Page 21 of Ashborne: Defiance

‘You are mine, Firebird,’ she replied.

I blinked. I hadn’t understood. Were we… talking? ‘You can hear my thoughts?’

‘If you wish, yes. I wish so. Always.’

My jaw went slack and she snorted once more, her hot breath rushing over me like a wind off the desert—the faintest scent of clean campfire, and sunbaked grass.

‘Why are you talking to me?’ I sent her, awed.

‘You are mine.’

A conviction, deep and certain, as solid as a rock buried in sand, entered my chest. As if there were chambers in my heart now. Rooms within me. And she stood inside one.

The other ached with an absence. A hollow gap in dark shadow that made me want to weep—

‘Leave him. Kham speaks good heart. He help. Mate is… beautiful. Wise.’

The words were broken and hesitant, but behind them, a rush of love and pure delight. The unrestrained trust of a child, and the sweet joy of a woman.

I sucked in another aching breath as she gave me pictures and I finally understood. “He’s your mate?”

‘Yes. Do not cry. We help.’

I hadn’t even asked her. Hadn’t told her a thing. But the echo of the words brought a fresh wave of tears because she knew. She felt the ache inside me, and mirrored it. Nudging me with her snout again when I dropped my face into my hands because it hurt. And I was afraid.

But I couldn’t follow him.

At least the dragons had taken a moment, though that simmering want remained—it wouldn’t be long until she went to Kham again, I knew. I could feel that it hurt her to be here with me, without him.

“Go,” I whispered to her, stroking her snout with a shaking hand, smiling despite my tears, because she was beautiful, and she wanted me? “Go back to him. I’ll leave Vane alone until he feels better.” I wasn’t sure how, but I had to try.

The dragon huffed. ‘Why call him Vane?’

I frowned. “Isn’t that his name?”

‘Human names be strange,’ she sent, then lifted her head, looking back over her shoulder. I felt the ache in her, the draw back to her mate.

But before she moved, she looked down at me again. ‘Come.’

I blinked. “Come where?”

‘I have… shelter. For you. Safety. Come.’

Without another word, she turned and slipped through the trees. Chest aching and throat still raw, I stumbled after her. But it wasn’t far. I hadn’t realized how close we were to that first clearing.

A moment later, she’d stopped in a place where the trees grew thick and there were large clusters of underbrush and bushes.

‘Here.’

I slipped past her to find the shadows had hidden the mouth of a cave. It seemed impenetrably dark when I crept in, keeping one hand on the wall and following it as it curved. But when she snorted again and I turned to look back, the moonlight washed in from the open sky behind her, and I could see the form of the floor, a dead fire pit just feet from where I stood, and something against the other wall that was either a big bag, or a large boulder.

‘Safety,’ she said sweetly, then sighed.

‘Thank you,’ I sent back with tears pinching my eyes again, this because she was hurting herself to help me. ‘I’ll stay here and rest.’

‘Good. We help. Sleep, Firebird. You need.’

Then she was gone.