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“Sure did. And trust me, I’m not happy about it. Maybe I can just roll the rest of the way down?” It wasn’t a bad idea. I thought about it, and adjusted my bag again.
“Here, let me help you.” Zilon reached for my bag, but I stepped out of reach.
“It’s fine. I’m just getting a spinal beat down by frozen meat.” I adjusted again.
He blinked, surprised by my reaction. “It’s not fine, Rayna.”
“It is. I can do this much.”
Zilon’s mouth clicked shut as he watched me briefly. “Are you always this stubborn?”
“Asks the boy who has avoided me at all costs today. Interesting,” I finally said, voicing the thoughts I had wanted to keep to myself. Now I was going to sound like a spoiled brat or something. “I’ve already been carrying my bags for this long. I can keep going.”
“Rayna, I didn’t…” He trailed off, clearly at a loss for words.
I nodded. “Right. We better catch up before they leave us behind. I wouldn’t leave them past it.” I brushed by Zilon and followed Landers prints in the snow, trying not to think too hard about my frozen feet and the fact that we’d still be dealing with snow until we descended the other side of the mountains far enough. We had traveled two days up the mountain with snow. Maybe we would get lucky and we would only have two more days of snow as we went back down.
I had to hope, mostly because I couldn’t feel my toes anymore.
The path narrowed down rather quickly, the rocks scraping at my skin when I wasn’t paying attention.
“How often does it storm here?” I grumbled, not really expecting an answer.
“It’s year round,” Philit said, not even looking at me. “There is a pass that the merchants use to get from Xrotte to Fyre, it’s clean cut but at times even that becomes impassible.”
“So there is a nice road we could have taken, and instead you have us cutting through the mountain?” Landers laughed, but the sound was heartless, rattling against the branches and sending some banks of snow to the ground.
“That path is not the rider’s journey…”
“Screw the ‘rider’s journey’!” Landers spat, cutting him off. “And screw all your rules and how things are supposed to go. If it wasn’t for all of that we wouldn’t even be in the mess. We would be in Fyre, we could have carried Rayna, the Fae wouldn’t be right on our heels.”
“The Fae are–”
“Right on our heels!” Landers cut him off again, his eyes flashing red as the air crackled. Zilon took a step closer. “Don’t pretend that Fae didn’t escape and just go right to his buddies to tell them where we were. They are coming for us, for her,” he pointed a finger at me. “And we are going to lead him right to Fyre!”
“There are checkpoints at Fyre, and the city is well guarded.” Philit was firm, but there was something in his tone that didn’t sit quite right.
“Yet another thing that only you know from your special dragon training.” Landers rolled his eyes dramatically before he stomped deeper into the snow, not looking back.
We had just gone from jealous, grumpy dragons to unraveling ones.
Philit was already charging after Landers, going into his big powerful leader routine. I could only hope he found a place for us to camp while he was trying to smooth things over. My nose and cheeks felt like they were going to tear open with how cold it was getting. I wrapped my cloak around me tighter, knowing there wasn’t much tighter that I could get.
“Let me help you,” Zilon whispered in a soft voice that nearly made me melt into butter. “I can keep you warm.”
He stepped closer to me, wrapping his wing around me, pulling me into his side as we walked. His wing kept much of the wind away, and the air instantly warmed. I sighed, not that I could help myself, I was basically surrounded by a heater.
It felt too good to be against him like that, it felt the same way it always had, like his warmth was mine, like he was mine. But he shouldn’t, I was mated to Philit now, these feelings, I had thought they would leave, and yet somehow they were stronger. I looked up to him in confusion, Zilon looking down at me with the same shock. He felt it too.
I sighed as his heat went into my bones, chasing away the cold.
“Get the fuck away from her!” The snarl froze me in place as I looked up to see Philit ripping his way through the trees in front of us, breathing heavily. “Do not touch her.”
“What’s your problem,” Zilon asked. “She’s cold, I’m just keeping her warm. You know, since you didn’t.”
By the goddess, could we go one second without these guys threatening each other?
“She’ll be fine.” Philit grabbed my arm, pulling me away from Zilon, but not against him. He didn’t want me, after all. He just left me to stand, shivering, in the cold.
