Tara scowled.
“It's not just young idiots from the Sawney clan across the mountains? Cai was about ready to skin them if they flew against you again.”
“No, this is different.”
“Hey,” Harper broke in, adrenaline making her sharper than she should have been. “Can we discuss this later when we're safe? And can you get Morgan back to where people can check on him?”
“Absolutely,” Reese agreed. “Morgan's flown Air Reese before. It is a comfortable flight with no waiting.”
Harper laughed in spite of herself, shaking her head.
“All right. I've got the car here. I can drive behind. I'll be up tomorrow morning, and…”
Reese interrupted her with a laugh.
“Do you want to see Morgan tear my head off when I tell him I left his true mate at the site of an attack? Nothing doing.”
“But someone's got to bring the car along...” Harper said. She could feel a kind of tinniness to her voice. It was too many things. The adrenaline drop was catching up with her, and it was doing strange things to her ability to think and plan.
To her surprise, it was Tara who spoke, patting Reese on the shoulder.
“Don't worry, Air Reese is cleared for cargo in excess of well over two to three tons,” she said cheerfully. “Hm. As a matter of fact...”
*
And that was how Harper ended up in the back seat with an still-unconscious Morgan leaning against her, Reese's mate Tara in the front seat, and the entire car being flown north, carried gently in Reese's claws.
“This is insane,” she said. “This is completely insane.”
“Just another Friday,” Tara said easily. “You'll get used to it.”
Harper looked down at Morgan, watching the way his eyes twitched under the eyelids. She had heard somewhere that that meant he was dreaming, and she had to resist the urge to bend down and kiss him.
She hoped his dreams were good, and at the same time, she was very afraid that they were not.
Chapter Sixteen
∞∞∞
For the second time that week, Morgan had no idea where he was when he woke up.
I cannot make a habit of this, he thought muzzily, it's terrible.
Then he realized that Harper's hand was in his, and perhaps it wasn't so bad after all. He sat up with a wince at how stiff he was, and he found himself in a modern yurt, a pavilion formed from a round frame with drapes of felt to keep out the elements. It was dim, but there was an electric lamp hung up from the main pole, casting everything in a soft glow.
He was in a bed he could tell had been lashed together with a lattice of ropes to provide the support, and Harper was sitting on a small stool by his side, leaning over onto the bed and snoring slightly.
“Hey. Get up, you can't sleep like that.”
“Don't tell me what to do,” she said with a yawn, sitting up. “Are you all right? He said you would be.”
“Entirely fine,” Morgan responded a little uneasily. “Who's he?”
“Your cousin Reese. He's the one who got us here when I called.”
“Reese? You called Reese?”
His blood was suddenly pounding in his ears, and he stared at her with a tide of emotions tumbling through him.
“He was the last one you spoke to, and you said that the Marraks were your family. You said that they were kind.”
Morgan threw the covers aside to pace in the small space of the yurt. Now that he looked at it, he recognized it as belonging to the Marraks, who were fond of them for camping and convocations.
Convocations...
“We're here,” he said, because apparently there was no preparing for this. “We're actually here.”
“Yes, Reese just carried the entire car, including you, me, and Tara. Um, he also sprung for Coke and a pizza, which is right over there if you want some. You're looking a little ...”
“No,” Morgan said, looking around wildly. “I…you called him. What did he see?”
Harper was watching him, her eyes wide, but when she spoke, her voice was steady.
“He saw you. He saw that you were unconscious, and he said that you needed to spend more time in your dragon form, he…he wasn't mean about anything, Morgan. Will you please sit down?”
Inside his chest, his dragon was roaring, desperate and furious. It didn't understand that he had bested his opponent, or that he had protected his mate. Right now, all that it understood was that he had fallen from the sky, and that was unbearable.
“I can't,” Morgan said, shaking his head. “Why are you like this? Why are you being so – so –“
Harper was on her feet, approaching him with a concerned look on her face. He realized with a sickening feeling in his gut how often he had seen that look and what it meant. She was managing him as if he were a particularly cranky invalid or a child. A despair darker than any he had ever felt rushed over him like a tide.
“Morgan? So what? What am I being? Aren't I your mate?”
It should have thrilled him. Her admitting to being his mate should have sent him surging up to the moon, breathing fire in joyous abandon. Now all that joy was turned to ash, and he knew, even if his dragon didn't understand, that his days of flying were numbered.
She reached for his hand, and Morgan, without thinking, pulled back. The look of hurt and surprise in her eyes shook him, and just then, he would have given it all away if he could comfort her, every bit of gold in his hoard, every moment of flight he had ever had, every breath of flame he had ever breathed.
“Morgan!”
“Harper – I am so sorry.”
The words dropped from his mouth like stones, and he couldn't stand the confusion and fear in her eyes any longer.
He turned and left.
***
The terrain of Upstate New York was rocky, covered with forests, and to most people, was harsh and foreboding. Of course
