She never expected to be attacked by dragons. Nor to go to bed with her smoking-hot savior...
Naomi Parker craves a hard reset. Unable to shake the grief of her fiancé's fatal accident, the photographer heads to the Alaskan wilderness to capture the...
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Col shifted back to dragon form and carefully picked up the injured woman in his large claws.
Mate. Mine, his dragon thought, pleased they were taking her with them.
He tucked her safely against his chest and heaved himself into the clear blue skies with a powerful flap of his wings. It took a moment to get high enough to catch the wind stream, but soon he was soaring over the wilderness below.
Herds of tasty looking creatures roamed below. Swaths of white powder covered the trees and mountains. It was beautiful...in a strange, new way. He wasn't completely opposed to the cold. It was just different than Reylea's eternal warmth.
He swooped lower, trailing the herd of running deer-like creatures. They'd seen his shadow approach and fled but were no match for his speed. Col dipped his head low enough to snatch a large one right from the back of the running herd.
Two snaps of his powerful jaws and the snack was gone. His belly was full, and he pumped his wings harder, thrusting himself back upward, high into the wind-stream. He caught the powerful current of air and let his wings billow like the sails of a ship.
The scent of the traitors was powerful in the air, but he kept his eyes looking for a village or camp of some kind. Further and further from the portal he flew. Still nothing. No sight of any type of a dwelling. No other natives. Just mountains and valleys and trees as far as the eye could see.
A dark blotch on the ground caught his keen eye.
A shelter?
The sun was beginning to set. The cold was getting colder, and the woman in his claws was feeling the bite of the wind much worse than him. Even holding her close to his warm chest wasn't enough. His innate dragon senses could tell her core temperature was dropping rapidly. Unless he wanted to kill her himself, he needed to find shelter and warm her up quickly.
Protect, his dragon snarled, curling his claws tighter around the precious cargo clutched to his chest.
Col circled back to the dark square he'd seen a few minutes ago. He landed nearby in a clearing a short distance away in the safety of the trees. No need to make himself known without checking the perimeter first.
Tucking his wings tight to his back, he moved through the forest, careful to keep his large body and tail from destroying his surroundings and giving away his position. He tucked his mate safely against his chest with one claw and moved forward carefully on three legs. Having her with him was slowing him down, but he couldn't bring himself to leave her alone while he scouted the shelter.
He crept closer, until he'd reached the clearing in front of the shelter. It wasn't huge, but it was definitely better than trying to camp in the open. The roof was almost completely covered by the white powder. There were drifts that covered halfway up the outside walls, but he could still see the door. It wouldn't take much for his dragon to dig a way in. No fresh scents were in the area. The trace odors of the natives who'd built it were months old. No one was living here now.
