“Who needs to know?” He sat up abruptly. “Every Male over the age of eighteen is in the war. The Wolves we’ve left behind? The Females, the old Males, and the disabled? We should tell them? Trust me, Lena, everyone who needs to know, knows. And I’m not even saying it’s wrong.” He stood up, his bad leg wobbling a little until he righted himself. “It’s us versus them out there. If we don’t stop them, they’ll burn all of our woods until there is nowhere left for us to shift. They’ll take our homes, destroy our people. No, they have to be stopped. But don’t make the nesting missions nobler than they are. They are the last-ditch effort of a desperate people. Nothing more, nothing less. If they’re working—fantastic. I’m thrilled.”
Lena got out of the bed. She needed to find her clothes. Devin was clearly done with her. “I guess I understand.”
“You don’t, and I’d rather you didn’t.” He turned to look at her, his eyes narrowing. “Where are you going?”
“Well…you got up so I assumed we were done.” What was it about Devin that always made her feel so unsure? Were they not finished?
“I have trouble staying still when I’m conscious. You don’t have to leave.”
His hadn’t said he wanted her to say. “I think I’d better get going.”
It wouldn’t be proper for her to stay. Gods, it hadn’t been proper for her to come in the first place, but she didn’t want to get caught by Devin’s parents. That would be awful. They might force a marriage on Devin, and he’d been quite clear about not wanting to be tied to her.
“I’ll walk you home.”
The stillness of the night changed in a second as the alarm that signaled a Dragon approach sounded. Lena rolled her eyes. They always sounded the alarm, and it never meant anything.
Devin grabbed her arm, throwing her down on the ground with his body above hers.
He spoke on his hiss. “Don’t move. They can’t smell us as well as we can scent them. You’ll be able to sniff them out even if I can’t. They also can’t see that well in the dark. If you don’t move, they won’t know we’re in here.”
Lena touched Devin’s face. “It’s okay. It’s nothing. These things sound three times a month. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed them before. Maybe the drugs helped you sleep through them? They’re never anything. The Dragons don’t make it this far inland. Our border patrols either shoot them from the sky or claw them down if they try to pass on the ground. It’s nothing.”
Devin stayed silent for a moment. “You don’t smell Dragon?”
“I’ve never scented one so I don’t know exactly what their aroma would be, but I don’t smell anything that I can’t identify.”
Finally, Devin nodded and got off her. “I’m sorry I knocked you down. My objective was to protect you, not to harm you. I guess I overreacted.”
“It’s okay, Devin. I don’t wound easily.” He had thrown his body over hers when he had thought that danger approached. That had to mean something. “Thank you for trying to protect me.”
“Maybe you should go home. I’m not right in the head. I know about the alarms. They had them when I was younger, too. I just forget things about before.”
She put her hand in his, wanting desperately to shift but knowing she wouldn’t while Devin couldn’t. “Walk me home, please.”
He nodded. They moved through his quiet house together. Finally, they reached the outside. Devin looked up at the sky. “The air feels still to me. I don’t feel the telltale sign of Dragon wings in the air.”
Lena had never experienced that sensation herself. “Why do you think they didn’t kill you?”
He stared down at her, his face illuminated by the neighboring house lights. “I have no frickin’ idea.”
They had just about reached her place when Devin stopped walking. In two strides, he had picked her up and pressed her against the back of a large tree that sat next to her house.
“I want you again.”
Lena stopped breathing for a moment. “You do?”
“Do you desire me, or have I frightened you off?”
“I’ll always want you, Devin.”
He said something she couldn’t make out and then he pushed against her, pulling down her pants as he did.
“Here? Outside? Where anyone can see us?”
“No one is around, and we’re hidden in the dark of this tree.”
Lena glanced around frantically. They were hidden; he was correct. But he wanted to do it where they might get caught? She stared at him, enthralled by his sexy gaze as he stared at her. His attention seemed obvious. Devin wanted to eat her alive.