Dragon Chained by Haley Ryan

Author:Haley Ryan [Ryan, Haley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Page Nine Press
Published: 2020-03-30T16:00:00+00:00

I must have blacked out, because the next thing I knew, I was waking up on my couch. Daylight was making its way in past the curtains, and the warm weight of Chicken was purring on my chest. My hand shook a little as I reached up to stroke his velvety head, somehow feeling desperately glad to see him.

Even more glad to be able to move my arms.

I was home. Safe. Everything was normal.

“How are you feeling?”

Or not-so-normal. Apparently, there was still the small matter of a lightning-wielding fae assassin hanging out in my living room.

“Been worse,” I said. It was a lie. Even the stomach flu hadn’t felt quite this bad. My whole body hurt, and while my shapeshifter healing abilities would no doubt deal with my bruises before too long, in the meantime, I felt like I’d been hit by a bus.

I saw movement and turned my head to see Draven coming towards me out of the kitchen. He’d borrowed a shirt—one of my enormous promotional shirts with the name of some random HVAC company on the front—so at least his chest was covered. His wings were gone, his eyes were their usual gray, and there was no sign of lightning on his skin. And yet… some part of me flinched when I saw him coming.

And he saw me do it.

He stopped dead, about ten feet away. “Are you afraid of me?” His voice was soft, level. As if he didn’t want me to know whether he cared one way or another.

I lifted my head, gritted my teeth, and sat up, dislodging Chicken, who settled into my lap with only minimal grumbling. And as I struggled to make it that far, I saw Draven’s hand move. Just a brief, instinctual twitch in my direction, an impulse he couldn’t quite check.

That twitch, I decided, told me the only thing I needed to know in that moment. He cared. Whether he wanted to or not, whether he wanted me to know or not. I doubted it was much more than a general impulse to keep poor, pathetic little me from being eaten by something bigger and scarier than I was prepared for, but it was there, so I really didn’t care what Faris thought.

“Look, I won’t lie,” I told him honestly, leaning the side of my head against the back of the couch. “What you did at The Portal was a little bit scary, but mostly because I wasn’t expecting it. Plus, it happened right after Faris informed me that I was too young and innocent to be running around the city with an assassin.”

He stood very still. “Is that what Faris told you I am?”

“It’s what he called you, yes. I suspect he was hoping to convince me that you were dangerous and that I should stay away from you.”

“He wasn’t wrong.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “You tell me this now? I think we’re a little past that, don’t you?”

“I could handle the rest of the search on my own,” he said, his expression gone cold and remote.

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