waist. Tanis had taken far too long deciding what to do with her hair. Should she wear it up? That felt wrong. Braid it? That also seemed as though she were trying to hide the strange color, but she didn’t want to do that either. She was a dragon. He knew that.

Why was she so worried about what Rowan would think? He had been with her for so many months now, nearly a year at this point. His feelings hadn’t changed and wouldn’t change anytime soon.

But still, the hair decision felt like an important one.

Finally, she twisted it into a coiled braid, draped it over her shoulder, and decided that she didn’t care anymore. Even if it made her stomach twist into a knot at the thought that he might prefer her hair loose and in the wind.

Damn it, she was thinking about this far too much. He was just an elf. A friend. A man who had made it very clear that he had feelings for her just like she had feelings for him.

The more she thought about it, the more she was quite certain that it was better if her hair was down.

Frustrated with herself, Tanis stomped toward their cabin and muttered the entire way about elves who got under her skin. Aster had yet to return, and that left her and Rowan with far too much time on their hands.

Where was he? She paused in front of the cabin, expecting him to be working on something in the house like he always was. But the room in front of her was empty. There weren’t even smoldering embers inside it, so he must have been gone for a while.

“Where did you go?” she muttered, lifting her nose to the air. While she might not be in her dragon body, she could still use her nose well enough. Tracking him was easy, even without her heightened senses. She followed his scent through the woods onto what she could only assume was an old deer trail. The branches were snapped and his footprints still lingered in the mud.

If he didn’t want to be followed, he’d done a horrible job at it.

Though he probably wasn’t thinking about being tracked. If he’d run into the woods, she could only assume he was hunting. Did they need more food? She couldn’t remember. Tanis had taken to not eating any of their stores and hunting down her own foods since the beginning of winter. A dragon ate far more than an elf.

The branches slapped at her face, and she marveled at the sudden sting. There had been plenty of times in her life when she would have been thoroughly annoyed with moving through a forest like this. She would have cursed this form and all its weaknesses.

Now, it felt rather good to know that there was pain in the pine boughs. Dirt squashed beneath her toes, and that was all right. The feelings grounded her in the moment, in this wonderful, amazing moment where the earth pushed back as she stepped down onto it.

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