Page 30 of Dragon's Flame
He considered this. “It is a worthy question.”
He knew how his own magic between them worked, but he had no idea what powers anyone else could possess in this Realm—all the more reason to rush back to Rax’s.
“Well, how did they find us? Back at that lodge?”
He made a thoughtful sound. “Lack of other options on our path? Perhaps the smoke from the chimney?”
“Okay, but how did they find me before that?” she asked, squinting. “Back when I didn’t know you, and it was just Cliff’s people?”
He rocked back from the fire, tossing Rocky a portion of fish, and taking the last piece for himself. “Probably something celestial. In my Realm, we have men whose only job is to trace the path of the stars and make predictions.”
“So I was born under a bad sign, is what you’re saying?” she asked, her lips quirking up.
He laughed. “Something like that. Perhaps. But it fits in, especially with your birthday coming up.”
Her lips twisted to the side, then she shook her head. “But that’s not good enough. There are hundreds of thousands of people who share my birthday, probably right down to the very second I was born.” She stood up to pace again, and the firelight cast her shadow on the cave wall. “What if whatever they did to me was like you?”
He frowned. “How so?”
“You tagged me. What if they did, too?”
Tarian sank into himself. It made a horrifying amount of sense—that someone powerful had, somehow, braided a piece of magic in with his, and had been using his connection for their own malevolent purposes.
He stood and walked over to where she was waiting for his answer, and he put his hands out. “May I?” he asked, and while she seemed uncertain, she still nodded.
He started with his hands cupped above her head, not touching her directly except for the stray hairs of hers that their journey here had spiked up, summoning the piece of his soul he’d woven into hers to answer.
He felt it just as she gasped, like a tingling in his hands, before parting them to run his magic—inside and out—over herbody, hovering a few millimeters over the boundary of her skin as she closely watched him.
“Don’t move,” he whispered, and started swirling his hands. He could feel the biological processes inside her, keeping her alive, bolstered by his magic, but he was searching for something different—something that shouldn’t be there. Like a rock plunked into a still pond—or a sharp bank his magic shouldn’t have had to splash off of, and slowly, via sensation and deduction, he found one part above her right hip that feltwrong.
“May I see here?” he asked, pointing at it, without touching her.
When she didn’t respond, he looked up, and found her blinking. “Uh.” Then she bit her lip, and lifted her skirt up high, while looking away.
Her underwear was a black lacy thing—worn to show that other man no doubt—but Tarian had more important concerns now than his pride.
“May I touch here?” he asked, while Kenna studiously watched the fire behind him.
“Sure,” she said—not sounding sure at all.
He tucked a finger into the topmost band of lace and pulled it down, revealing more ripples of scarred skin—and he was certain what he was looking for was hidden underneath.
He just had togetto it, was all.
“I’ve found it. But this may hurt you,” he said, glancing up—and this time he found her staring at him, straight down.
She took a deep and steadying breath. “Trust me. I’ve been through worse,” she said and nodded.
He let just the tip of one of his fingers transition into his dragon’s claw, and set it on her skin.
The knowledge that he was about to hurt her—again—after everything she’d already endured, wrecked him.
But when she said, “Just do it. I’m tough,” he realized she thought his hesitation was doubt. Not guilt, but an underestimation of her.
No. He’d only done that once, when he’d bound her to him without telling her—thinking she wouldn’t agree or understand.
He would never make that precise mistake again.
