The Protector (Fire's Edge #4) - Abigail Owen Page 0,77

far. Wilderness territory. He smiled though he kept his eyes closed. “I was part of the team that explored the mountains up here for potential headquarters.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yup. A while back.” Just before Lyndi exploded into his life.

“You know of a mountain we can use?” The hope in her voice was better than a thousand gallons of coffee. So was holding her and knowing she was safe. She’d been going to kill Tineen. He’d kept how much that scared the shit out of him to himself. This woman was hell to pay on his heart.

“It’s rough and is going to take work to both make it livable and defensible, but…yeah.”

A sharp pinch to his bicep had him flashing his eyes open. “Ow.”

He encountered a scowl on his lover’s face. “You should have told me.”

“If we were followed, it wouldn’t have worked. Plan B.”

“You have a plan B?” she asked slowly.

“Min eneste, I have at least to plan D.”

He closed his eyes again, mostly because he was too tired to keep them open. Lyndi was here now. In his arms.

“Once we’re in this mountain, you’re sharing those other plans.” A demand, not a request.

“Yes, ma’am.” He tipped his head back to not breathe on her as he yawned hard, then snuggled back into her.

“What does min eneste mean?”

He scooped her closer, resting his chin on the top of her head. “I wondered when you’d ask about that.”

His words were definitely slurring now as a deeper sleep reached out soft fingers, coaxing him under.

“We’ve been a little busy,” she grumbled into his chest.

He chuckled but couldn’t seem to pull the answer from his mind for her.

“Why are you doing this?” she whispered.

The vulnerability in that question slipped through the darkness, wrapping around his heart, and he tightened his arms around her in response. “Because it took me forever to find you.”

“Find me?”

He snuggled deeper into her, inhaling her warm scent, content in a way he couldn’t ever remember being. “A dragon might never find his mate.”

He wasn’t sure if he said the words aloud or just thought them. A vague frisson of worry wormed its way into his thoughts, but he was too far down the road to sleep to give it much credence.

…

Mate.

Lyndi knelt on the ground, her sleeping bag folded and ready to roll in front of her. It had been for a solid five minutes at least. Because she was too busy with her thoughts and covertly watching Levi across their camp as they were breaking everything down and returning the area to the pristine state it had been before they arrived.

The boys had been elated by her arrival, practically forcing Levi out of the way in their rush to hug her. He’d laughed at her over their heads, and she might remember that moment forever.

Now, fed and dressed, they needed to go. Levi’s easy grin was in evidence, as if they weren’t running for their lives and doing everything they could to remove any evidence of their being here, not to be responsible stewards of nature but to hide their tracks from anyone following. He shoved Elijah in the arm, making her serious kiddo laugh. Every single one of her boys watched him with a form of hero worship, and Lyndi had to admit she got why.

In a few short days, he’d obviously taught them so much. Things she wished her boys didn’t need to know—evasion, setting false trails, setting up defensive perimeters and patrols, leaving as small a footprint as seventeen people on the run could. Levi also listened. She could tell by the way they talked to him and asked him questions. Most of her kids, before she’d found them, had been forced to keep themselves alive in a world that wanted them dead. Abandoned and alone. They weren’t stupid or naive.

In fact, apparently the reason they now traveled with a host of human trash and other items was because Elijah had shared how, after he’d been kicked out of his community, he’d hid his tracks by pretending to be ignorant humans leaving messy campsites. Levi, it seemed, had listened, so now half the time they did that instead of the full erasure of their existence. Lyndi swore Elijah had stood taller with extra pride when Levi explained it to her.

He said mate.

He’d been slurring his words as he’d fallen into a hard sleep, but a girl didn’t miss the word mate no matter how exhausted she was herself. He said something about finding her and how