His expression was unexpectedly bright and teasing, with a dark pink flush across his features. He was half-sweating, half-covered in melting snow. His dark, silver-tipped hair was sprinkled with ice crystals that were quickly turning to gleaming droplets.

“On a small scale, maybe. Unless one of your hobbies means you’ve learned to pilot a Cessna off a short, slick runway that leads right over the Beas—you take off, or you drown—then I suggest we stay friendly with the locals. That means as little obvious manipulation as possible. I can’t force them to behave out of character, or someone will notice. The more they notice, the more foreign and threatening we’ll appear.”

“Wait, how do you know it’s not one of my hobbies?”

“This isn’t the time for sarcasm. We need a pilot. That means being fair to the innkeeper and getting recommendations.”

Tallis made a face that was complete slapstick. Scowling mouth. Deep frown. He looked like a child on the verge of a fit . . . until he grinned. “Very well. Play by the rules. You’ll be the first Indranan in the history of our race to do so.”

“Pig.” She slugged him on the shoulder, but his heavy coat protected him. So did his strength. Dragon be, his strength. He’d already recovered from carrying her down half of a very steep slope. “But that’s not to say persuasion isn’t in order.”

“How are you going to manage then?”

“I . . . I have a favor to ask.”

Wariness crept over his features. As well it should, she thought.

“What’s that?”

“We know I can’t read your mind. Maybe because you’ve been able to resist. I don’t know how. All I know is that an unwilling mind is harder to read. Can you try? Try to give me something from your thoughts?”

Tallis’s brow was furrowed again, with no playfulness this time. “Give you what?”

She inhaled. “Anything . . . interesting. Anything to distract the innkeeper and make him curious enough about what goes on between us to let us stay.”

She knew how she must look. Ruggedly used. Wind-whipped. Exhausted. Some blood still splattered her sari in gory, dark brown constellations. She was desperate, and she’d do what she needed to find them shelter, but part of her knew this was important. Had she spent two days with another Indranan, she would’ve known what to believe . . . to trust. Until they fulfilled their respective ambitions, she and Tallis were bound. She couldn’t decide whether to take comfort from that fact, or to steal a knife from the inn’s kitchen and keep her eyes open all night. Knowing what kind of man had carried her through a blizzard was as important as food and a soft, warm place to sleep.

“Show me what you see when you look at me,” she said. “Let me give him that.”

“Right now? I see a freeze-dried rat.”

“I mean, how you think of me in my best light. How you think of me when you imagine us upstairs.”

“Upstairs like that couple? Fucking? You want me to imagine you that way and just hand it over to you?”

Swallowing her embarrassment and anticipation, she swallowed tightly. “Yes.”

“I’ll try,” he said with a dark smile. “But I won’t be doing it to buy a little goodwill from a horny innkeeper. I’ll be doing it to seduce you.”

CHAPTER

FOURTEEN

Tallis knew there was a practical purpose behind her request. It made sense to gather as little notice as possible in a town that small. These people might never have met a Dragon King, which meant he and Kavya would walk as gods among mortals. In bigger cities with more jaded populations, their kind didn’t stand out so prominently.

They needed a room for the night. Tallis really didn’t want to search the storm for another. This place had the rustic charm of a pub back home, inviting in the sense that anyone could walk in, order a pint, and start a conversation about politics or sports on the telly. Conversations might turn to good-natured fights, but that was part of the appeal. A little roughhousing never hurt anyone, or else he and his brothers wouldn’t have escaped childhood.

He shuddered when he compared his upbringing with the actual terror Kavya must have experienced—or all of the Indranan, for that matter. No roughhousing. Life or death.

Beyond the practical, he was going to make Kavya work for access to his mind. Maybe it was possible if she focused hard enough while he made an effort to let her in. But he’d only just started to differentiate between the real Kavya and some dreamscape figment. He didn’t want to start losing track of the real woman while she rattled around in his thoughts doing Dragon knew what sort of damage.

Her expression said doing damage was the last thing she was considering. Dark, gently widened eyes stared at him as if he’d asked her to disrobe before curious patrons. Some had stopped talking to watch their interplay. But Tallis hadn’t asked her to disrobe. He’d told her the truth. She was the one who wanted to bare his innermost thoughts—fantasies, actually. So he’d give them to her. Any way he could manage.

“Imagine what you like,” she said at last. “If I can get a glimpse of anything, I can use it.”

“Use. That seems to be a common theme for you.”

“Do you think I like this? I’ve never used my gift to manipulate anyone for personal gain.”

“All for your altruism, I suppose.”

She stared up at him with eyes so luminous and pleading that Tallis’s heart jumped. “Yes. The idea of manipulating people for personal reasons . . . repulses me.”

Her shudder was strong enough to affect him physically, adding a touch of nausea to fantasies and strategy.

“And you’re not making it any easier,” she added. She glanced around, nose wrinkled like a rabbit scenting an approaching predator. “They think we’re making a scene. Is that what you want? Just do this, Tallis. We have your seaxes to barter, or we have whatever image you can conjure. Otherwise we’re back out in the snow.”

“And if you’re just as incapable now as before?”

“Do it,” she hissed.

“Fine.” He pulled her aside, to a far wall banked with shadows. Although what appeared to be the innkeeper still eyed them, they had relative privacy. Tallis held Kavya’s wrists in his palms, all of which were just beginning to thaw. He pushed past the white chill memories of the past hour and focused on the soft curve of her luscious lower lip. “You want it? You got it. Try to keep up, goddess.”

He stared into eyes shaded to resemble freshly tilled earth, fertile and ready to welcome the spring, just as her body would welcome his. The pulse at her wrists accelerated along with his heartbeat. Kavya licked the lip he couldn’t ignore—would never forget.

“Show me.” But after breathless minutes, she began to shake. Those inviting eyes pinched shut. “I can’t read a Dragon-damned thing,” she said, her voice jagged with frustration.

Although he shouldn’t have felt anything but relief, Tallis shrugged off a surprising sting of disappointment. His mind was filled with visions and dark fantasies. She couldn’t see any of them. Their closeness was what had her pulse racing, and he should’ve been just fine with that.

Forget it.

Telepathy as seduction? Never again. He was Pendray—a man of the earth, of base things, of sexual appetites that surpassed those of the other clans. Besides, he’d had enough of temptation that began and ended in dream.

“Then we’ll do it the old-fashioned way,” he said.

“Here?” The word was a quick squeak.

He touched his mouth to her neck in a kiss meant to torment as much as arouse. She had him caught in tangles and brambles, and he wanted her just as trapped. “No, with words. I’ll start. Do you feel my breath on your skin, Kavya?’