Chapter Fifteen

Callum

I grabbed Madison by the waist and pulled her close to me just as a group of kids hurtled by. The oldest, no more than ten, was shrieking orders to his charges as they darted in and out of the crowd.

“Careful,” I admonished as I let go of her.

But it was too late. The contact had already been made. My arm tingled from the shock of touching her and the pressure, ever so brief as it was, of her body against mine.

The howling of my dragon as it demanded more nearly drowned out her response.

“Thank you,” she said, easing out from my grip, her voice taut.

Did she feel it, too?

Those strange spurts of static shock every time we touched, however purposeful or incidental the contact may have been, were impossible to ignore. For me. I had no way of knowing if Madison felt the same.

She must. Nothing else explains the thawing of her attitude.

The past three days had been entirely different. After showing her my dragon, Madison had run off into the palace. When she’d finally returned, she’d refused to say where she’d been or what she’d done.

But something must have happened because the snippy attitude had vanished entirely. It was gone, replaced by a cautious curiosity. About me and the world I lived in. Which had resulted in us coming to the city to gather things for her. Food, clothing, especially footwear that would be comfortable, and things to live with. A hairbrush was high on her list. Apparently, she didn’t want to share.

“You’re welcome,” I said, giving her a little smile. “Kids don’t know the difference between you and me yet. I don’t want them to break your arm by accident. You’ll get used to it in time, I’m sure, but for now, I’ll keep an extra eye out for you.”

Madison smiled back. We nearly locked eyes, but as if preplanned, we averted our gazes at the last second. Neither of us would acknowledge it, but we both knew.

As we continued wandering through the streets, I had to clamp down once more on my curiosity so as not to ruin a good thing. The only thing outweighing my desire to know what happened to her in the palace that day was the insistent nudging of my dragon to get closer to her, to stay in her bubble of space.

Or more. So much more. But the beast wasn’t in control. I was.

“I still can’t get over how relaxed everyone is,” Madison said for the third time as we resumed walking. “Nobody is rushing anywhere. There’s no sense of urgency. I’m surrounded by dragons, and even I’m not feeling stressed about it.”

“There’s no need for it,” I explained. “Especially because we can fly. So if we have to get somewhere faster, we can do so via the air.”

She nodded.

I opened my mouth to speak when I saw a familiar face. We locked eyes, and I nodded vaguely in his direction.

“Come on, let’s go down here,” I said, gesturing to the left at the nearest intersection as I took Madison by the arm to steer her that way, ignoring the prickling sensation I got every time I touched her. “We can get you some food.”

“Me? I think you’re trying to manifest your own desires in my head,” she said, laughing, also not reacting.

I chuckled. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Are you telling me you aren’t hungry?”

“I never said that,” she was forced to admit as we turned.

Hoping we were in the clear, I risked a glance up the street. I was wrong. The man’s eyes widened as he saw my hand on Madison. I snatched it back, but it was too late.

“Fuck,” I half moaned in irritation as the barrel-chested dragon bulled his way through the crowd directly toward us. “You have got to be kidding me.”

Madison was instantly alert. “What? What’s going on?”

“Nothing good,” I grumbled, regrabbing her, this time by the shoulder, and steering her faster down the street and toward an alley. “Come on.”

“Callum, what is it?”

“My mate’s brother.”

“That’s a bad thing?” Madison asked, though she didn’t resist my efforts to get us out of sight before he could round the corner and spot us.

“Cleye has always blamed me for Noa’s death,” I explained. “He says I’m the reason his sister is dead. That if she’d never met me, she would still be alive. That if I’d been a better mate, better able to protect her, she would still be alive.”

I didn’t tell Madison I harbored the same internalized guilt over Noa’s death even though I now knew it had been a murder. The point stood. If I’d been more alert, I might have realized she had made an enemy, someone who would want to murder her.

In the end, I still blamed myself.

“So, that’s why we’re running away?”

We hurried past several small shops before I tightened my grip ever so slightly on Madison and turned her, ducking into a chair seller’s shop. Dozens of chairs of every style imaginable hung from the ceiling. We hurried down the only aisle in the store with my head ducked low to avoid battering it against the solid wood pieces.

“Sorry, not interested,” I said, waving to the shopkeeper. “Can we use your back exit, please?”

The shopkeeper looked at the two of us, my arm around her, and smiled. He probably assumed we were not supposed to be together and were avoiding being seen. It was a drama that never visited his shop, and he was eager to be a part of it.

“Of course,” he said, coming to his feet slowly, the gray in his beard betraying his age. “Behind the mirror there. It will take you to the next alley over.”

“Thank you,” I said, easing the mirror aside and ushering Madison through first.

Looking over my shoulder to make sure Cleye hadn’t spotted us, I ran into Madison, who’d stopped.

“Whoa,” I cried, both arms snaking around her, stopping her from stepping forward into the couple who she’d paused to avoid as they walked by. My collision threw her off balance, and she stumbled forward.

As chance would have it, my right hand found her stomach, but my left hand closed around her breast as I pulled her into me, her back to my chest.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, dropping the hand as fast as I could.

She waved it off but didn’t say anything. We both stood still, making awkward eye contact with the other couple as they strolled past, taking their sweet time as if to drive home the point that we should slow down.

The entire three-second process only made me more keenly aware of the firmness of Madison’s backside while my hand echoed with the memory of her breast, firm and nicely sized.

My dragon fanned the flames, pushing images and ideas into my brain of touching Maddie without any clothing in the way. Of what it would sound like to hear her breath catch in her throat as I caressed her skin and teased her nipples until—

“Callum!”

It was Cleye. I whipped my head around to see him enter the alley. He must have anticipated what we were doing and moved to cut us off.

“Oh, come on,” I moaned, taking Madison by the hand and leading her down the alley in the opposite direction, looking for somewhere to go, somewhere to hide.

We reached the end of the alley, spilling out onto a main concourse.

“Come on,” I said, pulling her around the corner and hurrying to the next alleyway.

“Are we just going to repeat this?” she asked, growing impatient with me.

“No.”

We stepped into the alley and moved along it until nobody was near us.

“Don’t scream,” I said, stepping close to her, wrapping my arms around her waist, and pulling her tight to my chest. “Please don’t scream.”

Then I bent my legs and leaped into the air. At the same time, wings emerged from my back and propelled us into the sky.

Madison didn’t scream, but she did let out a too-loud eep! Which I knew would draw some attention.

We landed on the roof a moment later, the wings disappearing into my shoulders once more.

“Come on.” I led her across the rooftop and onto the next building. There, I ducked her down, hiding below the wall that ran around the edge.

“Callum, why are we hiding?”

“Shhh,” I said.

“Are you really that scared of him?”

“Be quiet,” I urged. “Dragon hearing is excellent. And no, I’m not scared. I just don’t want to deal with his belligerence. Nor do I want you to have to be subject to one of his tirades.”

“Okay, because it looks like you’re running scared,” she said. “We should just stay and face him and—”

Well aware that we were nearly out of time, I needed to stop Madison from talking. I put a hand over her mouth, but she glared at me and pulled it away, opening her mouth to speak.

In the alley below, I heard Cleye muttering angrily.

Acting without thinking, I leaned forward, grabbed Madison by the chin, and smothered her lips with my own, desperate to keep her from making any further noise.

You’re either a genius or an idiot for pulling this stunt.

As the kiss lingered, all coherent thought faded from my brain, replaced only with a roar of triumph from the beast I’d kept locked away inside me.