They came together. She threw eager arms around her mother, who nuzzled her. My sweet baby girl.

I miss you so much, Pia told her. Please come home.

Her mother drew back and looked at her with great, liquid eyes. I cannot. I have faded from your world. I no longer belong there.

Then let me come with you, she pleaded. Take me to wherever you are.

A roar of denial shook the trees. It ran through the earth, which trembled at their feet. Pia looked back at the male, although her mother remained untouched by the disturbance and seemed unaware of the figure in the trees.

You cannot join me, darling. Your place is among the living. Exquisite eyes smiled at Pia. Giving birth to you was the single most selfish thing I have ever done. Forgive me for leaving. I did not mean to abandon you.

Tears clogged her throat. I know you couldn’t help it.

I have come to warn you, said her mother. Pia, you must not be in this place. There is too much magic here. It is why I never dared to take you to an Other land.

She looked around. But I like it here. It feels so good.

You will be exposed here, and hunted. Go back. Starlight began to shine through her mother’s figure. Go back; blend in with humankind.

No, don’t go yet. Pia tried to reach for her.

But her mother had already faded, leaving a final message on the wind. Be safe. Know that you are loved.

She reached after her mother, almost grasping an answer to something important. She could almost make out where her mother had gone, could almost follow her, except the whispering wind curled around her and held her to the earth.

The whispering circled around her, stroked along delicate nerve endings, coaxing her, Pia, stay. That was not her true Name, but the Power behind the whispering was enough to make her hesitate. The wind became a dragon twining around her, brushing against her skin like a cat. Stay. Live.

She brushed her fingers along the hot skin of the beautiful, feral creature. It turned its head. Great molten, hypnotic eyes stared into hers and she was caught.

She woke up.

She was lying on the ground, wrapped in the Elven blanket, beside the glowing red coals of the dying campfire. Dragos crouched over her, hands cupping her head. He was whispering in a language she didn’t recognize, but it tugged at her bones.

“What is it?” she asked in a sleepy voice. She glanced down at herself. She was gleaming with a faint, pearl-like luminescence. She jolted full awake. “Goddammit, I lost hold of the dampening spell in that dream we had too. I’ve never lost control like that before. I can’t keep doing this!”

He took a deep breath. His body was clenched. A fine tremor ran through his heavy muscles. He was paler than she had ever seen him, eyes dilated and stark.

“What’s the matter?” she asked again. She laid a bright ivory hand against his cheek. “What happened?”

“I put you down,” he said. His blade-honed face was drawn. “I went to go wash at the stream. I wasn’t gone long . . . I was just twenty feet away.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “Whatever happened, it’s okay now.”

He was so upset, unlike anything she had seen from him. To date he had been calm, arrogant, infuriating, amused, angry, cautious, downright imperious. But this was like how he had been when she found him chained in the cell, only worse. It was hard to see such an indomitable male so shaken. She stroked his face.

He sank his fists into her hair as if to trap her more completely. “I turned around,” he gritted, “and I could see the fire through your body. You were transparent, Pia, and you were fading.”

“That’s impossible,” she said.

Or was it? Her mind raced back to her dream. If she had started to fade—could her mother have visited her in truth? Her lips pulled into a bittersweet smile.

“No smiling. This isn’t something to f**king smile about,” he snarled at her, his fists tightening. “You were almost gone. My hands passed right through you. If I hadn’t started calling you back, you would have disappeared for good.”

“Maybe, I guess, but I don’t think so,” she said in an absent tone, letting her fingers slide through his hair. She loved the inky black strands of silk. There wasn’t a kink or hint of curl in it. “I don’t think I could have gone where I tried to go. She said it wasn’t my place.”

“What are you talking about?” His eyes narrowed, but the tension in his body dialed down a notch.

“I dreamed about my mother.” Her gaze went unfocused and she said, “And I think it actually was her. When she left I tried to follow her.”

“You are never to do that again,” he said between his teeth. “Do you understand?”

“Dragos,” she said, speaking with care because he was still so upset. “You’ve got to stop giving me orders.”

No matter how gently she said it, it was still like a spark to dry tinder.

“Fuck you,” he snapped. He thrust his face down to hers, eyes flaring to lava and features hardening. “You’re mine. And you. Can’t. Leave.”

“Whoa, there. I don’t know what to say to you. You’re like some stalker guy on steroids.” She threw back her hands and rolled her eyes. “You are aware, aren’t you, that you can’t have slaves any longer. You know, abolition. Big war. Happened a hundred and forty, forty-five years ago.”

“Human history, human terms,” he snarled. “They mean nothing to me.”

She had already known she shouldn’t attribute human motives or emotions to him. Here was the reminder. The dragon was very close to the surface. The big body crouching over her was taut with menace. Every legend she had ever heard of a dragon’s possessive, territorial nature came to mind.

Damn, it was enough to make her swallow hard but not, she realized, in fear. Muscle by muscle she relaxed. “Okay then, big guy,” she said, soft and easy. “You tell me what you mean.”

“I don’t know.” That fierce, proud face was puzzled. “All I know is you’re mine to keep and protect. You can’t fade away, and you can’t die. I won’t let you.”

She thought it was not the time to point out that she was going to die at some point. She had too much human in her.

“So, I’m yours for how long?” she asked, curious now that she decided to explore this path. “Until you get tired of me, or you get bored again?”

“I don’t know,” he said again. “I haven’t figured this out yet.”

A sudden rush of affection surprised her. He wasn’t faking his perplexity. He wasn’t putting on an act. “That makes two of us,” she said. She thought of the Elven wayfarer bread, the hairbrush and the soap, and his thoughtfulness surprised her all over again. She reached up to run a finger down his throat. “So, for the sake of argument, if I’m yours as you said, to keep and protect, that seems to me like you would want me to—be all right. To thrive?”

“Of course,” he said. He looked down at her hand as she drew circles on his chest, and the menace he exuded turned darker, smokier.

“Dragos,” she murmured, “I don’t thrive when someone barks orders at me all the time.”

She peeked at him to see how he reacted to her logic. He was frowning. “It’s how I talk to people,” he said.

“It’s how you talk to your employees and servants, you mean?” she replied.

His frown deepened. She bit her lips to keep back a smile. How could she be so damn charmed by such a primitive thug? She had to establish a different footing with him or be mowed under by the sheer force of his personality.

“See, here’s the thing.” She kept her voice gentle while she started to rub his chest in soothing circles. “Someone barking orders at me makes me feel trapped and stifled. I understand you’ve gotten into a habit, but maybe,” she suggested, “you could try not ordering me around sometimes. You know, just until you get bored and let me go.”

He had grown heavy-lidded as she stroked him, but at that his narrowed gaze snapped up to her face. She smiled at him, nonthreatening and relaxed. “What if I don’t get bored?” he said. “What if I don’t let you go?”

She was jolted by a sense of longing that swept over her. She lost her smile and looked away. “We don’t even know what we’re talking about, anyway,” she said.

He loosened his grip on her hair, shifted his weight onto one elbow and took her luminescent hand. He tilted her arm and looked at it. “You’re remarkable. No, don’t!” he said, as she remembered and began to dampen the glow. “Let me see you as you really are, for a while at least. Look at how fast you’re healing.”

She looked. The ugly black bruises that had mottled her skin had almost faded. “I feel good,” she confessed. “Different, somehow. Better. More. Hey, am I the Bionic Woman?”

He smiled. “It sometimes happens with halflings when they come to an Other land,” he told her. “The heightened magic can help them access abilities and traits that might otherwise have remained latent.”

She tried to keep a tight grip on the hope that surged at his words but questions still leaked into her thoughts. Was this the explanation for everything she felt since they had crossed over? If what he said was true about her, might she be able to shift? What if she could end this sense of living a half life, the feeling of being caught between two incomplete identities, human and Wyr?

“I had no idea,” she said. “My mother always refused to bring me over to an Other place. I’ve never had enough Power to cross over by myself. I barely have enough for telepathy.”

In the dream, her mother had said it was dangerous for her to be here. She glanced around the dim coal-lit clearing. That meant they should leave soon. The thought lacked urgency.

“Ah yes, your mother,” he replied, sounding distracted as he inspected her slender fingers, the graceful tilt of her wrist. “Very soon we’re going to have a talk about your mother, who she was and why that dumbass Elf loved her so much. We’re also going to talk about why you’re not right in the head and if you have any more IDs or stashes of cash hidden anywhere.”

She snatched her hand back and smacked him on the arm. “None of that is any of your business! And just because he liked me but he didn’t like you doesn’t mean he’s a dumbass Elf!”

He gave her a lazy, predatory smile as he moved his torso over hers. “You’re not afraid of me at all anymore, are you?”

She sobered. Call her crazy, but she thought he would rather cut off his hands than hurt her. “So what if I’m not?” she muttered.

His beautiful, cruel mouth pulled into a smile. “I think if you’re not, it’s a very good thing,” he said. He moved, and before she realized what he intended, he had her hands pinned over her head. “It gives me all kinds of license to do bad things to you. With you. On you. In you.”

She jumped and her heart hammered. He looked at her splayed and helpless underneath him and insinuated one heavy thigh between hers. He pushed up with his leg as he bit her neck in the exact same place where he had in their dream. He drank in her gasp and held her with ease as she tried to tug her hands free. Not that she tried all that hard.

Excitement took the express shuttle through her body. She stretched for the sheer enjoyment of feeling herself slide against his naked torso, and his brilliant gaze tracked every movement she made. She was feeling less human by the minute.

She licked her lips. “Dragos, I don’t think . . .”

“You don’t think what?” His burning gaze swallowed her up.

“I don’t think I’m as good as I thought I was,” she whispered. Her eyelids dropped down and she smiled.

“That’s my girl,” he whispered.

He pushed her legs wider apart, settled between them and began a sensual assault on her, nibbling and licking. He pulled her lower lip between his teeth and suckled at the plump flesh, then thrust his tongue deep into her mouth.

They both groaned. He dug deeper into her, thrusting harder and harder. She tilted her head to open more to him. He shifted her wrists to one hand so that he could push the other under her tunic, running calloused fingers up to the soft swell of her breast. He grasped the plush mound with greedy care, found her nipple and began rolling it between his thumb and forefinger. He tugged at the sensitive flesh and gave it a light pinch.

Pleasure jolted through her as he played with her breast. Her breathing became choppy. She tugged harder, but he refused to let go of her wrists, his body hardening. She raised her legs to cradle his long body, shifting underneath him until his heavy, long erection lay nestled against her pelvis.

He hissed, face darkened with lust, and he reared up to grab hold of her tunic.

“No!” she cried, stiffening.

He froze. God love him, that dragon didn’t even breathe.

“I don’t have anything else to wear,” she explained. She gave him a shaky smile when his eyes flashed to hers.

The stricken look left his face. He let go of her wrists and sat back on his heels as she sat and yanked the tunic over her head. She tossed it to the ground. He put his hands to her rib cage and ran them up to cup her br**sts.

“Goddamn,” he said. His normal deep voice had gone hoarse. “Will you look at that.”

She looked down at them. The lines and curvature of her torso and br**sts looked ultrafeminine against the brawn of his big hands and muscular arms. Her radiance and the dusky hue of his skin seemed to feed on each other. The paleness of her skin was creamier, the blush of her ni**les pinker. The sinews of his hands and wrists shifted under skin that was a richer, deeper bronze.