ZOHR

A pained groan slips from between my teeth.

Standing on one of my wings, her hands covered in lotion, a sweaty Emma looks over at me, a hint of alarm in her thoughts. “Did I hurt you?”

Only with your scent, I tell her sourly, and concentrate on breathing through my mouth.

Laughter peals from her throat and she wipes her forehead, then returns to working on stretching the tight tendons in my wings. “Quit being such a baby. It’s only perfume.”

It is terrible. It makes my face hurt.

“It’ll hurt a lot more if Azar’s dragons find us again,” she says, her voice cheery. Her hands work over my wings, pushing hard, and I can sense her exhaustion despite her upbeat manner. She is tired, but she is determined to not give up. “How about the wings? How are they feeling?”

They ache, but I hope the ache means good things, so I ignore it. Well enough. You should rest. Do not work yourself so hard. We might need to travel again tomorrow. When she ignores my suggestion, I nip the back of her shirt and drag her off of my wing.

“Hey!” she protests. “I’m trying to help, dammit.”

You are helping, I assure her. But it will not be fixed tonight, no matter how hard you work. It is time to rest. I set her gently on the ground between my forelegs and then nose her sweet mane. I take a deep breath, wanting to savor her scent—and then choke on the perfume that overwhelms my nose.

She sighs and sits down on the ground, crossing her legs under her. “I guess you’re right.” She swipes at her arms and legs, which are covered in more of the lotion and rubs at them. “Least my skin will be soft, right?”

You are already soft, I reassure her. I want to grab her in my claws and clasp her against my scales, but I know she does not like that. My Emma does not like to feel trapped. Instead, I just nudge her with my nose again. You will rest now?

“I’ll rest,” she agrees, and flops down on her back, closing her eyes. “Glad we found this place, though.”

I send a thought of assent, though it does not matter to me where we go. I have no home here in this strange world. I do not care where I am as long as she is at my side and she is safe. As long as Emma is pleased with where we are at, I am content. Emma calls this strange building a “wholesale club.” I do not know what these things mean, but the ceiling is high and there are many boxes of human things up high that intrigue Emma. She wants to explore them tomorrow and I have promised her we will…as long as it is safe.

It has been a strange afternoon. Once the female drakoni flew off, retreating to Azar, Emma wasted no time. She put on her strange “clothing” skins, gathered her bags, and climbed onto my back. From there, she directed me where to travel. We crossed many streets, and when we found a stream full of murky, scum-covered water, she got excited. That was our way to hide our scent, she told me.

We traveled for many hours wading through the water. I did not like the scent much, but it was cool on my scales and Emma was pleased. Truly, pleasing my mate is all that matters. I caught her a fish that wiggled against my claws and she was delighted. We paused to cook it on the shore of the stream, and Emma ate her fill of the white, flaky flesh and then gave the rest to me. It tasted fine, I suppose, but her giggles as I ate were far more pleasing.

Apparently humans do not eat their fish whole, scales and all.

After that, we continued on through the stream until we saw this place—the wholesale club—in the distance. Emma directed me toward it, and I changed to human form so we could enter its doors. They are made of more of the glass that humans seem to favor in their buildings, but heavily cracked and smeared with dirt. Emma picked the locks with ease, and then we went inside. I explored it first to ensure that there were no humans waiting to harm my mate, but the scents here were old and stale. No humans have been here for many, many days.

I expected Emma to rest now that we were relatively safe, but my mate had other plans. She immediately raced through the building, looking for specific items. I was surprised when she grew excited at the discovery of the perfume aisle, and even more surprised when she had me sniff each one until I told her which smelled the worst.

I should have chosen more carefully, because she promptly took several bottles of the foul-smelling perfume and smashed them at the entrance and then insisted we rub ourselves down with it. Even now, I still smell of something called “patchouli” and it makes my eyes water and my snout itch.

She is not wrong, though; no dragon will come near this scent. You cannot smell anything under it. I do not even think I can smell my own hide.

After that, my Emma did not stop. She stripped off her skins—which excited me—and then insisted I change back to battle-form so she could work on my wings—which excited me less. I let her push and pull and stretch them for a long time, and now they ache.

I lift one of my sore wings, examining it. I cannot tell a difference despite Emma’s long hours of work. The wings still look small and crumpled, and the tissues feel thicker than they should. She is wearing herself out for nothing.

“Not for nothing,” she mumbles, yawning. “Give it time. We’re not going to give up on them.”

I want to ask her if she has decided if she is going to stay with me, but I do not press her on it. Instead, I shift to my two-legged form and move to her side, intent on kissing her. I lie down on the hard ground next to her, but when she does not open her eyes, I realize just how tired my Emma is. There will be other times to claim her as mine.

Tomorrow, I think. We have been interrupted too many times, and I want to replenish her scent with mine. A drakoni’s mate’s scent is strongest when she has been repeatedly claimed by her male. Emma’s scent is pleasant, but I want her to be so covered in my scent that I can smell it even through this terrible perfume.

Tomorrow, I vow. Tomorrow Emma is mine.

She turns toward me and slides her arms around my waist, tucking her face against my arm. “Floor’s hard.”

Shall I find you something soft to lie upon?

“Nah,” she says, not moving. Her voice is sleepy. “Just let me use you as a pillow.”

Gladly. I hold her close, tucking her head under my chin.

“How do you think he got her?” Emma asks after a moment. “Azar and the female?”

I think for a moment, tracing my claws down one of her arms. She is so soft and fragile, my mate. Nothing like the fierce drakoni female that attacked us earlier. It would not take much for my human to be injured, and the thought fills me with deep-seated fear. I must find a way to make my Emma safe. As long as Azar exists, he will try to harm her, because he wants to control me. I do not know. Likely he lured her as he did me.

“With scent?” Emma snorts lightly. “I doubt Azar has any male virgins lying around.”

They do not need to be virgins. She would have looked for a challenge.

Her nose wrinkles and she opens her eyes, sitting up to frown down at me. “So he challenged her?”

I do not know if he did. I think all he would need to do is touch his mind to hers, and then he could capture her. The minds of the Salorians are like poison. One touch and they can take over. I tap her temple lightly. If I had connected my mind to the female’s without realizing she was controlled by Azar, he would have trapped me, as well.

She looks miserable at the thought. “That’s awful.”

I suppress a shudder, an old memory playing at the back of my mind. I think it has happened in the past. I do not recall, but it seems familiar. Terrible and familiar.

Emma caresses my chest with her small hand. “How do you break free again?”

I do not know.

And it worries me that I do not.

EMMA

The desert air is warm against my scales. I spread my wings in the sunlight, soaking in the heat. It will be a lazy day, I think, with no plans but to sun myself on the nearby rocks.

But then…she calls.

I take to the air, gliding away from the distant, jagged mountains and heading over the reddish sands. Toward the central nest, where the sands give way to gardens of the most incredible greens. I pick up her scent on the breeze and follow it in. She is there, sitting near a fountain, her fingers touching the cool water. Her scent is the most incredible thing I have ever smelled and I am impossibly drawn to it. I dive, changing to two-legged form just before I hit the ground, and bow at her feet.

When I look up, I see her. She is more beautiful every time I gaze upon her. Reddish-golden skin, long, flowing hair crowns a perfect face, and the most lovely, warm smile I have ever imagined. Her eyes are closed, but I know they will be gold with feeling as she looks down upon me. She extends her hand to me—

I wake up, staring at the ceiling of the warehouse store.

Just a dream. Not even my dream. Zohr’s.

He’s dreaming of the woman again. I fight the jealousy and anger surging through my system, because it does no good. He’s clearly dreaming of another place, another time. The place I see in his dreams is not like anything around here. The woman’s clearly a drakoni. He’s dreaming of before he came through the Rift, before he went mad and lost years and years to insanity.

There’s no reason to be jealous. If he loved this woman, it was long ago. He gave me his fires. He bonded to me.

Of course, that’s a whole other problem.

Zohr turns over and he presses his face against my neck, his arms going around my waist. Even in sleep, he draws me against him, and it’s hard not to melt at that. I try to keep my thoughts calm so I don’t wake him, because the middle of the night is the only time I get to truly think on my own without him hearing them.

He wouldn’t like what I’m thinking, either.

I can’t stop replaying the scene from earlier in my mind. The dragon tearing open the roof of the bookstore, determined to get to me. Zohr climbing the outside of the building and launching himself at her to attack her. Both of them falling through, limbs tangled as they sought to destroy each other. It was a battle of teeth and claw and wing and inhuman strength.

And me, what did I do? I threw a fucking book.

Looking back, it was really dumb. I know better than that. But I saw the female bite down on the back of his neck and I panicked. She didn’t hurt him, but I can’t get past the fact that I panicked. Rule number one of survival, as Jack would have reminded me, is that you never panic. You stop and you think things through. You don’t let emotion get the best of you. Jack never did, and he survived just fine until cancer got him.

Me, I’ve been an emotional mess ever since. I’ve made nothing but bad choices. I gave up my nice safe store when Sasha and her dragon showed up and scared me out of there. I let Boyd intimidate me into joining Azar’s gang. I let them use me to lure a dragon, and then I let that guilt compel me to stay. Just earlier today, I let my fear and emotion cause me to jump out of a perfectly safe hiding spot and throw a fucking book at a fucking dragon’s head.

I’m going to get myself killed one of these days, and it’s all going to be because I’m an emotional wreck right now.

I close my eyes and lie quietly, trying to think of what Jack would do in my situation. If he knew that Azar’s men—and Azar’s dragons—were going to be hunting me because through me, Azar can control Zohr. What would Jack do if I was a target at his side?

Actually, I know what Jack would do. I’ve always known. He’d have us separate. We’d part, because Jack would be safer on his own, and it would be easier for me to hide if I was alone. There’s safety in solitude, he always reminded me. When you don’t depend on anyone else, you know what you’ve got to work with.

Jack would hate that I’m with Zohr. Not because Zohr’s a dragon, but because the two of us together— our spirits “combined” as Zohr says—creates an unsafe environment. We’re being hunted. If Azar catches me, Zohr’s done for. I’m nothing but a liability to him, and him to me. The truth is, we’d both be better off surviving if we were separated.

It doesn’t matter that when he holds me close—like he does right now—I feel safe and secure. It doesn’t matter that his kisses make me breathless, or that just being in the same room with him makes me happy. It doesn’t matter that his pleased thoughts make me feel light and full of joy.

This needs to be about survival, not emotion.

I roll over in bed and gaze at him. Zohr’s eyes are closed, his long golden lashes just barely visible in the shadowy darkness. Moonlight’s pouring in from a hole in the ceiling far above, and I can make out his face in the shadows. He’s beautiful. There’s a knot in my throat that feels a mile wide.

It would be smartest to get up and leave right now. To hide my scent and be far away by the time he wakes up. But that’s cowardly, and I’ve never been a chicken. A bitch, yes. Stubborn, always. But cowardly? Not my thing. When Zohr wakes up in the morning, I’ll talk to him and we’ll sit down and discuss how we can break our mental bond so he can be free.

And so I won’t be his Achilles heel.