Page 56 of Feathers and Scales

Keiran cleared his throat. She reined in her wandering mind.

“It’s hard to teach someone how to prioritize others over themselves,” Keiran said. “And that’s something that comes naturally to him. Everything he has done has put him in a position to become the next Centurion of North America. So, if you’re a threat to him, I won’t hesitate to erase your memories.”

Something crawled along her spine. She swallowed. “And what if he’s a danger to me?”

“We would ensure your safety.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

He ran his hand through his curly black hair but gave a pointed look to the apple.

She ate another mouthful.

“I, too, am mystified by what is happening between the two of you,” he said. “But I want to make you aware that he’s acting as if he’scaught in a woman’s heat. I’m not telling you this so you’ll go easy on him, but understand that things will be testy until he can figure out his response to you. The greater a dragon’s dominance, the more overwhelming their protective and possessive instincts become. And you’ve gotten under his skin.”

Lightning crackled along Izzy’s veins at the memory of her body’s reaction when he’d grabbed her.Under the skinwas too tame for what it truly was. He had nestled into her bones, the fiber of her being, like a wave that had slammed her to the ocean floor.

Izzy cleared her throat. “I have seen signs in him similar to the Dance accounts in Centurion Cornelius’s journal. From what I have read, he is handling himself better than most.” Of the accounts she read, most had ended with shifting dragons and bloodshed.

The glossy darkness in Keiran’s eyes became liquid, as if the dragon stirred. It reminded her of a passage from a book about the rare black dragons. Those referred to as wild and untamable beasts cloaked in human skin.

“Can I demonstrate something to you?” he asked. “It might hurt.”

Too curious to say no, she nodded her head.

A cement wall of dominance crushed her spirit, as if a powerful demon tried to bend her to its will. Izzy gasped. Relying on her spirit’s strength, she combated the force with her own will. She didn’t look away even as pain shot through her temples like sharp hot pokers. Pressure and heat suffocated her like she stood in a cremation chamber. Her sentiment that his presence might burn her alive was coming true.

“Daxton is like me, except most of his strength is kept under lock and key,” Keiran said. “I haven’t met a man with such a dominant beast. He’s a quarter of my age, yet he stood against me today as if he were my equal. I do apologize for the pressure, but this power you’re under, Daxton experiences it every day and must keep it contained.”

Izzy struggled to breathe, her head pounding.

Keiran cleared his throat. “I’m also not forcing you to eat, but instinctively you’re doing what I’m nonverbally telling you to do using my dominance. Dragons are instinctive, and sometimes that can be hard to control. Just like you can manage your instinct to eat, Daxton can manage his protective instincts around you, but it’s taxing when he has a dominant dragon breathing down his neck.”

As the weight lessened, Izzy’s stomach twisted in knots.

“I’ll keep that in mind and do my best to uncover what is between us,” she said, voice breathy. She couldn’t imagine fighting such a force daily.

“Have some answers by the time I return.”

She tugged at the tail of her shirt to dry the cold sweat that had gathered there. “You’re leaving?”

“There’s another chief I have to deal with.”

His heated presence still pressed at her. A threat. Maybe not to her, but what of the other Fallen? “Keiran, will my kind be safe from the dragons?”

“My dragon doesn’t consider you a threat.” His mannerisms, direct eye contact, and steady posture spoke of truth. “Our Insight governs us, and evil does not touch you. As such, we would never harm you or others like you. As long as you do not choose a Tattered One’s path.”

Relief tugged a sigh from her lips. “Do I have your word?”

He pressed his fist to his heart. “I promise, Izzy. You never know, we might make a good team, dragons and Fallen.”

She offered a shy smile as the tightness in her chest subsided. With a last leveled look, he stood and walked away. Her eyes had just sunk back down to the journal when he spoke again.

“Oh, and Izzy?”

She looked up.

“This thing between you andDaxton…it gives me hope.”