Free Dragons Against Them (Kingdoms of Fire and Ice Book 2) by Kyra Jacobs

witches were very much a part of his.

Chapter 9
    R osalind awoke with a start .
    Daylight? How could it possibly be daylight? She lifted her head and looked around, trying to make sense of the view. Before her was a clean but rustic hut made of wood rather than the familiar stone of Forath Castle. The roof overhead was thatch, the windows mere coverings over open holes. A hint of smoke lingered in the air she breathed, as did the scent of drying herbs.
    At least she had not been captured and returned to her father. Not yet, anyway.
    Rosalind sat up and grimaced at how every muscle in her body seemed stiffer than ever before. The primitive cot on which she had apparently slept creaked beneath her shifting weight. It was less sturdy than her bed at the castle, but its coverings were just as soft and their colors far more vibrant.
    “I was beginning to wonder if ye planned to sleep the day away.”
    Jaxon. Even after spending but half a day with the man, she would forever recognize the deep timbre of his voice and its melodious, confident pace. But whenever had she fallen asleep? And how had she gotten here?
    Rosalind pulled the cot’s quilt to her bosom, unused to feeling such a lack of control. And though fury raced through her like fire on the driest of fields, one dark look cast at the man sitting hearthside across the room from her only served to stoke her ire. Because he was beautiful, strikingly so, and her traitorous pulse raced at the sight of him.
    Unlike the men at her castle who wore tunics and armor or robes and furs, Jaxon wore neither. His pants looked to be of the softest of leathers, colored a deep brown, and fit like a second skin to his long, lean legs. The shirt he wore was ivory in color and of a different fashion from anything she’d seen before. There were no buttons or strings, only clean lines and a collar that formed a V at his chest, offering a glimpse of fine russet hair which matched that of his thick, wavy locks. Today those locks were no longer pulled back from his face but hung loose upon his shoulders, still wet from an early morning bathe, and his feet were yet bare.
    “Now, before ye jump up and start screaming about your sleeping here, Princess, let me first say two things. One, the sleeping potion was to protect, not harm ye, and two, I did no’ lay so much as a finger upon your snowy white skin.”
    “You drugged me? Do you have any idea—”
    “How that makes ye feel? No. But had I no’ placed ye in my own bed, a floor in another hut is where you would have slept last night. And likely not alone.”
    He rose to his full height, drawing her gaze along with him. And a fine specimen he was. Fire rushed to her cheeks. “Perhaps I would have preferred the floor.”
    “Aye, but you would no’ have enjoyed the company. Or so I have heard.” He crossed the room, his stride undeterred by her petulance, and stopped to kneel before her. The teasing look vanished from his countenance. “What do ye remember from yesterday, lass?”
    Rosalind tried to look away from his gaze, from the dim glow of his russet eye and the clouded look of his other, but again found she could not. “I remember the flight and the arrows, the wall and how you somehow flew straight through it—how were we able to pass through solid rock?”
    “The rock is but a trick of the eye. There exists a cavern leading to Edana, hidden from view by a spell of illusion cast by those among us who are skilled in such ways.”
    She frowned. “But what would keep Forath’s guards from following your path?”
    “They never approach the cavern, as wards have been cast all around its location to bring feelings of unease and fear to anyone—man or beast—who draws near it. Tell me, what else do you remember?”
    Rosalind squirmed beneath his stare, the space around them beginning to feel far too small. “We flew a short distance beyond there, and landed in a meadow at the edge of a wide field. You both returned to human form,