Free Torn: Bound Trilogy Book Two by Kate Sparkes Page A

beneath.
    She leaned forward to whisper in my ear. “I like your claws.”
    I wondered what she’d think of me if my fire returned, if I went back to looking into people’s minds, bending them to control their thoughts and actions. She hadn’t been too keen on it when we first met, and still seemed overly concerned any time she thought I might have used it. I’d given it up for her as much as for Emalda’s rules.
    Those thoughts fled when she pulled me into a deep, long kiss. Her hand slid over my chest and around the back of my neck as her lips pressed against mine, warm and real. Occasional shared dreams were pleasant, but were no better than pretty illusions compared to this.
    My body instantly became more alive, and her touch made me shiver as it chased the night’s chill from my flesh. She laughed deep in her throat and kissed me again. I wanted more, but the talk of dragons reminded me about the gift.
    “I have something for you,” I said.
    “I bet you do.”
    Instead of answering, I went to my coat and pulled a cloth-wrapped bundle from the pocket.
    She gave me a curious look. “What’s this?”
    “Open it. I didn’t know I’d be leaving when I had it made, so it’s not a farewell gift. I just thought you’d like it.”
    Rowan gasped when she pulled the cloth open. “It’s incredible!”
    “You don’t mind? Celean helped me get it from your room.”
    She held up the necklace, a silver chain with a flat, ruby-red pendant hanging from the bottom.
    I’d found the dragon scale cracked after her binding broke. Rowan had decided to keep the pieces hidden deep in her closet in case she ever needed a reminder of the incredible power within her. The silversmith hadn’t been able to put a hole through the teardrop-shaped remnant to hang it. He’d had to meld silver to the edges and do it that way.
    “Of course I don’t mind,” she said. “It’s incredible. I wonder what Ruby would think of it.”
    “You might find out some day. We still owe her a story.” The dragon had released us on the condition that we return and tell her how things turned out for us. It had to be the strangest way anyone had ever escaped from a dragon’s lair, and I doubted anyone but Rowan could have done it.
    She lifted her arms to hold her hair up behind her head, and I reached behind her neck to fasten the chain. Her hair fell back around her shoulders in heavy waves as she rubbed her thumb over the pendant’s surface, admiring it before opening a few more buttons on her jacket and letting the scale settle against the bare skin over her heart.
    She faced me. “What do you think?”
    “Perfect,” I whispered, and she smiled. I think she knew I wasn’t talking about the necklace.
    “The story’s not over, though, is it?”
    “Not remotely.”
    She left the necklace on all night. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe her coming to my room only made it harder for me to leave the next morning. I needed sleep before a long journey, but I needed her more. She didn’t have to use words to tell me she felt the same.
    I saddled a good horse and started out long before dawn, after Rowan left to sneak back into her room. There was no one else I needed to say goodbye to. Albion would understand if I left quietly. I rode through the remainder of the night, and reached the bridge not long after the sun crept over the horizon.
    Over the winter I had grown accustomed to keeping my defenses up, to doing everything I could to keep Severn from sensing my precise location. As I dismounted and led the horse across the narrow bridge, I dropped those walls, opened myself to whoever might be looking for me, and hoped that by staying that way as I rode deeper into Tyrea I would draw his attention away from the island.
    My odds of success were slim at best. I wouldn’t endanger the people of Belleisle by hiding—not until I knew I’d drawn the danger away.
    I mounted the horse again and reached into my pocket to touch the smooth pebble of purple