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Calder found his dragon pacing inside her enclosure. 

Sunlight reflected off Ash’s mottled black-and-gray scales, inspiration for her name. When he arrived to open the gate, she growled at him, clearly irritated to be kept waiting. She clawed at the ground and shook her head, as if to demand some sort of explanation for his uncalled-for behavior.

“Sorry, my lady,” he murmured and cupped her massive head between both his hands. Her scales felt warm and somehow vibrant beneath his touch, as if the scales themselves possessed a bit of her essence. He pressed his forehead to hers in their customary greeting. Ash chuffed, the scales on her face rumbling beneath his palms.

She was still mad. He could sense it. One of the benefits of bonding between dragon and rider involved an exchange of emotions. They could communicate, not with words, but with feelings. It was more of a vague sensation, an awareness of how the other felt.

“I didn’t have a choice, you know.” He ran his fingers down the side of her face, back up to follow the graceful curve of her ridges and horns.

Ash shook her head and growled again.

He clucked his tongue and continued to caress her face and neck, admiring the powerful beauty that was her. She wasn’t as bulky and strong as the larger dragons. But everything about Ash screamed agility and beauty and intelligence. She could hold her own against any dragon in the flight, against any threat in the mountains. She would fly into Myrkstone if he asked, and he loved her for it, fiercely.

They had always been so much more than dragon and rider.

At last, she closed her fiery orange eyes and succumbed to his caresses; her growls turned to purrs of contentment. Yes, dragons purred as shamelessly as cats, when treated properly. They basked in sunlight and physical touch and possessed a strange affinity for fish but had a mind and will of their own. Other than the vast difference in size and shape, dragons and cats could have been related.

Calder grinned to himself. To tame a goddess, a man must simply learn to love her.

“Do you wish to take to the skies, my love?” Calder whispered in her ear. Ash opened lazy eyes and snorted at him, as if she understood his game. However, she nuzzled his shoulder and then pranced away, her lithe form wriggling with anticipation.

He laughed and checked her harness to make sure the lads had fitted her properly. She was particular about the girth. If it was only a little too tight, she’d fly upside down until he fixed it.

Calder secured his staff across his back, swung easily onto Ash’s saddle, and fitted his legs into the thigh-high stirrups. He didn’t bother hooking himself to the harness.

He never did.

They had an unspoken agreement. If he trusted and loved her, Ash would never toss him off her back. In the ten years since they bonded? She had never lost him, not once, even in the most chaotic of skirmishes. Not even when they first began to work together, he a boy of only fifteen and she young and untested.

Ash pranced in a circle and then launched herself toward the door of the enclosure. As soon as her frilled tail cleared the gate, the dragon took to the skies. Her leather wings beat against the air, driving them higher and higher, away from the stone and rock below and up toward the heavens. Calder whooped as she banked sharply and circled around the stable yard before angling them toward the peak of the mountain.

First, they would play. Then she would let him put her to work.

He closed his eyes and spread both arms wide, as if he had wings of his own. The bitter wind whipped past him, numbing his nose and cheeks, but he didn’t care. He let the cold mountain winds wash away the stink and filth of the dungeons.

No matter what happened in the bowels of the mountain, if he had this? If he had Ash?

He had all he needed from life.