Page 10 of Jace

But Jace ignored it and focused on the landscape ahead of them.

“This is probably a bad time to say it,” she murmured. “But I’m afraid of heights.”

He glanced down at her and saw that her face had gone slack with fear.

“We’re not very high up,” he pointed out reasonably. “If you fell from this height, you probably wouldn’t even break any bones.”

“You don’t understand,” she said. “It has nothing to do with logic. I’m just scared.”

Jace sighed. He’d been hoping she would come to her senses about the walk, but it was obviously not going to be that easy.

“I didn’t want to tell you earlier, since you were upset,” he said. “But if you need to continue on foot, it will take us more than a week to arrive at your land.”

“A week?” she echoed, horrified.

“Before that time, we would run out of supplies for the baby,” he told her.

She nodded, her mouth a tight, thin line.

“I know you’re scared,” he told her. “What if I can distract you?”

“How?” she asked.

Instantly his mind was filled of images of her beneath him, moaning with ecstasy as he distracted her with the pleasures that only a mate could give.

He shook his head, desperate to clear the dragon’s thoughts. Surely, he could wait until they had safely reached their destination before he told her what was happening between them.

“Jace?” she murmured.

Her eyes had gone hazy, and there was color in her cheeks, as if she had heard his thoughts. As he gazed down at her, she parted her lips slightly and her little pink tongue darted out to wet them.

A surge of lust twisted his insides, and he nearly roared with frustration.

He wrenched his eyes from hers and looked out over the dark landscape, trying to remember what he’d been saying.

“You were going to distract me,” she said softly.

“Your farm,” he said, dragging the idea from the depths of his mind, as the dragon roared in his chest and threw itself against the bars of his control. “We should talk about your farm.”

She was quiet for a moment, so he waited patiently.

“What kind of farm is it?” she asked at last.

“That will be up to you,” he told her. “There are workers there now, clearing the land.”

“Oh no,” she said, looking stricken.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I-I can’t pay them,” she admitted, looking downcast. “I don’t have… I don’t have much at all, really.”

He felt a pang of sympathy.

Of course. She was Terran. Most of them had nothing. Sadly, it was probably the main reason she was open to moving to a frontier moon to adopt a baby.

It was odd, he hadn’t gotten a vibe from her that she had gone without, but clearly she was just good at playing her part.

“You don’t need to pay them,” he told her gently. “This is part of the set-up from the agency.”

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