CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Two days later, Dash runs so hard, his effort becomes a constant pull on my magic.

I pat his neck. “Are you certain you’re not overdoing it?”

Bella indeed beat us to the rendezvous that first evening. She teased him about it, and they bickered back and forth until I bent over, holding my stomach because I laughed so hard.

The next day, they tied, him trotting into the meadow right as she winged in from above.

Dash seems hell bent on winning today. He wouldn’t even let us stop for lunch, insisting we eat while riding. “I’m fine.”

As if to prove it, he puts on another burst of speed, and the already whirling landscape around us blurs even further.

My magic pours into him, healing his legs and back constantly. My nerves start to burn, and I reach into my jacket pocket and let my fingers play over the crystal I kept, its touch immediately soothing and allowing me to send Dash an extra pulse of healing power.

Sturrm murmurs in my ear, “We just crossed into orc lands.”

“How do you know?”

“I can feel it.”

That’s good—it means we’re close to our stopping place for the day.

“Tomorrow night, I will have you in my furs, safe in the privacy of our cottage.” He leans close, his deep voice vibrating with so much heated promise that I start to tingle.

“I can’t wait!” We’ve slept in each other’s arms the last couple of nights, holding each other close and keeping bad dreams away. But there’s been no privacy or time for loving. And I can’t help wondering about his knot and what it will feel like, filling me full. Surely our first night in his home— our home—will be the time we finally join for real.

My core gives a needy clench.

“I can smell you,” he murmurs, his cock hard against my butt.

“Good.” I shimmy my hips. “You have more work to do to make things up to me. ”

“The sweetest of labors.” Sturrm nips my ear with his tusks, forcing me to bite back a moan.

Dash keeps running for another ten minutes before slowing.

Pine trees snap into clarity around us, the air full of their fresh scent. Ferns cover the ground, broken here and there by moss-covered stones topped with purple mushrooms. It’s all so beautiful. I never realized how much I missed out on by being a city girl, not that trips to the Everglades ever looked like this. But I bet even a pine forest on Earth wouldn’t match up—half of Alarria’s allure is the magic that suffuses everything around me, filling it with color and life.

Dash rounds a wide bush covered in pink flowers and wide, waxy leaves, and steps into an empty clearing. His head immediately tips backward, horn pointed to the sky as he scans overhead. “Ha! I did it! I beat her!” Then he yells. “Do you hear that, dragon? I won!”

As Sturrm dismounts, I look upward too, expecting Bella’s voice to call out that she’s here and they’re tied again.

But as Sturrm lifts me down, it’s not Bella’s voice I hear.

Guttural growls fill the air as five ogres step out of the trees to surround us. The one in front is the same one who found me on the standing stone, the dark gray scab on his shoulder showing where Sturrm cut him. He holds his axe at the ready, his beady black eyes latched onto me. “There you are, little witch. I’ve been waiting for you.”

Sturrm’s body thrums with tension, and a horrible expression comes over his face, one full of decades-old rage and terror .

“Let’s get back on Dash!” I tug at his arm. “He can blur us past these pendejos!”

“I can’t,” the unicorn says. “I need enough space to get up to speed before my pooka travel magic can work.”

Carajo!

Sturrm doesn’t speak, his lips pulled away from his tusks in a snarl so deep, I feel it in my chest more than hear it.

After everything he told me about Bruna… this isn’t a regular fight.

This is his greatest fear.

And I’m not a fighter like her. I won’t be any help.

My heart breaks for Sturrm. I want him to get over the past, not be forced to relive it!