Page 460 of Kingdoms of Night

“You’re not as quick as a dragon.” Her eyes seemed to shift in her skull. They went from yellow to molten gold as she watched his movements.

He swore she tracked every muscle twitch in his body as he tensed."You’ll have to work hard to keep up with me. I don’t think it’ll be as easy as you assume."

Namely, because he had no intent on making it easy for her. If she wanted a hunt, then she would get one. He was no doe in the middle of the forest waiting for her to catch him. Rowan was an elf who had hunted his entire life and knew how the forests worked. He would run, and she would have to keep up.

“I hope you make it difficult for me.” She licked her lips, and that was when he knew for certain this would be fun. “I’m counting on it, Rowan.”

He took off through the meadow as fast as he could. His long legs ate up the ground between them as he bolted toward the forest. All he had to do was reach the trees. Then she would see just how powerful an elf could be.

The women in his clan were better at green magic than he was. But there was still magic in his veins, and he could cast a few spells when he had time to focus. And this chase was all about who had the better focus than the other.

He made it to the edge of the forest before he heard her. Damn, she was fast. He should have known that a dragon could keep up with him, but he’d hoped she was still in that awkward phase of not quite knowing how to use this body. After all, the last time she’d changed back into this form, he’d had to help her walk for a few days.

Now, it seemed she had gotten over that strange few moments and she knew how to run. Fast.

He dodged behind a tree and let loose the first spell. Rowan could only help things grow, but when one was creative with that, then real magic happened. The vines that dangled down off the trees grew longer at his beckoning call. They fell from the trees like giant whips and then created a net which caught her the moment she tried to run through them.

The sound of her frustration was music to his ears.

Rowan turned, still moving away from her. But he tossed his hands up with a grin and shouted, “I told you this wouldn’t be easy!”

As he watched, Tanis lifted her palm and blew upon it. A ball of fire spat out onto her fingers. With a wry grin of her own, she held it out to the vines and slowly destroyed them. The ash that fell around her smudged her cheeks with faint, dark smears.

He needed to run again, obviously, or she would catch him.

Rowan turned and sprinted through the forest until he lost her. And though he thought that might be a good thing, the longer it took before she found him, the more he worried that he’d underestimated her.

She wouldn’t let him disappear. And he didn’t believe that somehow she’d lost track of him in the forest.

Tanis knew how to hunt, clearly. She knew how to chase after her prey and capture them at their weakest moment. It was at that thought that he looked around himself. Rowan watched the lines of the trees as though he might see movement there. He kept his eyes on the shadows where she might lurk and wait for him to let his guard down.

He saw nothing. Rowan didn’t even hear a single twig snapping.

Slowing his pace, he stopped in the middle of a clearing. The moss underneath his feet cushioned his weight as he looked around, circling to keep his eyes on every detail around him that he could see. She had to be here. She had to be right on his tail, and he refused to believe anything else.

Closing his eyes, Rowan took a deep breath and inhaled the scent of loam and fallen leaves. The air was so pure here, but he couldn’t catch even the barest scent of her hair.

He twitched his fingers and wove another spell into the air. The green magic spilled out of his fingers and sank into the moss at his feet. He whispered for it to search for movement in the forest. To tell him where she was.

But the magic found nothing other than the hidden burrowing of voles, the light patter of squirrel feet, and the whispering touch of the wind. It found no dragon in the woods, and he knew that had to be wrong. She had to be here. He’d just missed it.

There. A twig to his right snapped, and he whirled around to face it. The wild grin on his face faltered as he realized the twig had been nothing but a rabbit that stood up on its back legs and twitched its nose at him.

That wasn’t what he’d expected.

Then an arm wrapped around his waist and pulled him flush against her chest. “You’re an even worse prey than you are a hunter.”

“I found you, didn’t I?” He tilted his head back and gave her access to his neck. “You weren’t all that hard to run from, either. Where have you been?”

“Always behind you,” she whispered. Then Tanis pressed her lips to his neck, just as he had to hers before the long, arduous winter. “Now that I’ve found you, elf, just what do you want me to do with you?”

He could think of a hundred things. A million things. But as he turned in her arms and wrapped her up in his, all he wanted was to spend the entire day exploring every inch of her body. He wanted to touch her, to kiss her, to hold her until they both saw stars.

And that was exactly what he did.

Rowan would never forget the sounds she made as he explored her soft swells and shadowed valleys. He knew what parts to touch that would make her squirm, and he knew what made her sigh with pleasure.

They took their time that afternoon. It had been a long wait for both of them, and he had no way of knowing if she’d ever done this in her human form. But he knew that it didn’t bother him to slow down. She was beautiful, exquisite, and so unlike any other woman he’d touched.

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