Page 24 of Ashborne: Defiance

But all I could do was run.

I had to find him before my skin went up in flames.

9. Don’t Touch

SOUNDTRACK: All the Things She Said by The Weight of Atlas

~ VOSKI ~

I used every trick and act of discipline I’d ever learned to pull my mind away from my body, and my body out of need. But as the dragons fell into each other with abandon, and my body demanded the same, the forest around me began to fade, images of Grace filled my shrieking mind, melding into memories of other feminine voices, until the past was present, and I could barely sift the two.

Mine—

You. Are. Mine.

I won’t hurt you. I need you. Something’s happened. I don’t understand. I’m scared. But I know you’re the one—

I know what you need. You were given to me for a reason. Trust me.

Vane!

You were meant for this.

No. No! Already sweating, I turned my back on the pull toward Grace and ran. With every ounce of strength left to me, I sprinted through the dark, instinctively reaching for Kham—only to throw every damper on the link that I possessed when his desire roared to life in my body so fiercely, my limbs quivered.

He roared—protective, needy for his mate, torn. But I shut him out and kept running, searching, needing. And when my body finally began to fail, I cobbled together a frantic plan under the screaming panic.

Images haunted me, the mental pictures of Grace offering herself fading, her mouth wide with gasping desire.

And other faces, tight with screams.

You were meant for this.

The thought breached my will, sang to me. Perhaps? Perhaps there was a way to—

No.

I feared my skull would crack and every memory would pour out.

I couldn’t go back.

I couldn’t.

Breath catching, mind reeling, body shaking, I stumbled to a halt, turning, chest heaving, searching.

Help me. God, help me! I blinked and pushed back my hair, trembling, to find I had circled and returned to the clearing where we bathed and filled waterskins when we brought the dragons out here.

That meant Kham’s harness was nearby. And maybe, salvation.

It should have been a work of seconds to unbuckle straps from the harness, the longer ones—girth and neck straps. But my fingers shook so badly, I cursed and choked, body twitching, driving me. Tearing my chest in two.

Couldn’t do it. Couldn’t go back.

We’d never survive it. She wouldn’t. I wouldn’t.

She’s innocent!

As it should be.