Page 5 of Into Ember

Not sure I care.

The softness of her stomach. The fullness of her hips. The way she keeps almost looking back at me and losing the fight —

“Leif.”

I blink.

Gunnar has drifted in beside me, voice low, grin loud. “You want to calm down on beautiful over there before Erik has a stroke?”

“You think Erik is the problem right now?”

He stops grinning. “Yes?”

“Erik is not the problem.”

I look at him. The grin doesn’t come back. He doesn’t know the half of it.

“Well, obviously I know that now.” He points at me. “We are never speaking of this again, and keep that fucker contained.”

We are absolutely speaking of it again. He’s earned that conversation twice over today.

He thinks he’s needling the controlled one. If he really knew how close my dragon was to the surface right now, he’d walk somewhere else.

Up ahead, she stops and turns.

My eyes find hers before I can stop them.

Mistake.

I’m not sure it matters anymore.

The light turns with her, and for a moment the whole clearing tilts toward her without moving an inch — I feel Rayner shift, I feel Erik go still, I feel it in my own chest like a hand closing.

“Hi. Yes. Hello.” She plants her feet. “I asked a question and everyone just kept saying nothing, which, fine, apparently that’s a thing we do now, but I would like it noted that I have had an extremely long day, my cat is a person, and nobody will tell me where I am. So. Somebody. Anybody. Where the fuck are we?”

Four sets of eyes come to me.

Mine never left hers.

Of course they do. That’s the job. Assess, decide, answer. I’ve delivered worse news to harder rooms. I’ve briefed the Vestry with a straight face while a city burned behind me. There is a version of this answer that is measured and calm and gives her exactly as much truth as she can carry tonight.

“Somewhere safe,” I say.

“That’s not an answer.”

“No,” I agree. “It isn’t.”

Her jaw sets. The light around her flares. Quick. Bright enough that Brock’s eyebrows go up and Gunnar mouths something I choose not to read.

She doesn’t notice. Of course she doesn’t notice. She’s glowing with temper in the middle of a realm she doesn’t know exists, and she has no idea, and every dragon in this clearing just watched it happen and said nothing.

I make a decision, the way I make all decisions. Fast, final, and aware I’ll be paying for it later.

She gets the truth. Tonight. All of it that she can hold.

But she gets it warm, fed, and behind walls — not in the open dark, three hours from home, wearing the day on her face. We’ll take her to the cabin. Hidden, at least for a little while.

“Walk with me,” I say, and start moving before she can argue. “You can yell at me the whole way.”