Warrior Rising - By Pamela Palmer Page 0,45

stubborn face. "Right now, if I start pulling clothes off you, I'm not likely to stop."

She sucked in a breath, her nostrils flaring as her chest rose. "I want that. I want you."

He released the poncho and cupped her jaw, his fingertips warming with the heat of the awareness that sizzled between them. "If I'm taking you back to the streets of D.C., you have to be covered. So it's your choice. We take a boat and get out of here, or you wear the poncho and we hunt your Esri."

In her eyes he watched her stubbornness battle her need to win the bigger war. With a disgruntled twist of her lips, she pulled the hood up over her hair and he knew it was done.

"Let's go," she said briskly and turned toward the gate.

With a nod, Harrison fell into step beside her. Deliberately hunting for a single Esri when the whole lot might be seeking to destroy them both was the most dangerous thing they could do. But he understood her need to do it.

He just prayed this wasn't a decision he lived to regret.
Chapter 10
With the royal power of the draggon stone pumping through her veins, Ilaria felt alive as she never had before. Every sense felt keener, sharper - the feel of the chilly air against her face, the piercing sound of distant sirens. And the smell of smoke...that ever-present reminder that fires still smoldered, ready to burst into flame all over again.

She pressed closer to Harrison, concentrating on the luscious scent of his warm skin as they passed through the gate of Ft. McNair and made their way through the adjoining neighborhood, traveling along residential streets teeming with the confused, the distraught, the injured.

Her life was out of control. As it had been for a long time. Although she'd come into her queen's power, she was not the queen and never would be if Rith got his way. To complicate matters more, after all these centuries she'd found the one male destined to be her mate. And he was human.

She suspected Harrison was beginning to sense the connection between them, too, though he was possibly even less happy about it than she was. If the situation were different - if he were Esri - she'd be thrilled. In so many ways, she saw goodness in him and a rare and wonderful combination of strength and gentleness. The way he'd trusted her when Luciar and Sanderis approached, the way he'd attacked them when they'd moved against her. The way he'd stood at her back as his own people threatened her. Perhaps he hadn't backed her as much as she'd wanted - he hadn't demanded they let her keep the draggon stone - but she'd heard the truth in his words, that he'd feared the stone would endanger her. He'd done it to protect her.

How odd to think that she, the rightful queen of Esria, might need protecting against mere humans. But she had. And she'd known a strange and wonderful certainty that Harrison wouldn't let anything happen to her. It disturbed her how much pleasure that fact brought her. His putting her safety before his own should make her feel weak, even vulnerable. But it didn't. She felt...treasured.

Very disturbing.

The day was cold and overcast, a chill wind blowing. Her gown kept her warm, but the air bit into her cheeks in a way Esrian air never did. Her hands brushed against the stiff, cool fabric of the poncho as she walked, her fingers curling away from the disagreeable feel. But Harrison had insisted she wear it.

She glanced at him, at his strong profile, his cheeks lightly pinkened by the cold wind. A mix of warmth and desire moved through her every time she looked at him and she wished things could be different. Their paths could follow one another's for only a few short days. They would part, then, all too likely as enemies.

She hated that she had to plot against him, but the humans had made it clear they wouldn't trust her with the stones. If she tried to thwart them, they'd consider her an enemy. Harrison wouldn't let them hurt her, she was almost certain, but if any of them knew her true plan - to steal the stones and take them back to Esria - they'd imprison her and try to find another way to seal the gates.

She didn't blame them for wanting the gates closed once and for all, but what they wanted