Darkblood Prison - G.K. DeRosa Page 0,76

voice spun my head in his direction. His weary eyes were trained on me. An embarrassing thought streaked through my mind—if I could feel what he was feeling, did it go the other way too? Chasing away the horrifying idea, I climbed up the rickety metal ladder.

As soon as I was up there, I cursed myself for not bringing a book with me. Now what was I going to do? I’d spent the entire morning in bed, and now I was wide awake. I swung my legs back and forth, hanging off the edge of the mattress. Every once in a while I hazarded a quick glance at Talon. His eyes were closed, the steady rise and fall of his chest oddly soothing. I didn’t want to look like a total stalker, so I leaned back and forced myself to relax.

The minute my head hit Talon’s pillow, his crisp, mountain-fresh scent enveloped me. I inhaled deeply, reveling in the musky male fragrance. Oh man, this is bad. It was like he’d deposited his dragon pheromones all over the bed, and I was completely defenseless against them. I had the weirdest urge to nuzzle his pillow and rub his sheets all over my body.

Damn, I definitely needed to look into this dragon blood thing before I lost my mind.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Talon going commando on Delacroix had been a bust. After reviewing the surveillance footage, the guys found diddley-squat. Besides confirming that Thax was his designated warlord, the demon hadn’t spilled a thing despite the dragon secret agent’s best spy techniques. Which made for one very pissed off bunkmate.

It had only been three days since Talon took on half of Delacroix’s inner circle, and somehow, he was completely healed. Not sure if it was Hayden’s healing powers or his own hardcore dragon nature.

So here we were back in the training room again. Which I found kind of pointless. My mercurial magical powers hadn’t made a cameo since the day Delacroix attacked me in his cell. Talon was convinced he could coax it out of me, and I wasn’t sure spending more time with my reluctant bodyguard was good for anyone. I hadn’t found much about the dragon blood sharing thing in the prison library, only that it existed and was a secretive thing among the brotherhood of dragons. Too bad I was stuck in jail, otherwise I could’ve asked my uncle who was the Alpha of all dragon prides in Azar. He could certainly enlighten me on the topic.

“Break’s over.” Talon snatched the water bottle from my hand and tossed it into the recycle bin.

“Hey, I wasn’t done with that.”

“Too bad. Time’s up.”

Things between Talon and I had returned to their subarctic temps, which gave me hope that this blood bond was wearing off—on his end anyway. And we’d never talked about Vander again.

The only good thing about all of this was with all the commotion, I hadn’t had any time to worry about my evil soul-sucking ways. And I hadn’t had a single murderous urge. Yay, me!

“Focus, Azara!” Talon’s fist connected with my gut, and I reeled back.

“That’s not fair,” I hissed. “I wasn’t ready.”

“You think Thax, or Delacroix, or any of their goons are going to wait to attack while you get into your fighting stance?”

“No,” I growled.

“So neither will I.”

Dragon douche canoe. I pulled my arm back and totally faked him out, sweeping my leg out instead. I almost succeeded in getting his feet out from under him. His enormous body wobbled a bit, so I’d take it as a win.

“I’m more than twice your size, inmate. As are most of the assailants you’ll encounter. You can’t count on your strength to save you, especially when you’re wearing that cuff.”

I rolled my eyes at him. I’d heard this speech about a thousand times already. “Then I’ll just have to be smarter and faster.” I shot between his tree-trunk legs and jumped up behind him. With a quick kick to the back of his thigh, I had him down on one knee. I leapt onto his back and wrapped my arm around his neck, holding him in a pretty decent headlock. “How’s that?”

“Not bad. Just don’t get cocky.” He whipped his head forward and sank his teeth into my forearm.

I squealed and released my hold, and the bastard flung me over his shoulders. I hit the floor with an oomph, the pitiless cement smacking all the air out of me.

Son of a succubus! Pushing myself up, I lunged at him as