Hunted Warrior by Lindsey Piper Page A

because he knew her bluntness was a limited engagement. He doubted he would ever meet her like again.
    The thought left a hollow in his chest he couldn’t explain. Didn’t want to explore.
    â€œApparently you should’ve been able to glean that from their severed heads.”
    â€œYou killed them too quickly.”
    â€œI was trying not to die.”
    She edged the chair toward a wall so she could lean back. She wore the same heavy boots. The sole of one was pierced. New pants made from tanned leather clung to her slim legs as if they’d been tailored to her petite frame. A simple black tank top did its part to accentuate her rough femininity by clinging to small breasts and revealing arms that were slender, gracefully shaped, and barely tinted by the Mediterranean sun.
    She looked down at where he sat cross-legged on the mattress. He wanted to find his new shirt, but that would admit that her blatant appraisal of his body made him very aware of their contrasts. Man and woman. He was reacting to this strange, incredible woman in ways that made him edgy and . . . more . Needy. Eager. Perhaps it was simply intimacy. His sexual encounters were limited to brief affairs and the occasional lover, with whom he shared little but carnal exploration.
    The Honorable Giva could share nothing more.
    â€œSo. Your enemies. Name them.”
    Mal laughed. The sound was warped and painful to let loose, but he laughed anyway. “Who isn’t my enemy? Name a Dragon King, and he or she has a reason to want me dead.”
    â€œAvyi.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œA Dragon King who doesn’t want you dead.”
    Blinking against the gathering gloom, Mal lost track of the finer points of her features. Unacceptable. If he was going to have a conversation with Dr. Aster’s Pet—a fact that didn’t change because he’d given her a name—he would do so while being able to see each reaction and cue.
    He snapped his fingers. Sparks of light appeared before the sound of the snap even registered. He tossed the sparks between his hands like a ball until the motion created a continuous arc of light. He threw the arc toward the ceiling, where it cast its glow throughout the room.
    Avyi nodded toward a lamp on the floor in the far corner. “Why?”
    â€œI wanted to show off.”
    He kept saying things to her that were dangerous. Not because of the words themselves, but because he hadn’t checked his thoughts before uttering them. They shot from his mouth without reservation. Was that due to fatigue or just . . . her?
    â€œI’m impressed.” Her lips were curled into a smile as old as time. It was tempting and teasing, and frankly, he’d underestimated her ability to conjure such magic. “Now . . . think this through.”
    â€œAvyi, this is pointless. There’s no sense in racking our brains to identify which of hundreds of people, human and Dragon King, would benefit from my death, if only for their personal satisfaction. The trick is finding out how best to counter the next move.” He stood and stretched, his back already stiff from the few hours he’d spent trying fruitlessly to sleep. “I’ll call on my bodyguards and espionage experts to increase security at the stronghold before we arrive.”
    â€œThe bodyguards who didn’t notice my escape?”
    Mal flinched.
    â€œAnd the espionage experts who told you where to find me? Did I present a challenge for them?”
    Fatigue was a nasty rat in his brain. He didn’t have the patience to deal with Avyi, even when he was fully rested—although the last time he’d been fully rested, he’d impaled her with a bolt of lightning. “No, you didn’t. So if not my men, what do you suggest?”
    â€œWe don’t hide, at least not from Dragon Kings. We wait for the next people who try to kill you. And we ask them. Unless you kill them