it’s easy to grow overprotective when you really care about someone. Sometimes the best thing you can do for a person you love is to let them fly.”
Kalai’s eyes glittered in the candlelight. “She did. And I’m so grateful. Or I wouldn’t have come here, wouldn’t have seen this egg, wouldn’t have met you.” His black eyes grew even darker. He slid his thumb slowly against the side of Tauran’s hand. Could he feel the kick of Tauran’s pulse in his wrist?
Too close.
It would be so easy to return the touch. Tortuously, Tauran slipped his hand off Kalai’s, trying not to let the longing show on his face. He told himself it was nothing but years of loneliness making him feel this way, especially when he’d only known Kalai for a few days. Kalai was young, optimistic, full of life. He’d be miserable, chained to a jaded former soldier with more issues than he had freckles. Skies, he had to get it together. He’d had no problem enjoying and discarding lovers in the past. Still, the hint of disappointment in Kalai’s eyes when he pulled his own hand back stung.
“Here’s an idea,” Tauran said, as enthusiastically as he could make it sound. “You and the egg can rest while I clean up these papers and head down to that little Iradesi café on the corner and get us some warm wraps.” He winked. “Just ‘cause A. R-L’s dinner was bland, doesn’t mean ours have to be.”
Kalai laughed, rolling the egg toward himself and wrapping an arm over it. He suppressed another yawn. “I’ve never had Iradesi warm wraps before.”
“Well, that settles it, then!” Tauran gathered the fanned-out papers in a pile. He needed fresh air, a break to pull his feelings back in place. Once again, he’d been too fast and too forward for his own good. He may not be the same person he once was, but there was apparently still some of the old Tauran left in there.
“Just put the papers on the desk,” Kalai said. “Thank you.”
“You got it.” Tauran rolled onto one knee, then paused, glancing at Kalai. Kalai’s eyes were already closed. Good. Tauran would prefer for Kalai not to see him struggle to stand like an old man. There wasn’t much elegance about the way he had to rock his weight forward, push himself up and balance on one leg while giving his left a chance to stretch. Slowly, he tested its strength. Whoever had invented the fashion of beds on floors really hadn’t done so with leg injuries in mind.
His knee protested slightly when he headed for the stairs, but it was nothing he wasn’t used to. He just had to take the steps slowly. One at a time. On the third step, a dull thump and scrape gave him pause. He turned his head toward the bed. Kalai was still, exactly as he’d been when Tauran had risen.
Another thump. More insistent.
It didn’t come from the bed. It came from behind. From the windows.
Gripping the handrail, Tauran turned the rest of the way.
The papers slid from his grasp.
The underbelly of a dragon covered most of the floor-to-ceiling window in the center, its spread wings spanning the rest and clinging to the outside frame. It lowered its head, focusing piercing blue eyes on him through the thin layer of glass. No saddle. No rider. Tauran’s blood chilled and Falka’s words flashed through his mind.
Something’s wrong with the wild dragons. They’re getting more aggressive, and larger numbers are flying closer to Valreus by the day.
The wild dragon shifted its gaze from Tauran to the bed, slitted pupils widening.
Tauran’s breath caught in his throat. He had to do something before the dragon realized the fragile glass was no obstacle at all. He had to distract it from Kalai.
“Hey!” Tauran shouted, and leaped the three steps back up the stairs, his leg sending fire trails of pain into his lower spine as he crossed the room and grabbed the stoker from beside the incubation box. “Eyes on me!”
The dragon’s claws left scratches on the glass as it readjusted its grip and turned to Tauran, its lips peeling back to reveal rows of razor teeth.
CHAPTER 10
“No, stop!” A shock of tousled black hair blocked Tauran’s line of sight. Kalai placed himself between Tauran and the windows and grabbed the stoker. He looked from Tauran to the furious beast hanging from the window frames. “It’s okay. We’re friends!”
Tauran stared in bewilderment as Kalai released his grip on the stoker