I didn’t want to respect Maks.
I didn’t want him to play an alpha to my submissive smaller form.
I turned my back on him and stumbled to where Balder was, shaking with the need to go to my knees in front of him and bow my head. Did he know that would be my reaction? Did he know that if he bested me I would be fighting my own instincts once he made me submit? It didn’t matter that I hadn’t verbally given in, my body knew it had been beaten and every instinct tried to force me to give in to him, to do as he wished.
I pulled myself into the saddle and gave Balder his head, and he tore away from Maks and Batman. Shame, hurt, and uncertainty flowed through me. I’d been cruel to Maks, bitter as he’d said. But he was human. He didn’t deserve anything else. Not with what they’d done to us. Locking us away like animals.
Caging us.
Making us fight each other to survive. I clung to the old truths as the last bit of armor to keep myself safe from this new twist between us.
I didn’t know where I was when I stopped. I only knew it was hours later. I’d run from all the truths that a simple fight had shined a light on. I was weak, and as useless in some ways as a human, more so seeing as it was a human that had beaten me. I shook from head to foot even though I wasn’t cold. Balder picked up on it, prancing on the spot. I put a hand to his neck. “I’m sorry.”
A sigh from behind me turned me around. Lila sat on Balder’s saddlebags, her eyes on me.
“Why did you run?”
My shoulders slumped. “I . . . I’m hard-wired to give in when someone proves they’re stronger than me. The best I could do was run to give space between us. He cannot be my alpha, Lila.”
“But he’s your partner, and he’s here to save your friend, isn’t he?”
“He’s human. They did this to us.” That was my father coming out of my mouth, his beliefs, but they were mine too. Weren’t they? Steve had believed it. Bryce believed it.
Did I?
“And I’m a runt of a dragon, who cares? We all have abilities even if they might seem small and insignificant. He needs you. He might be physically stronger, Zam, that much is true. But he can’t navigate this world like you. And if your friend Darcy is truly in danger and he could help you save her, shouldn’t you go back and get him? I mean . . . otherwise, aren’t you doing to him what you’re accusing all humans of doing to us. Judging him based on all the others?”
I closed my eyes. “Fuck, Lila. Why did you have to say that?”
“My father used to call me Blunt for a nickname. As in I said the truth regardless of what it did to others. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings, but I think you’re being a brat and meaner than you really are.”
My eyes flew open. Blunt indeed. She stared back at me and I slowly nodded.
“Damn it. You’re right.”
I turned Balder back the way we’d come.
“I don’t think he’s all that bad,” Lila said. “I mean, I like teasing him, but he’s trying real hard to help. I shouldn’t have egged you on. Obviously, he thinks his emotions are important and that he has value. So maybe tread carefully.”
She was right, I knew she was. But my whole life had been nothing more than a litany of ‘humans are assholes, the human men are the worst, the only thing worse than a human man is a Jinn.’
But maybe this was one human I could be friends with, could work with to help Darcy.
I nodded to myself, letting the truth fill me. I’d been the asshole this time. Maks had been trying to help. And maybe, just maybe, I’d been pushing him away for more reasons than being human.
More maybe because those blue eyes of his were haunting my sleep more than I wanted to admit.
“You like him, don’t you?” Lila said and I sucked in a sharp breath. “Ha, I knew it! What’s wrong with that? He does have big muscled arms, and those eyes are lovely. I knew a male dragon with blue eyes like that, they were lovely on him too.” She swept around in front of me and I shook my head.
“I don’t like him.” The words were strangled, though, and even I heard the lie in them. Damn it, when had this happened? Somewhere in the last week I’d seen him work, seen him help me without having to be told or prodded. When I’d been staring at his ass and thinking about those eyes and starting to wish he’d been a supe.
He’d been a partner rather than the dead weight I’d thought he’d be. I urged Balder into a faster trot, shame driving me.
Why did I have to be so thick in the head? Pride, it was a curse of a lion in more ways than one.
An hour later we’d not found Maks, or any trace of him or Batman. They shouldn’t have been this far back. Sweat and nerves bit at me. What the hell had I done now? Cursed I might be, but I still wore my necklace, which meant the curse was not supposed to be in play.
Lila broke the silence. “Is that blood on the snow?” She shot into the air above my head.
I stood in my stirrups and looked where she pointed with a wing tip.
My nerves tightened as I stared at the bright red blood. “Yeah, yeah it is.”
Chapter Nine
The marks in the snow, the perfect imprints, led southeast. I flicked my hood off, turned and leaned into Balder. Because while I could see the blood on the snow and the hoof prints, I could also hear the thunder of another set of hooves ahead of us. We’d be able to catch Batman, I was sure of it.
The snow flew up around us in a spray as if it were liquid water and not frozen. Through its mist, I could just make out Batman as he slid to a stop, reared up, and threw Maks from the saddle.
“Damn it,” I growled.
A part of me that I didn’t like tried to pull me back, to hold me away from helping. Not to be an asshole, but because I was a cat and he just finished whooping my ass so he should have been able to take care of himself. That was nature for you.
We raced toward him but I couldn’t see what was attacking him. If it was a dragon, it wasn’t a big one. “Lila, what is it?”
She swept up ahead of us then called back, “Pack of wolves. Normal as they can be.” She swooped down and grabbed hold of my shoulder. “Five.”
Five wolves were not insurmountable. We could do this.
I grabbed the flail from its holster across the back of my saddle and pulled it free, my palm tingling as I tightened my grip. I whistled for Batman and he spun, kicked out at a wolf and caught it in the jaw. We closed the distance, my body tensed for battle and then there was a blur of golden fur and a snarl of a lion.
Steve had caught up to us.
He burst out of the trees in full lion form, his body fucking glittering in the sunlight as if he’d indeed been touched with 24k gold. He slammed into the first two wolves, mowing them down with no effort, using his weight and size to his advantage like always. His big paws swiped the next one off its feet, downing it hard enough that it lay there, stunned. A second later the remaining wolves scattered like leaves before the storm, tails tucked between their legs. Just like that, it was done. Maks was safe.
And I was saddled with my ex-husband once more.
Kiara rode out from behind Steve on one of the smaller horses. She was bundled up against the cold. Her eyes went to me and then narrowed as she blew out a short puff of air.
“Holy shit,” Lila breathed out. “That was fast. You mean, you should have been like that, but you got stuck with . . . wow.”
Steve turned and let out a roar that echoed through the trees, rattling the branches and reverberating through my chest. “Shut up, you moron!” I slid from Balder’s saddle. I put the flail on my back again, once more unused. Maybe that was a good thing. That tingle on my skin had to be some sort of warning.
I went to Maks first. He stared up at me as I held a hand out to him. “Why’d you come back?”
“Because I was being an asshole. I can admit it when I’m wrong.”
And I kinda like those blue eyes of yours, human man.
He took my hand and I helped him up.
Steve trotted close to us and then shifted into his human form. “Give me my clothes.”
I stared at him. “We didn’t bring clothes for you.”
“I meant Kiara,” he growled. She and her horse cut between us, pushing me aside as she handed Steve a pile of clothes.