Page 46 of Dragon Gods

The next morning, as she waved her token at the inner gate guard and stepped into the gaslit streets of the royal quarter, Gabriel came loping out of the last dawn shadows, falling into step beside her.

She refused to look at him, eyes focused on his shoes as she tried to understand how he knew when and where to wait for her. Only one idea came to mind.

I’m going to kill Mina.

“I hear you work for the chief commander directly.”

Sofia’s head snapped up and he flinched from her glare.

“Whoa!” he said, as if soothing an angry donkey.

“What’s it to you?”

“I was trying to make conversation.”

“Oh,” she said, chastened by what may have been hurt in his eyes. But he quickly wiped it away with that stupid smile and dimple. Her stomach did the fluttery thing again. Sofia had asked Mina about him after they’d first met and, sure enough, he was the stableboy that the entire younger generation in the manor was swooning over. And she could see why. Even when he wasn’t smiling, his lips were soft and pink and difficult not to stare at.

He made a sound in the back of his throat and Sofia realized she’d been caught doing just that. She looked away, but not before she saw that damned dimple flash.

“Where were you working before the manor?” she asked, wanting to steer the conversation before he had the chance.

“I was down in the drowned quarter with the fishermen. I handled the donkeys used for shipments, but my boss was arrested last blink on treason. Turns out he was sneaking some of his supply off to the rebels this entire time.” He gave a shrug that made it clear he didn’t want to seem taken aback by all this, but she could also see a twinge of something like fear or anger in his eyes. “No one wanted to hire me after that, but the chief commander gave me a chance. He saw how I handled the animals during the raid and thought I’d do well with his horses.”

She nodded. The king’s men were never subtle in their raids and it often led to innocent bystanders being killed or arrested in the chaos. She could only imagine how the wild animals would react.

She asked him about handling the horses. Except for the few times she’d seen the chief commander’s in passing, she had never been up close to a horse. There were only a few dozen in the entire city of Suvi, gifted from their neighbors on the other side of the sea a couple cycles ago. Apparently, they rode them everywhere there, but here they were only used as transportation by the king’s employees between the different parts of Suvi. She couldn’t imagine they’d be of much use in the thick rainforests of Wueco beyond the wall.

He explained the similarities between them and donkeys and why one would use one over the other. Which only made Sofia wonder why anyone would use a horse in the city.

By the time they made it to the manor and Gabriel waved goodbye at the kitchen door, Sofia had forgotten she was supposed to hate him. Three weeks after that, he kissed her for the first time. Not at the kitchen door, but pressed up against the stables in the evening shadows where the rest of the household couldn’t see them.

She’d walked home that night, tasting him on her lips and smiling.

CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE

FOX

For a second, Fox thought she’d fainted, though from what, he wasn’t sure. As he twisted her around to look at her face, he saw the glazed look in her eyes and heard the shallow wheeze of her breaths. She gave a weak cough closer to a gasp and sucked in air even as her faced turned gray.

“What?” He helped her to sit against the cave wall as she grabbed at her chest. He was happy the stone was at least dry, despite the cave smelling of damp moss and stone. “Is it poison? Are you choking?”

“My lungs. Can’t?—”

The words were a whisper—a wheeze—and he pressed a hand against her chest, feeling the struggle beneath his palm. For a moment, pure panic flared through him. He couldn’t afford for her to die. Not yet. He pressed her hand against his own chest, taking an exaggerated breath. He was moving off pure instinct.

“Follow my breaths.”

Her hands were still stained with blood, the not quite dry flakes leaving an imprint on his chest as she did what he asked. He watched her chest attempting to fall into time with his own, the breaths still shallow, but the wheezing seemed to lessen with each passing minute. He watched her lips, the blue tint receding, their usual rose hue slowly returning, visible even in the shadowy cave.

They sat like that, hands against chests until he was sure her breaths, while pained, were full. It was only when her lips were a deep rose and her cheeks flushed with blood that he recognized he was still holding his hand against her chest. And he could feel more than just her lungs expanding beneath his palm. He could feel the heat of her skin and the soft give of her chest. Their faces were mere inches apart as he watched her own eyes flicker down to their hands pressed against each other.

He pulled his hand back and she did the same without comment, neither meeting the other’s eyes.

“Do you need anything?”

She shook her head, the movements slow and pained. “Nothing you could do.”

It felt like a pointed jab, but she wasn’t looking at him and he didn’t have the energy to argue. Happy to know she wasn’t going to die in the next five minutes, he finally let himself collapse on the cavern floor. It was cold against his aching muscles and he pressed his hand against his side feeling a wetness that told him the man—the shifter—hadn’t missed his mark when he’d clawed Fox. It was difficult to see in the shadows, but he lifted his hand and saw a dark smudge coating his fingers.

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