Page 29 of Flameborne: Fury
‘Of course!’I had already grabbed my bag and was climbing the mounting strap, wincing because she was uncomfortably warm to the touch.‘But what’s happening? Why are you so hot? And glowing?’
She gave a strange sigh and a rumble.‘I’m inneed,Bren,’she sent.
I settled into my seat, praying my ass wouldn’t burn before we could get to a safe place to bed for the night, because it was clear we couldn’t fly all the way back to the Keep tonight. But I had to wait until she’d run up the gully and launched, flying well out of range to be seen by anyone in the forest camp before I could relax enough to question her.
‘What do you need, Akhane? Is it something I can—’
It was a good thing we were miles beyond that camp already, because suddenly Akhane lifted her head, opened her jaws andscreamed.But it was a call I’d never heard from her before. A ragged, pleading cry that sank into my flesh and hummed in my bones.
My breath caught as my mind suddenlyfilledwith images—
Donavyn ripping off his shirt and throwing it aside as he stalked towards me, eyes dark.
Donavyn looming over me, twisting hands into my hair and pulling my head back, burying his face under my throat.
Donavyn naked.
Donavyn pinning me to the bed, body writhing, his shoulders wide, blocking my view of anything but him, his eyes blazing with intensity as he entered me—
I gasped, mentally shoving myself out of the vision and swallowed hard, my body thrumming and needy now.
“Akhane!” I gasped. “What wasthat?!”
Another vision of Donavyn, this time on the shore of the mineral pools where I bathed sometimes, pulling me with him into the water and behind him, behindus…
Kgosi, powering through the forest, chasing Akhane, hissing, his neck snaking and more of those resonant calls and roars—
“Holy shit! Akhane! Are you inheat?!”
To answer, my dragon raised her head and gave another of those tortured, beautiful screams. And as her need crackled through the bond, my blood went up in flames.
10. He Comes
~ BREN ~
The first crackle of lightning lit up the sky ahead and my heart dropped.
‘You have to land, Akhane, it’s not safe!’I raised my arm to shield my eyes against the driving needles of rain and the strands of my wet hair that the gusts whipped across my face, stinging like blades.
Akhane didn’t answer, but I felt the groan vibrate in her chest, and the weight of disappointment and frustration course through her. She wasdrivento go home, to find her mate. But if we stayed in the air, we’d be struck by lightning, or blown to the ground.
A moment later she began the descent, wheeling, but she lifted her head and screamed her defiance at the punishing sky.
I did everything I could to soothe her and reassure her, but I felt sick. Andneedy.
Even in the storm, even in the chill and pain, my mind kept tripping back to those memories of Donavyn kissing me, and turning them into visions of us tangled on my bed, or in the mineral pools, or—
I swallowed hard and shook my head. Was this normal? Did the men feel this way when their female dragons went into heat? Or was it because I was a woman?
Akhane screamed again when the lightning lit up the clouds a second time. Nervous, I looked down, but between the rain and the growing dark all I could make out was trees lashing in the wind and marshy grasses scattered with rocks and boulders that pushed out of the ground like broken teeth. We’d been blown west, closer to the foothills of the mountains. I had no idea where we were, only that we were still in the unclaimed lands, hours from the Keep, and we wouldn’t make it home tonight. There were a lot more rocks and thinner trees here. But it was still mostly forest, with clearings of marshy grasses here and there, punctuated by the scattered stones. No shelter big enough for a dragon that I could see. But Akhane’s skin was so hot, maybe she didn’t need it. Her scales pulsed and glowed like God Himself blew upon the hot coals under her skin.
Akhane screamed again and I wanted to weep. She was twisted with unsatisfied need and the instinct to mate. I felt the frustration and the latent thrill. But it was clear shesuffered.
I was grateful she had the presence of mind to wheel and spiral down, looking for a safe place to land, but as she began to drop her hind-end and back-flap, she sent me a wordless image of a cave to the west.
‘Go, Bren. I cannot. I have to move. And I don’t want to hurt you.’
I swallowed hard and patted her neck.‘I’ll be fine. Don’t hurtyourself.’
