Breathless: A Firelight Novella (HarperTeen Impulse) by Sophie Jordan

to shake. I’m sure he didn’t tremble, didn’t cower at the end. And I have something, a defense Dad didn’t have. Fire .
    Then he moves, swims closer in an easy glide. A muscle feathers the flesh of his jaw, and something flutters in my belly. He doesn’t look hard, as I’d imagined. He doesn’t look evil. He looks … curious.
    He slaps a hand on the ledge and pulls himself inside. With me. No more than a foot separates us. Tight muscles ripple in his arms and biceps as he braces himself in a crouch, fingers lightly grazing the cave floor. Our gazes crawl over each other. Two strange animals inspecting each other for the first time.
    I sip air, fight to draw it inside my smoldering lungs. I begin to burn from the inside out.
    It’s not like I haven’t seen humans before. I’ve seen them lots of times when I shop with Mom and Tamra in town. Most of the time, I look human myself, even within the secret boundaries of our pride. But I still stare at him like I’ve never seen a boy before. And I guess I haven’t seen one like him. He’s no ordinary guy, after all. He’s a hunter.
    His black T-shirt is a second skin, plastered to his lean chest. In our shadowed cave, his wet hair looks nearly black. It could be lighter when dry. Medium brown or even a dark blond. But it’s his eyes that hold me. Deeply set beneath thick brows, they drill into me with a stark intensity, scanning me, all of me. I imagine myself as he sees me. My wings furled behind my back, peeking up over my shoulders. My supple-sleek limbs that glow like fire even in the gloom of the ledge. My narrow face with its pronounced contours. My ridged nose. My high-arching brows and my dragon eyes—two black vertical slits where the pupils should have been.
    He lifts a hand. I don’t even flinch as he closes a broad, warm palm over my arm. Feeling, testing. His touch glides downward, and I’m sure he’s comparing my skin—draki skin—to human skin. His palm stops, flattens over the back of my hand, rests over my long, talonlike fingers. Heat zings through me at the contact.
    He feels it, too. His eyes widen. A lovely hazel. Green with flecks of brown and gold. The colors I love. The colors of the earth. That gaze drifts over the wet snarls of my hair brushing the rock floor. I catch myself wishing he could see the girl within the dragon.
    A sound escapes his lips. A word. I hear it, but think, no . He didn’t say that .
    “Will!” a voice shouts from above.
    We both jerk, and then his face changes. The soft, curious expression vanishes and he looks angry. Menacing. The way his kind is supposed to look at my kind. His hand flies off mine, all intimacy severed. I rub where he touched me.
    “You okay down there? Need me to come—”
    “I’m okay!” The deep rumble of his voice bounces off the walls of our small shelter.
    “Did you find it?”
    It again. I huff. Smoke clouds from my nose. The smolder in my lungs intensifies.
    He watches me intently, his eyes hard and merciless. I wait for him to announce my presence, holding his gaze, refusing to look away, determined that this beautiful boy see the face he sentences to death with his next words.
    “No.”
    I suck in a breath as the smolder dies from my lungs. We stare at each other for a lingering moment. He, a hunter. Me, a draki.
    Then, he’s gone.
    And I’m all alone.

Copyright
    Copyright © 2012 by Sharie Kohler
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