Free Bound to the Dragon King by Caroline Hale

hadn’t run off, I wouldn’t have gone with Colin to begin with.”
    “No shifter army, huh?” I knew there couldn’t have been that many of them around.
    “No,” he replies sadly. “No, unfortunately there is not a legion of powerful beasts making their way here to help our cause. Just a fractured pack of cursed werewolves that I turned into a group of confused, broken people.”
    “I’m sorry it worked out like that.”
    “I could feel that some of them wouldn’t survive so I had to leave them in wolf form. Colin’s deception is understandable. All he wanted to do was save his sister.”
    “Did you save her?”
    “More or less,” Ash replies, glancing at the tiny dragon skeleton for a moment. “He also wanted to be the Alpha, and he got his wish.”
    “Really?”
    “Their leader was too old, I couldn’t change her. Even if I could have, we didn’t think it through. I ended up leaving a half dozen naked people in desert, arguing over what to do next. You’re right. I am impulsive. Hotheaded. My father always said it would hinder leadership,” Asher murmurs, his gaze moving to a massive skeleton across from the tiny one.
    “Asher... is that your sister?”
    “Yes. After seeing Colin and Ellen together, I just had to know if she was here.” Turning from me, he drops to his knees in front of her remains. “I wonder how she died,” he says, his voice shaking as he brushes some sand away from the tiny pits in the skull’s surface. “Who put her here? There is no one left to ask and it’s all my fault.”
    “You were just a kid.”
    “No, she was just a kid,” he snarls, clenching his fists. “Look how little she was. Still, I bet she put up a good fight, if she saw it coming.”
    His jaw starts to tremble and I just can’t stop myself, sinking to my knees and crawling toward him. Asher pulls me into his lap once I’m within reach, wrapping his arms so tightly around me it’s hard to breathe.
    “I belong here with them,” he whispers, sinking his head into my shoulder.
    “No, you belong with me.”
    He chokes out a stifled sob, nodding. “I’m so tired. I barely made it here, I practically fell out of the sky. But now you’re here…”
    Asher falls on his side, pulling me to the ground with him. It’s hard to imagine that he’s in the mood, and I’m certainly not. But if we don’t, we’ll be stranded out here. Maybe we can make out a little bit and fly further away to charge up. And finish making up.
    The dragon’s powerful voice rumbles in a low groan through my human lover’s chest as he drapes his arm over my waist. It’s heavy, but I only feel the pressure on my ribs for a moment before I’m surrounded by fire and the arm becomes a wing that blocks out the chill. I glance up at the massive black dragon and find that he’s already asleep. He must not be ready to leave what’s left of his family yet. I snuggle up next to his warm body, the tattoo on his scaled chest flaring as brightly as the brand on my thigh.
     
     

Chapter Nine
     
    When my eyes open, I’m staring up at million stars shining in the inky black sky, so we must have only slept for a few hours. A fiery light illuminates the graveyard the moment I’m out from under Asher’s wing. I whip around and find him lying on the ground in his human form, naked and blinking in confusion.
    His face hardens as his gaze focuses on the skeleton of his little sister. “I don’t want to be here anymore,” he says flatly as his eyes lock with mine.
    “Okay.”
    The wind picks up as Ash rises to his feet. “Did I shift?”
    “Yeah. In your sleep, I think.”
    “There goes my latest pair of pants,” he chuckles, picking up a piece of shredded denim. “You wouldn’t happen to have spare in your bag, would you?”
    “Actually, I do,” I say proudly, retrieving them. “And I managed to put a reassembly enchantment on them, so hopefully this is the last time you’ll find yourself in this