What Fire Dragons Treasure - Cristina Rayne Page 0,48
breath hot and smelling of something metallic like ozone rather than the sulfur she had half-expected.
“I’m ready for this to be over and done, yes,” she replied with a forced smile as she reached out a hand to briefly touch the side of his snout.
Just as the scales on his hands had been, the scales of his face were warm. The thought that she was petting a dragon almost made her giggle, but she swallowed it down. This was neither the time nor the place for giggling.
Raphek closed his eyes and made a brief sound of pleasure before he lifted his head away from her. Amber stepped away from the tunnel entrance and looked over at Airon. At first glance, his dragon form appeared identical to Raphek’s, but she was sure if she had the time to compare them, the pattern of scales all over their bodies as well as the tint of black in their wings would be completely different.
At any rate, they were the most magnificent beings she had ever seen.
Raphek held out a hand, palm up, and after tossing the large, cloth drawstring bag with their changes of clothes onto it, Amber climbed on.
“Next stop on Dragon Airlines is Austin, Texas,” Airon quipped with a grin full of teeth that made her reptilian brain shudder.
“Let’s just hope there won’t be any turbulence,” Amber muttered as Raphek made a dome over her with his other hand.
Amber didn’t speak again until after they had been flying for about five minutes. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t think we would be doing this at all, tonight.”
“You thought His Majesty wouldn’t agree to our plan?” Raphek asked.
She didn’t think she would ever get used to how she could feel the vibrations of his voice wash over her whenever he spoke in this form.
“That’s not it. I honestly thought a video of us would have dropped long before nightfall. Yet, the president didn’t even call King Dagon like we thought. This whole lotta nothing from the senator makes me really nervous.”
“As it does me,” Raphek admitted. “Even so, giving yourself a second footprint, as Airon calls it, in Austin remains our best move right now. Airon and I will watch all the social media and news sites all night while you sleep to make sure nothing significant happens before dawn.”
Amber rested her check against one of Raphek’s enormous talons and closed her eyes wearily. “I pray that nothing does.”
She was just so damned exhausted, body and soul. She wanted this whole mess over.
The sound of two pairs of wings flapping in the wind was hypnotic, so much so that Amber didn’t realize that she had dozed off until she felt her stomach lurch unpleasantly as Raphek began to descend.
“I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” Amber said as she rubbed the remaining sleep out of her eyes. Dammit, now she would have a harder time falling asleep for the rest of the night.
“You haven’t been getting enough, so I’m not surprised,” Raphek replied. “We’ll be at the safehouse in a few minutes. You’ll be able to sleep again after we’ve spoken to Otaron.”
“I’ll be fine,” she insisted.
Once they landed, Amber spent a few seconds purposefully yawning to try to make her ears pop before Raphek removed his hand. The first thing she noticed were all the dark silhouettes of trees only a few feet before her, as though they were at the edge of a woodland. A quick glance to the right and left showed more clusters of trees. She could also hear the faint sound of running water. Was that the Colorado River?
Bag in hand, Amber stiffly slipped off Raphek’s palm and indulged briefly in a good stretch. She turned around in enough time to see Raphek begin his shift. Although she knew she shouldn’t, Amber watched keenly as his body seemingly compressed down like a strange morphing effect into the form she was most familiar. Even in the gloom, she could see that he was not only well-muscled everywhere, but also very, very well-endowed.
She had already caressed those muscles with her hands over his clothes the last time they had kissed. She wondered what it would be like to trace those hills and valleys with her tongue, or…
Before her cheeks could go nuclear, Amber busied herself with opening the bag to retrieve his clothes. She found she couldn’t look him in the eye as she handed him the clothes and made a big show of turning away as he dressed,