Page 27 of Fire Kissed
Why?
I have no idea why...
How has so much changed between us with every passing day?
My head jostles hard along the dragon’s warm body. The air knocks from my lungs, and I’m immediately on high alert from the impact.
Except... no one’s here. We’ve landed in shadows and silence. A long wall of old scrap metal makes up the fortress we stand tall upon. The smoke in the distance tells me how much space separates us from the thick of the city.
The danger we just left.
“Why are we stopping?” I ask with wide eyes searching the landing as Latham takes my hand and helps me hop down from the enormous dragon.
Fire singes the air, and a sound of cracking snaps quietly before a familiar voice answers just behind me.
“Because we’re safe here,” his gravelly tone says like pure, dripping sex.
I turn slowly, and Aric’s fiery eyes catch mine... and then I note his very, very nude chest... torso... hips...
I blink slowly as he smiles deviously.
Latham’s heavy sigh is all I hear before his hand flits between us, and in the blink of an eye, a heavy wool sweater hangs on Aric’s body like an ill-fitted blanket thrown over his delicious body.
“That’s better,” Latham murmurs on a tired voice.
“Better for who? It’s fucking hot here!” Aric’s curses continue as he pulls roughly at the thick material. The cries about his wardrobe are shortly lived before Latham gives in and magics a thin, black T-shirt and black jeans on his friend.
“Nowthat’sbetter,” Aric says happily.
“Get your rest.” A disgruntled Torben lies back on the smooth metal that spans a few yards from one side to the other. “We have to leave this realm in just a few hours’ time. You’ll need your strength.”
I stare down at him as he crooks his arms behind his head and closes his eyes.
I know that answer that’s coming... but I ask anyway.
“Need my strength for what?”
A beat of silence dips in as the three of us look down at the most powerful man I know.
And even he’s concerned for our safety.
“For when we have to return to Hela,” he says.
* * *
My eyesclose again and again to the quiet night and the cool comforting air.
And yet I can’t sleep.
Latham’s heavy breathing settled in the moment he lay down at my side. Aric’s snores are a subtle, calming sound.
As for me, I toss and turn on the hard rooftop of the wall.
We have to go back. It’s the only way out of this realm. I get it. I do...
But I’m as defenseless as the day I arrived in Hela’s world. My wolf is still a prisoner of my own keeping. I’m still their prisoner as well.
We all are.
