I awoke to find Andie’s lithe body draped across my side. Her breasts buffeted against my ribs, her golden hair spilled across my arm, and one leg tangled with my own. Even now, I was acutely aware of the heat of her pressed against my thigh.

I wanted to roll her over and plunder her until she was screaming my name again. Just the thought of her sensual voice filling the small cave made me hard.

She needed the rest, though. She was a human, after all, and was not yet fully recovered from the fight that had brought us to these canyons. While I would have thoroughly enjoyed making love to her all day long, I knew we both needed to save our strength.

Even more, I needed to wrap my mind around everything that was happening. How was it possible that we had linked? When Dragselians linked, it was ordinarily an elaborate process involving a Spectrophotometer and hours of meditation and focus. There was ceremony and formality and . . . awareness. How had our energies linked without either of us realizing or choosing it?

Some part of us must have chosen it. Some subdued parts of our consciousness recognized each other. It was a force I couldn’t begin to understand or guess at, but there I lay beside this incredible woman with whom I had shared the most intimate moments of my life.

It felt right, like my body had always been meant to fit with hers. I realized that it didn’t matter how this had happened because it already had, and I felt strangely at peace with it.

She slept soundly. The sight of her bare and resting before me aroused a sense of warmth. Not the heat of lust, though there was that too, but a new feeling. It was an emotion I had never experienced before. More than affection or attraction, it was deeper and more satisfying.

It also reminded me that she had nearly died, and the fact was that with all of these things happening between us, still so fresh and unexplored, I was determined not to lose her.

Mentally emerging from the cocoon of our intimacy, I took stock of our situation. Light shone in through the cave entrance. We had spent the night worshipping and discovering each other as the electrical storm had laid waste to the surface above us.

It was morning again, which meant we were on our second day of separation from the rest of the group. We had no supplies, and what energy we had taken in from our meager meal the day before wasn’t likely to fuel us too much longer, not after the exertions of the night before.

I slipped my arm out from under Andie’s head slowly, adjusting her back against the purple clover, and sought my clothes. The had fortunately dried from the heat of the fire that had long since dissipated.

I was about to take off to scout for something to eat and to ascertain our location when Andie’s sleep-heavy voice stopped me.

“Karun?” she asked, sounding vulnerable and confused.

I turned back to her. “I’m just going to look for food and get a quick lay of the land.”

“If you’re looking for a quick lay, you don’t need to go outside,” she teased.

That was devastatingly tempting. She was seated now, her knees encircled by her arms as long silken waves of her hair draped around her, framing her face.

“It is not easy to resist such an offer, but we need to find the others, especially considering we know at least one of the demons survived, possibly all. Have you tried to EE Jennifer or Hardin?”

“Yes. When you took me up yesterday, I sent one to both of them, but I got nothing in return. The range for EE is limited, and I don’t know how far that demon pushed us from them.”

“I have a faint idea, but in the dark and as injured as I was, I am not certain. You should continue to rest. I’ll be back with food soon, and when we’re recovered, we can set out to find their camp again,” I said, turning back to leave.

“Karun, wait. What happens when we find them?” she asked, standing up and looking insecure.

I recognized the subtext of her question. Coming back to her, I took her hands and kissed her possessively.

“We hold on to the good things,” I said.

Reassured, she sighed. “Hurry and come back.”

* * *

I emerged from the cave, taking stock of the fresh rocks that had been knocked loose by the storm. There were minor changes from the landscape I recalled, but nothing terribly drastic. Large boulders dotted the vegetation and the bank.

I shifted and stretched out my wings in the warm light of morning. It felt different shifting now that I had linked. It was as if I suddenly saw more, heard more, felt more.

Closing my eyes, I took in the smells, checking for signs of my brothers. If we were too far for Andie to EE, we might be too far to call to them with a roar, as was the way of our people.

Instead, I took to the air, buoyed by the sensation growing within me.

For the first time since our exile, I felt free of the weight of our rejection. I had been held at arm’s length my whole life by all but my brothers. It was liberating to know that someone might care for or want a future with me.

I flew further upstream, surveying the river and looking for any signs of danger. Seeing nothing, I climbed upward toward the tall mouth of the canyon where it opened up again to the broad, flat terrain above.

As soon as I rose above the walls of the deep crag, I heard the brief zip of a stun charge the instant before it struck my leg. Two more hit me before I retreated below the rim.

These weren’t regular stuns—these were designed to take down a dragon. Guessing from the fact that I could barely hold my dragon form, the amperage was probably around 400 milliampere, enough to knock out the average Dragselian.

I dived gracelessly as several more charges struck the wall of crag above me. Falling as much as flying, I glanced back to pinpoint the source and saw the gangly gray figure of the demon, Baluwama.

It seemed our enemy had been waiting. Luckily, as I clumsily withdrew, he did not follow. Unluckily, this brief reprieve was part of a longer strategy with which I was well acquainted.

Finally, hundreds of feet down at the bottom of the crag, I shifted and dropped into the vegetation. Having only struck my legs, the charges were slightly less effective, but only slightly. I quickly ripped them out, but my movements felt delayed and heavy.

Then I remembered Andie. I needed to get to her. If Baluwama found her . . . I fought myself to block out the torturous images that assaulted me.

I raced with all the speed that I possessed until at last, I made it back to the cave.

Rushing inside, I found it empty and my heart stopped.

“That was quick,” came her voice from behind me.

I whirled around to see her with her jacket off and full of red berries. Relief flooded my body and clouded my sight. I pulled her into me roughly and kissed her soundly, desperately.

Breathing hard, I held her tightly against me and felt the tingling sensation of our link, connecting us, binding us.

“What happened?” she asked, pulling back slightly and tilting her face up to mine.

“The demon, the one they called Baluwama, was waiting for me when I breached the surface. He is hunting us. Rather, he is hunting me.”

A look of rage flashed across her face. “Take me back up with you. I’ll rip that son of a bitch apart.”

I was slightly amused by the ferocity of her response, but the knowledge that just one of the stun charges could easily kill her was sobering.

“No, it would be unwise to face him right now. You have no weapons and I was hit. I will recover quickly, but until then, we need to keep moving. He wants to flush us out, to make us reveal ourselves. As soon as we do, he’ll kill you and hit me with a handful more of stun charges.” I looked down to my leg, where the bleeding had already stopped.

“Shit! Are you okay?” She quickly dropped down to examine my leg and nearly began tearing her shirt to apply a field dressing when she recognized that the wounds were already well on their way to recovery.

“I’m all right. I’ll be fine again in a few hours. The charges he has are designed to immobilize us. If he wanted to do real damage, he wouldn’t have been using a stun charger. He wants to incapacitate me.”

“Why? Interrogation? Torture?” She said, looking increasingly alarmed.

“No, it would seem he wants to use me as a host.” Andie’s face scrunched into a look of disgust.

“They’ll want me for my spinal fluid. Recall that Infernians can’t hold a form on their own. Taking a Dragselian captive is a great boon to his kind. I would be a constant source for the serum they rely on for assuming a fully humanoid form.”

“Those nasty little rat-fuckers.” I laughed despite myself and the circumstances.

“You have quite the soldier’s mouth, you know?” I said, pulling her toward me again.

“Does that get you hot?” she teased, lifting her eyebrows.

“More than you know,” I said, reaching behind her and cupping the gentle curves of her bottom.

It felt as though electricity literally coursed through us, and if it hadn’t been for the hit my cells had taken with those stun charges, that would have been a glorious thing and difficult to pull away from.

However, the ache it caused reminded me that we needed to move and move fast.

“We need to keep moving. He can track us, not as well as a Dragselian, but well enough. It’s why he let me go. He won’t risk an outright attack if he doesn’t have to. He’ll take his time, wearing me down.”

I looked around, weighing the situation. As I did, Andie scooped up the berries and started off upriver.

“Where are you going?” I asked, catching up behind her.

She kept walking as she spoke. “Well, if the river is flowing back that way, the elevation climb is this direction, which is our best shot at getting out of this crag without your flying us out. We can hike along the canyon floor, hiding in the brush and whatever ledges or caves we can find. It’s our best shot at this point.”

“You’re right,” I admitted, “but I should go first. One of his stun charges—just one—will kill you.”

She didn’t seem thrilled about it, but she let me take the lead. “Fine, but just for the record, I can hold my own.”

I smiled to myself as we hiked on. She was a stubborn woman.