Chapter 19

Tormund angled his head, and my hands tumbled to my sides. Gently, he pressed his lips against mine. Warmth flooded my senses. With a satisfied growl, he deepened the kiss and parted my lips with his tongue. I reached up and clutched his shoulders and closed my eyes, the tension in my body keeping me as tight as a rod.

His hand snaked down my side and rested on my hip. I leaned into his chest, tasting him, feeling him, revelling in the way his body seemed to hum. Shadowy strands encircled every spot we touched, pulsing in time with the frantic beat of my heart, like they could feel the intoxicating thrill coursing through my body.

He continued to kiss me. His mouth against mine was electric, but there was a gentleness in the way he touched me, like I was made of glass, and he was afraid I might shatter if he pushed too hard. The ache within me deepened, burning up a hole in my core. And when he moved his lips to my neck, I felt like I might very well combust.

I'd thought of this more times than I wanted to admit. How would he taste? Like chocolate, it turned out. How would he feel? Strong and powerful, like he could toss me onto a bed and put me exactly where he wanted me. How would he sound? The low rumble of his chest suggested he was enjoying this as much as I was—if not more.

I curled my fingers tighter around his tunic, pushed up onto my toes, and kissed him—really kissed him.

This wasn't shadow demon magic. It wasn't an allure or some kind of tempting trick. This feeling came straight from the heart of me. I wanted Tormund. It didn't matter that we could have no future together. All that mattered was right here and now. He would be around for at least a week or two longer, and we could make the most of it.

But then suddenly, he released me, stepped back, and ran his fingers through his hair. His face almost looked pained.

My stomach dropped. Dread crept along the back of my neck. Had I gotten this all wrong? Had I read too much into this kiss? Was it…was it the shadow magic, after all?

Gods, how mortifying if it was.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice still a growl, though laced with what sounded like regret. "I got carried away."

I clenched my teeth. All the visions of us spending the next ten days together puffed away like his silken shadows. It'd been a silly little dream. And he'd encouraged it. He never should have kissed me if he hadn't meant it.

If kissing me was getting carried away.

"It's fine. Don't make the same mistake again," I said tightly.

Without another glance in his direction, I ducked and slid into the tunnel. Tormund loosed a grunt, but I ignored him. I crawled forward against the wet stone ground, the orange glow flickering at the other end of the tunnel. From here, I could more clearly see what lay beyond. A cavern large enough to hold an entire dwarven village widened before me, the floor transformed into rolling hills of gold coins. Sunstones were scattered amongst them, as well as powerless gemstones of every color imaginable. In between it all sat treasure trunks with their contents missing, the lids cast open or torn from their hinges. Even a few mine carts had been consumed by the avalanche of gold.

But there was one thing that stood out from the rest. A dragon with flaming orange scales curled around it all, clutching some of the sunstones into her wings. Her back rose and fell in a steady rhythm, and her eyes were closed, so she did not spot the dwarven woman crawling into her lair.

I pulled a breath into my lungs and held it there. For the first time in my life, I'd set my eyes on a dragon. She was a magnificent, gorgeous creature, her long talons glinting against the sunstones' steady glow. Small horns decorated her snout, trailing to more on the back of her head that were almost as tall as I was. Every wing was tipped with them, too.

And those membranous wings suddenly twitched.

I stilled, my heart in my throat. While she clearly wasn't fully grown, she was still incredibly large—especially compared to me. She could chomp me to bits if she wanted to, and that was if she didn't use her internal fires to burn me alive for daring to step on her gold.

Tormund slithered up beside me, his horns scraping the low ceiling. He kept his eyes on the dragon rather than take a chance with looking at me. After a moment, he let out a tense breath.

Leaning closer, he pressed his lips against my ear. "Is that one of his?"

Hisbeing Rivelin's, I could only assume.

I shrugged as best I could in the cramped conditions. While Lilia had told me many stories about Rivelin and his dragons, I'd never set eyes on them myself. Rivelin had never wanted to leave Hearthaven to visit The Glass Peaks, and so his dragons had never ventured this far from home. Until now, at least.

Although if this dragon's hoard was any indication, she'd been here a while.

If she wasn't one of Rivelin's dragons, my questions were endless. First—and most importantly—why did it look like there were some chocolate bars in one of the open trunks? But second, was she friendly? If I climbed out of this little crack in the wall, would she roast me, or would she listen to what I had to say?

Tormund's thoughts seemed to follow a similar pattern. Maybe minus the chocolate. He tugged on my sleeve and jerked his chin in the direction we'd come. He wanted to get out of here.

No, thank you.

He'd been encouraging me to believe in myself. Well, now was the time to put his advice into practice. I grinned and patted his arm—awkwardly so, what with how we were crawling around on our bellies. Then I shoved myself forward, out of the tunnel, and right onto a very hard and pointy bed of gold coins.

They jingled a jaunty little tune, blending with the sound of my bells. I froze and held my breath, palms slick against the coins. The dragon didn't flinch. She continued to sleep, her nostrils flaring with every breath. My fingers itched to rip the bells from my hair. I wore them so often, I'd sort of forgotten I'd left them there. And now it was too late to do a damn thing about them.

Tormund emphatically waved at me from the tunnel. Ignoring him, I pushed up onto my knees and released my hand from the ground. A few gold coins stuck to my palms, then fell. One by one.

Clink.

Clink.

CLIIIIIIINK.

I squeezed my eyes tight and braced myself for a fiery impact.

None came.

Biting the insides of my cheeks, I squinted open a single eye, like that would be safer than opening the both of them. Still, the dragon slept.

I craned my head over my shoulder, shuddering from the impact of my heart against my ribs. Tormund's face was grim. He crawled forward, emerging from the tunnel. I shook my head at him, motioning for him to return to the shadows. I was much smaller than him, and my hair was a similar enough to the color of the sunstones. I might not stand out amongst her treasures if I remained still when the dragon opened her eyes.

Tormund, however, was unmissable. His shadows seemed to swallow up all the surrounding light, and his pale, midnight blue skin was a stark contrast to the gold of the coins. But instead of ducking back into the safety of the tunnel, he moved toward me. His heavy boots hit the treasure mountain, and the coins rushed sideways, tumbling over each other in a waterfall of gold.

I clenched my teeth, shooting daggers with my eyes. I swore to the gods, if he got himself eaten by a dragon, then I'd…well, I'd find a way to bring him back to life just so I could remind him just how monstrously large his ego was for coming in here like this.

I can handle this on my own!

I tried to send him that message with my eyes, but he was too focused on the dragon to notice—or too busy avoiding my gaze after the whole kiss thing. Maybe both.

I folded my arms. How utterly unsurprising. Not only had he immediately regretted our kiss, but now he couldn't meet my eyes. When I continued shooting daggers—sharper this time—and he continued to avoid me, I loosed an exasperated sigh and elbowed him.

"Astrid," he said in a soft whisper, "is now really the time for this?"

"The time for what?" I hissed. "To talk about why you kissed me when you clearly didn't want to?"

"I did want to," he mouthed.

I rolled my eyes. "Right. Of course. And now you don't want to, so you're ignoring me even though I am standing right next to you inside a dragon's lair."

"I did try to stop you from coming in here, if you remember."

"Oh, I remember everything," I said bitterly. "The way you looked at me, the way you used your stupid shadow demon allure against me, and the way you turned it all off out of nowhere."

"Astrid." His eyes slid my way then. Regret and pain flared in their shadows. "You don't want to get involved with me. Trust me. I'm sorry I got so carried away. You're just…so damn beautiful I forgot myself." He sighed and turned back to the dragon. "It won't happen again."

"You don't get to tell me what I do or don't want."

"Astrid."

"No." I took a step toward him, no longer caring about the clatter of the gold coins. "You can tell me you don't want me or that you didn't enjoy our kiss, though I know that'd be a lie. But what you can't do is decide what I want."

"Astrid, keep looking at me. The dragon is awake now."

My eyes nearly bugged out of my head. "Oh."

"We might want to back away." His voice was shockingly calm, though his jaw clenched from the tension. Tormund held up his hand and flicked his fingers behind him. My mouth went dry. He wanted me to go first.

"Is she looking in our direction?" I whispered, trying to remain as still as possible. If she hadn't spotted us yet, I didn't want to help her find us.

A grim smile spread across Tormund's face. "You might say that."

Bloomin' fates. Shoulders tensing, I swung my gaze toward the dragon. She'd unfurled from her perch on the top of the gold coin mountain, her nostrils flared. Two ember eyes started right at me and Tormund. Fire licked her bared teeth, sharper than any blade I'd ever seen.

Terror tumbled through my churning stomach. "Uh oh."

"Go, Astrid. If you're quick, you can get out of here alive," he said, his mouth barely moving.

"You know, she can probably hear what you're saying just fine," I said. "No need to mumble anymore."

As if in answer to my statement, the dragon lifted her head from the gold and swung her snout in our direction. Flames licked the coins surrounding her talons, and the stench of char flared through the cavern, consuming us whole.