Page 182 of Wings of Ash & Flame
“If you get bored, you can always start counting the tortured looks he sends your way.”
“Pfft. Yeah, right.”
“I speak the truth. Don’t think I didn’t see the way he was rubbing your back earlier.”
“That was nothing.” Her cheeks reddened. “You got the short end of the stick. Being stuck with Caius is by far the worst option. Dawson is at least tolerable.”
“He isn’t that bad.” Kaia dragged her bottom lip between her teeth. “You both seem better now?”
“Caius and I have brokered a tenuous alliance out of necessity. Though you two seem to have something completely different going on.” Alaire smirked.
“Us?” Kaia squeaked. “No. There’s nothing. We’re nothing.”
“Sounds entirely convincing.”
“Anytime now, ladies,” Caius called.
Kaia sighed, finally dressed in her winter gear. “Guess we’re both in for an adventure then. Here’s to surviving our charming companions.”
Alaire laughed, adjusting the last few buckles of her coat. “Cheers to that.”
A few minutes later, Alaire and Kaia emerged from behind Solflara’s wings—still not warm and toasty, but better. They’d both agreed to keep their leathers in the packs.
Alaire stood beside Solflara. Her vibrant feathers continued to glow faintly, a light in the challenges ahead. Alaire tugged at her fur-lined gloves, running her fingers through Solflara’s wings. She moaned softly at the extra warmth Solflara sent down the bond.
When she turned around, Dawson was staring right at her. His turquoise eyes darkened to a stormy teal, the color of tumultuous waves. His gaze smoldered, catching her off guard.
She felt her cheeks flush, but met his gaze head-on. A challenge sparked in her eyes.
Dawson pressed his lips into a thin line. His eyes traveled from her head to her toes, then back up again. She felt every inch of his stare.
All at once, she was thankful for the insulated gear that hid the goosebumps his gaze had caused. She wondered what it would feel like to press her lips to his. To burrow herself into his embrace. To unravel all of the enigma that was Dawson Knox.
Before either of them spoke, he turned away, shoulders tense.
Alaire’s heart pounded. She stepped back from Solflara, suddenly needing the bite of the icy wind to pull her from her haze of desire.
She rooted herself in the frozen ground. The two of them were nothing. Could never be anything. But still, there was a part of her—a part she tried to bury—that wondered.
It was in glances he gave her with those piercing turquoise eyes, when he pushed her to be stronger, and in the rare moments he revealed the male beneath his defenses. Something shifted inside her.
A small, treacherous fragment whispered that they could be more. Something beyond the bonds of blood and duty. Something that had started as disdain and spite had grown into respect. Somehow, they’d begun to build something real and unbreakable—a friendship.
Alaire shook her head, letting the blustering wind carry her thoughts away. But the possibility of more lingered deep within her, like a flame that refused to be extinguished. She wondered if, one day, she might be brave enough to let it burn.
Alaire watched Kaia and Caius’s retreating forms, Hadrian and Onyx alongside them, longer than she should’ve. She rubbed her chest. Somewhere along the course of the Astral Odyssey, she’d begun to think of the four of them as a unit.
“We should get going,” Dawson said.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Alaire murmured, though she still couldn’t bring herself to look away.
“She’ll be okay. Caius may be a pompous pain in the ass, but he genuinely cares for Kaia.”
“He better bring her back in one piece, or I’ll use every arrow he has to puncture through all the shit he’s so full of.”
His lips, previously set in a hard, uncompromising line, curved upward. And then he laughed.
The sound was rich and deep—beautiful, disarming. Her eyes snapped from Kaia and Caius to Dawson. She was entranced, wanting to memorize how carefree he looked, how unburdened. It stripped away the layers of his warrior façade, revealing a glimpse of the male beneath.
