Emins’ Mate(57)

To O’s credit, he hadn’t wanted to intentionally read Solar’s future. “Things get lost in translation when I intentionally seek them out, Solar,” he’d said. “Everything’s clearer if the prophecies come to me on their own.”

But Solar had insisted. The Oracle had prophesized and now Solar had to live with that knowledge.

The Oracle caught up with Solar and clapped a hand over his shoulder. The river rushed past them. The sun, caught behind a rain cloud, seemed to come from every direction, not just the sky.

“Look,” O began. “I’ve been thinking more about that prophecy and-”

The Oracle cut off talking as the jungle breeze shifted directions and a scent blew across their path. Solar simultaneously felt every muscle in his body freeze and catch fire at once.

What was that scent? Flowers and woman and long, clean hair and woman and sweet, dark sleep and vanilla and woman. His body cried out for it. His voice ripped out of his chest. Suddenly his vision was tunneled and spotty.

Solar’s hands became claws, his teeth lengthened in his mouth. His tongue flicked out and was forked, like a serpent. The scent. The scent. He was shifting before he could stop himself. His clothes exploded off of him and his body quadrupled in size. Midnight scales ripped out of his skin and sliced through the air.

Solar’s reptilian tongue licked out at the air, as if he could taste the scent on the air. He was too far from camp. Why had he walked this far? If he could smell it, then so could the other unmated males back at camp. Fuck. That.

They didn’t call him the fastest dragon in the realm for nothing.

Solar ducked his head and tore the air in two as he raced over the jungle canopy. The scent was leading him straight to her. It was a week before her birthday still. She was a week early. But the scent on the air couldn’t lie. It was the most enticing, mouthwatering scent he’d ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

As he winged through the air like a madman, he had only one thought in his mind.

Claim Zara.





CHAPTER SEVEN





Zara woke with the sun that morning. Half of the sky was still the turquoise-lavender of the nighttime’s last fight before the day takes over. She was out of bed in an instant, tiptoeing to the door of her hut, sliding it open just a silent inch, and peeking out.

But he was gone. Just like the morning before. And the morning before that. She sighed and got her things to wash herself up in the river.

As she walked back to the hut, her hair in a wet, swinging braid down her back, the sun was all the way up and her stomach growled for breakfast. She wouldn’t kick a cup of coffee out of bed either.

Speaking of bed. Zara tossed her soap and towel on the small table of her hut and looked longingly at her cot. She was never someone who wanted to get back into bed once she got out of it, but strangely, this morning a nap sounded delightful.

But, in the Surgere camp, there was never time for indulgences like that. There was always a task to be done. Zara would bet everything she had that Keiko had already been up for an hour and gotten at least four things off her list. So Zara dressed quickly and headed to the kitchen hut where she knew Keiko was putting in her morning shift.

She half-heartedly returned the waves and greetings of the unmated males as she hurried through the camp. But honestly, all the attention made her a little sick. Actually, she might have just been feeling a little sick in general. The jungle was warm enough by itself and when Zara stepped into the kitchen hut, the heat from the cooking fire swamped her. She pressed a hand to her forehead and steadied herself against the wall.

“Zar, are you alright?” Keiko asked, rushing over to her, half an orange in one hand and an uncracked egg in the other.

“I’m ok,” Zara waved her off. “Just feeling a little woozy this morning.”

“You look flushed. Are you overheated?”

“No, I don’t think so. I just cooled off in the river.”

“Here, drink some water.” Keiko divested herself of the orange and the egg and fixed a cool cup of water for her friend.

Zara drank deeply, but it didn’t help. Her vision swam, doubling and tripling the images in front of her. “I think I’m gonna go home and lie down.”

“That’s a good idea,” Keiko said, taking the half empty glass of water out of Zara’s hands and steering her out of the hut and back through the camp. “I’ll walk you home, in case any of these sailors get any ideas.”

Keiko had an idea herself of what Zara was going through right now, but she kept it to herself. She didn’t want to freak the girl out. She knew how much Zara had been stressing about it.

Once they made it back to Zara’s solitary little hut, Zara let Keiko tug her dress over her head, leaving her in her underclothes, and steer her into bed. Keiko unbraided Zara’s hair and left a canteen of water by her cot. She slipped out the door, wishing her friend silent luck with this next phase of her life.