Page 114 of The Scars Within
“We have more important matters to attend to,” he spoke in his deep, calm, but warm voice that I always want to melt into.
“Like what?”
Rhodes tossed me a set of winter gloves that were lined with fleece and had an unfamiliar layer of leather on the palm.
“You. Now hop on.”
I let out a frustrated puff, “Excuse me?”
Rhodes grinned, revealing both dimples. He flicked his eyes at Lakota and then back to mine. “Your dragon. What a dirty little mind you have.”
Heat rushed to my cheeks. I scurried away and mounted Lakota.
“I wonder what he would think if he was actually in it,” Lakota scoffed.
Rhodes was leading us to bone-fucking-nowhere. For over an hour, we’d been soaring through the mountains, twisting and turning so much that I couldn’t tell up from down or east from west. He offered no hints, no explanations—just mounted Noemi, and we were off.
She flew like a goddess of the skies, every movement precise and impossibly graceful. She’s slightly smaller than Lakota, and her onyx scales shimmer with an iridescent glow.
“Your favorite color is red,”Lakota huffed.
“You don’t know what my favorite color is,” I shot back.
“I do. And it’s red.”
“Is my big, scary dragon jealous of me admiring another?” I teased, a sly grin tugging at my lips.
He answered my question by snapping his wings shut and sending us plunging toward the mountains below. The air rushed past us in a deafening roar, and my stomach seemed to stay suspended far above.
Once he opened his wings and had us gliding in the air again, I noticed that Rhodes and Noemi sat stationary in the air, waiting for us to continue following.
We soared over the final mountain crest and began our descent. Waves crashed violently against the unyielding stone walls below. Rhodes brought us to a secluded spot carved from the mountains and shielded from the rest of the world. The continent stretched endlessly on both sides, framing this sunken haven with stone. We dipped lower until we landed on a plateau that jutted out like an inverted peninsula.
“Where are we?” I asked Rhodes as I dismounted and approached him.
“Nowhere,” he said flatly.
“Well, I can see that...” I muttered, glancing around the desolate space.
“Then why’d you ask?”
My narrowed eyes snapped to his. He smirked and winked.
He was carrying a large backpack over his shoulder, which must’ve been strapped to Noemi’s saddle before I arrived in Dragon Valley. With practiced ease, he flipped open the flap and rummaged through it.
Without warning, he tossed a bundle of leathers at me. I caught them—barely—then dropped them because I had been too busy staring at him.
“Work on your reflexes first—check,” he said with a cocky tilt of his head, pulling two rolls of leather from the bag as he stood.
He eyed the bundle of leathers in my arms. “Put those on.”
“What’s wrong with the ones I’m wearing?” I asked curiously.
“Everything.”
He has already surpassed the number of vague non-answers that I usually tolerate today. I groaned before twisting my finger in the air, motioning for him to turn around.
He raised a brow, “I’ve already seen you naked.”
