Page 40 of Dragon Gods

CHAPTERNINETEEN

FOX

Fox probably should have known that lying down wasn’t a good idea. But as he stared into the fire, mesmerized by the dancing flames, his body felt too heavy to hold up. His muscles were giving up, slowly at first, and then altogether. He told himself when he laid down, that it would be easier to stay awake, taking away the pressure for his body to stay upright would leave energy for keeping his eyes open.

Sofia wasn’t sleeping either and he couldn’t help but wonder if she was waiting for his eyes to close before she jumped him and slit his throat. Or maybe she’d just tie him up and drag him back to their base. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. So when his body gave up and the fire went from an undulating heat to a burned-out shadow in the clearing, his first instinct was to jump up in fear.

Another second of blinking and he realized he could still see Sofia’s shadowed form on the other side of the fire. She was shaking, but clearly asleep, completely unperturbed by his movement.

He wanted to close his eyes. Sofia was dead to the world and no longer a threat. He’d promised to watch for the night, but they both knew their argument had only been a thinly veiled refusal for either of them to be the first to fall asleep. But even with the cloak wrapped around his shoulders, watching Sofia’s body trembling in the cold made his own skin prickle with discomfort. The temperature had only dropped as the night progressed and the wind was cutting through the thick trees with icy knives.

He would light the fire and then he’d sleep, comfortable in his knowledge that she couldn’t kill him while she slept, too.

As he slipped through the night, it baffled him how the forest could feel so dark and yet so familiar. He felt a sense of knowing as he walked, stepping over roots and finding branches. The tunnel had been inky black devoid of all senses, but the forest felt like a living thing, a breathing world.

Maybe that was why it didn’t surprise him when he heard the soft feminine cry somewhere beyond the darkness. He assumed Sofia had woken from a nightmare to the dark clearing, but the cries were coming from a different direction—farther into the trees.

Half-asleep and numb with cold, he moved. Stepping deeper into the shadows, he chased after the cries, driven to help whoever it was. After what may have been two seconds or two hours, he caught a glimpse of white between the trees; a white so clean and bright it almost glowed. He moved with more confidence as he chased after the crying and the white and the woman.

And then she was there, sitting on a fallen tree, only a few feet from where he stood. She wore a thin slip of a dress, the fabric as pale as moonlight against umber skin. Her hair was as black as the night. It hung long and limp, almost covering her face, but he could still see the fine bone structure beneath. She was beautiful. Not in a way the women around town that his father introduced him to were. It wasn’t in the shape of her body or the tilt of her lips. It was something else, as if whatever had shaped her had done so without the imperfection of humanity.

“Are you okay?” he asked, a dozen other questions moving through his mind at the same time: what was she doing out here, was she cold, what had happened to her, did she need his cloak?

She looked up, meeting his eyes from across the small clearing, as if she hadn’t noticed him there. As if she hadn’t known he’d been following her though the trees. For a moment, he thought her eyes flashed red, but then he saw they were silver, nearly glowing with their own internal light.

She didn’t say anything. She simply stared, lips pulled down in a tight frown.

“Are you hurt?” He took a step closer, hands raised to show her he was no threat. She looked like a frightened rabbit, eyes wide as he approached.

He thought as he moved closer her features would come into view, and the imperfections would become more obvious.How could she be so clean?

Just as the thought passed through his mind, he saw the mud streaks, almost as if they’d materialized on her dress. Her face was smeared with mud and tears.

It did nothing to take away from her beauty though, only emphasizing the fine structure of her chin and curve of her nose.

Another step and he was almost within touching distance. She had stopped crying now and was just staring at him as he approached. She didn’t look afraid, but neither did she look relieved to see him. Her head tilted and there was a hunger in her gaze.

But no—that was just the glint of another tear cradled in the waterline of her eyes.

“Take a step back, Ocon,” a voice said, coming to him as if through water. “Don’t get any closer to it.”

He turned slowly, as if his body weren’t responding to him alone. The air was thick around him, and a white mist swirled, encircling him. It nearly enveloped him from the waist down, and he could see Sofia only a few yards from him.

“Sofia?” he said, voice as slow as his body. As slow as the swirl of mist. What was she doing here?

“Get away from it,” she said again, her arms raising, the bow held firmly in her grip.

“What are you doing?” he asked, mind catching up to what he was seeing. “Don’t shoot her!”

“Whatever you think you see, I promise it’s not real,” she said again, looking past him, staring at the woman as if she were an evil and ugly thing.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he stepped to the side, trying to block her view of the woman.

For her part, the woman in white hadn’t moved. She still sat on the log, staring at Sofia with something between disinterest and annoyance.

“You can’t just go around killing people.”

“Ocon,” Sofia said, in the tone his mother often used on him. “That is notpeople.”

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