Page 13 of Upon Buried Embers
Five
Elf
I jolt awake, my eyes flying open, and I groan in pain.
Gods, everything hurts.
My head, my face, my hands… even my teeth seem to hurt.
Warmth at my back has the fog of sleep lifting more, and I bring my hands up to rub my eyes, feeling the dried blood at the side of my head.
I didn’t mean to fall asleep, I was just so warm, and the bed roll is really comfortable. Dammit all to Elvanan, I may have lost my chance.
I blink my eyes open again, the nose of a dark dragon filling my vision. A scream lodges in my throat.
I jerk backward, but a quiet grunt from behind me has me stilling. Then an arm around my waist pulls me further into a hard chest.
“Drogonah isn’t that scary, Elf,” Rohan rumbles, his breath tickling the top of my head. I wiggle, trying to break free of his hold on me. He growls. “Stop that.”
I freeze, the tone of his voice scaring me.
I’ve never had a man wrapped around me like this, and it makes me fearful in a different way.
The words he used when asked aboutsharing mecome to mind, and I tremble, a whimper of terror spilling from my lip.
“Hush, you don’t want to wake the rest of my clan, unless it’s to battle, or to fuck. Otherwise they don’t take kindly to being awoken.”
I try to calm my racing heart and watch Drogonah. He moves his head, giving me a view of the side of his face, and he seems to be… snoring. His tail is between his front legs, the spike at the end flattened as he rests his head upon it.
Seeing him curled up, as big as he is, he doesn’t seem so scary. His ears, though longer and tapering off into a point, remind me of my own a little, and they flick in his sleep.
I wonder if he just ate me in a dream.
A rustling behind me has that arm slipping from me, and the warmth removed from my back. I’m instantly colder, but I don’t dare move, clutching my hands together in front of me.
“Let’s wash.” Rohan says it casually, but ice runs through my veins.
“I-I’m okay, thank you.”
“So polite,” he grumbles. “But it wasn’t a question.”
Two large hands grab my waist and I’m hauled up into his strong body.
I yelp, but quickly smother it, remembering his words about waking his people. I quickly look around, finding them all sleeping in their own bed rolls near the small campfires, the other dragons also huddled together in a pile.
Rohan jostles me until I’m plastered to the front of his chest, my arms around his neck, and legs around his waist. He keeps a forearm lodged under my ass, pressing me against him.
My cheeks heat, but thankfully he’s not looking at me, he’s focused on taking a tunnel.
“I can walk,” I say quietly. I don’t think I can, but he doesn’t need to know that.
He huffs. “You’re too small, it would take twice as long, and we don’t have time.” My grip on him tightens when I see a bridge, the dark cavern below making me squeeze my eyes shut.
Oh Elvanan.
I feel the moment he steps onto the rope bridge.
He wobbles a little, and I nearly strangle him with how tight I’m holding onto him now, uncaring that this man could crush me with one hand.
