Chapter Twelve

Cami sat beside Drake in silence as they drove the last miles to her home. Lost in a bazillion of her own thoughts, and grateful, for once, that he wasn’t a talker.

Despite her best efforts, her body still thrummed with aching awareness of the man beside her. He’d made her come into Target with him to watch as he grabbed a bunch of clothes, hardly stopping to check sizing, and tossed them in his cart.

“What if that doesn’t fit?” she asked, as a plaid shirt joined the pile. After all, his shoulders were pretty broad, and he was tall.

He’d shrugged. “They have a good return policy.”

Which meant he’d shopped at Target before. Somehow picturing him, or any of the dragon shifters she’d encountered, doing such mundane things just felt bizarre. I guess they have to get clothes somewhere.

After he got clothes, she got more shirts that would cover the glow in the center of her chest, since she only had room for a few in her bag. Then they’d checked out and headed…home.

Last night—getting lost in Drake and in herself in a way foreign to her until now—swirled in a congealed mess of thoughts in her head. Especially because this morning he’d gone into the bathroom, dressed, and come out acting like nothing had happened.

Except she wanted it to happen again.

But that wasn’t the only thing jamming her up. The closer they got to the ranch, the more her family was on her mind. Also, what he’d said the night before about sacrificial love still rankled.

Was he right? Was hurting her family now better for them in the long run? The mixer was still churning, the thoughts turning to the consistency of cement, as she sat in the car not really seeing what she looked at outside the window.

A familiar tree flashed by, one with a gnarled trunk that sort of stuck out.

“Take the next right,” she said automatically.

Drake nodded.

Twenty more minutes of back roads, and they’d be there. She’d be home.

Home. The word was starting to sound foreign to her now. Uncomfortable. Like she didn’t quite know what or where home was. She hadn’t found where she fit in her new life yet, but she didn’t fit with her family. Not anymore. Not really.

Drake had a point there.

“What’s our story?”

Cami jumped a little at the sudden growling sound of Drake’s voice inside the small confines of the car. She turned her head from the view of golds and greens of rolling California mountains to frown at him. “Story?”

“Our story?” he prompted.

When she just stared at him, he made an impatient gesture with his hands without taking them from the wheel. “Why are you home early from whatever excuse you gave your family to be away? And why am I with you?”

Right. Good questions. Ones her family would ask. “They thought I was in Texas for a semester course on animal husbandry for goats.”

“Oh gods. The goats,” he muttered under his breath.

Or at least that’s what she thought he said. “Sorry?”

“Nothing.”

Except now she had a new worry. “Dragons don’t eat goats. Right?”

He side-eyed her for a second. “You’re only wondering this now?”

Stupid to feel defensive. “I had other things I was dealing with earlier. Like getting out undetected, and then getting here.” And exploring your body.

“The goats are safe from me,” he said in a dry voice.

Phew. One less thing. “Good. So, the home from school thing. I was going to tell them that this course, since it’s an unofficial course for professionals, is getting an extra week off for Thanksgiving.”

“Which gives us two weeks?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. That explains the timing.”

“Maybe you can be a friend from the course who doesn’t have family in the States, and so I invited you to share Thanksgiving with mine?” That would work, right?

“To stay with your family when they’re in the middle of rebuilding the ranch?”

Cami dropped her head back against the headrest. “You’re right. That would be weird.”

“Say I’m your boyfriend.”

She sat up straight at that. “I don’t see—”

“I wanted to come help out and meet your family.”

Cami stared at Drake, but couldn’t discern his expression from only one side of his face. “No way. They’ll have us married off in a heartbeat.”

No way would her mother miss the tension that strung between them like rubber bands stretched too far.

“So? They won’t meet your future mate.”

“Maybe they will.”

He shot her a look that put all his doubts about that happening in one glance and had her pulling against her seatbelt as she tried to straighten. “You won’t be able to pull it off,” she said. “The boyfriend thing, I mean.”

“Wrong.”

Cami rolled her eyes. Telling him he couldn’t do anything had been a stupid approach to take. Now she’d offended his manhood, or dragon badassness, or whatever. “As a friend they will already be pushy, asking you all sorts of questions. As my boyfriend…” She shook her head.

Actually, she’d never brought a boyfriend home to meet her family. She had no idea what they would be like. Except her dad. He’d probably go glare for glare with Drake.

“Consider me warned.”

He shook that off way too easily. “You can’t be…”

Only she couldn’t make herself say it. That he couldn’t be himself around her family. Having grown up in a world where the harsh reality meant often she wasn’t deemed enough—not Mexican enough and not American enough, depending on the side of the border—she understood that kind of judgment. Her parents had taught her to never be who she wasn’t, to be proud of who and what she was no matter what. Everyone else could deal with it or fuck off, not that her parents would use those words, but she’d got the point.

No way could she ask Drake, who’d come here to protect her, who’d saved her life, to be anything but who he was.

“Can’t be what?” he prodded.

Cami sighed. “Just…try not to glare at them all the time. You might even have to talk…and stuff.”

Drake grunted, and she figured that was the best she was going to get.

They fell into a silence that was somehow both easy and uneasy at the same time. The silence wasn’t the problem. Maybe the fact that she couldn’t be around him without wanting to stick her tongue down his throat was.

“I’m not a social butterfly,” Drake said, cracking the thin layer of glass that had held sound at bay.

“I know.” Even the words coming from his lips was laughable. “It’s not that.”

“Okay.” That one word dripped with disgruntled confusion.

Cami smiled. “It’s just… My family are good people. I want them to think I’m with a guy who actually…likes me.”

She grimaced and waited for him to point out that he’d just been fucking her less than five hours ago.

Total silence. Except this definitely wasn’t an easy quiet between them. Tension rolled over her, like a thick San Francisco fog, with all sorts of unspoken words.

Cami glanced out the window, the passing countryside as familiar as the lines and freckles on the backs of her hands. Not too much farther.

“I do.”

It took her a second to absorb what he said and what it meant. Did he say that? She shifted in her seat to look at him and got a half face of his usual glower as he stared at the road.

“You do what?” She definitely needed clarification.

“Like you.”

The bottom dropped out of her stomach with more force than a roller coaster. “But…” She wasn’t even sure where to start. “You yell at me.”

“I do that to everyone.”

She snorted. “A sign of your affection, huh?”

“No. You annoy me, too.”

“Then why not be more…” Friendly wasn’t the word.

“I’m dying.” He slipped in while she was searching for the right one.

“I guess that would make anyone grumpy,” she said slowly.

“No. I’m always an asshole. Ask my team.” His lips twitched. She hadn’t been lying in the parking lot. That smile of his had shot through her like a mule kick to the solar plexus. Maybe because of how rarely it appeared, or how it transformed his face from harsh and broken to something almost boyish and charming, but also still broken. Compelling and damn sexy because of the stark difference.

“Was that a joke?” she teased.

“Just stating facts.”

“I see.”

He was quiet a moment. “I can’t have more with you.”

She didn’t follow. “More what?”

“Than this bodyguard thing, and maybe fucking. Nothing more.”

Suddenly Rune’s words and her insight last night—about how he’d sacrificed himself for his team, walking away even though he didn’t want to—settled heavily over her. The weight of it threatened to drag her under. Drake couldn’t have more—a relationship with her or anyone else—because it meant more people he’d hurt or have to walk away from. He’d probably rather die than do that.

“That sounds…lonely.” To cut himself off from everyone like that. But she got it. Maybe having to leave her family, to choose to hurt them both like that, made his pain all the more real to her. She wanted to reach out and squeeze his hand, except she doubted he’d let her.

He said nothing.

“I understand,” she said instead.

He cast her a long glance and she looked steadily back.

“I believe you do,” he said.

Only he didn’t look away. In a burgeoning silence, they stared at each other. Some small part of her mind insisted that he should keep his eyes on the road, but she didn’t feel in any danger. Instead, anticipation buzzed through her like a heady alcohol while at the same time peace folded around her with a subtle, deft touch.

She offered him a hesitant smile and he jerked his gaze back to the road.

Unprompted, he turned left off the paved road onto the long gravel drive that led to her home. The trees on both sides of the road had been decimated until only blackened spikes that used to be tree trunks remained. The drive used to be cast in permanent shadow with trees and vegetation towering overhead, meeting high up to make a canopy. Not anymore. Now the sun beat down mercilessly even in the chill of oncoming winter.

I should have died here.

Rune’s revelation that Drake had saved her struck her with the blunt force of an axe splitting a log. Again, she thought about saying something. Thanking him at the very least. But held back. He wouldn’t like the attention. No matter how well deserved.

“Just so you know…” She glanced at her hands clenched in her lap and forced her fingers to relax. “The feeling is mutual.”

Raising her gaze, she caught how he raised his eyebrows, not taking his attention from navigating the potholes all over the drive.

“I like you, too,” she clarified.

His hands flexed on the wheel, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t have time, because they were here.

He pulled around a bend and Cami sucked in a sharp breath. She’d seen the damage right after the fire, walked around the still smoldering pile of ashes that had made up the spaces of her childhood and the working and living memories of her adult years. Hell, she’d ruined a new pair of boots because the soles melted as she’d walked.

A lot had been done since she’d left—the worst of the damage cleared. But not enough. New foundations for the two houses her uncles and their families lived in should’ve been poured by now. Instead, the wooden molds were up, but nothing else.

Drake pulled up to the side of the main house and turned off the car. “You okay?”

She slowly turned her head to find Drake watching her closely.

“Yeah.” The word came out all choked off. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

She turned her head to look back out the window, except Drake put a hand over hers, clenched up in her lap again, and she returned her gaze to him. Warmth spread from his touch through her, loosening tense muscles and unraveling the knot of worries that lodged in her chest.

“You can rebuild, and all your family is alive,” he said. “Focus on that.”

Just when she’d lumped him in the permanent asshole column, he went and said kind things like that.

Not only that. They were alive because Drake saved them.

Nothing could have stopped her from at least showing her gratitude, even if she didn’t voice it. Without thinking it through, she leaned across the small center console separating them and laid her lips over his in a sweet, soft kiss.

Drake tensed under the touch, but she lingered there, willing him to relax, accept this for what it was. An offering of thanks.

For a brief second, she almost thought he was going to pull away, and the sharp pang of disappointment surprised her. But instead, he gave a low groan and took over.

He snaked an arm around her waist, drawing her closer. She didn’t even care about the console digging into her hip as her body leaped to tumultuous life under the softest kisses. She’d imagined hard and demanding, like last night, but instead he soothed, persuaded.

Kisses that she inherently knew were for her, like a lovely, unexpected gift, but still made her body shudder with the violence of need scorching through her like wildfire.

Cami nipped at his lower lip, begging for more, and Drake groaned again, his hold becoming fierce, possessive, digging into her flesh in the most delicious way. Their tongues tangled, and she lost herself in him. In them.

All she knew was that she wanted more. All of him. She wanted his hands, his lips, to explore every inch of her, and the fantasy of doing the same to him had her gasping against his lips. She wanted to crawl into his lap and unzip his pants so she could sink her body over his hard shaft. She wanted to drive him to the brink and revel in his loss of that total control, how he’d shout when he came.

He nipped at her lower lip, like she’d done to him, sucking it into his mouth, and she whimpered with need, the small sound piercing through the sounds of their heavy breathing inside the otherwise silent car.

They both froze, reality rudely smacking her between the eyes.

We shouldn’t be doing this.

She shouldn’t be doing this. Sex complicated everything. She had to stay safe while they helped rebuild her ranch, then she had some tough decisions to make about her family. After that, somewhere along the line, she had a mate to find and a new life to start.

And Drake was dying.

The sudden onslaught of pain at the very thought made her suck in a sharp breath and sit back, eyeing him with a growing revelation.

She gave a mental shake of her head. She shouldn’t let herself get close to him. She couldn’t believe the fates would give her a mate only to rip him from her, possibly taking her with him when he died. Her mate—her true, destined mate—was out there somewhere, and Drake was only a bodyguard. A confusing, grumpy, compelling bodyguard who didn’t want anyone to mourn when he left this earth.

Which meant she needed to shut this down now.

Cami cleared her throat. “Don’t look now, but this isn’t what most bodyguards do.”

Drake went from staring at her with a wariness she hated to scowling. Just like she’d intended. Only she hated that even more. She could practically see him building those walls back up between them brick by brick—higher and stronger than before. Maybe with some barbed wire rolled at the top, like a prison.

He’d be impossible after this. No doubt.

But Drake was right. Friends wasn’t a good idea. Lovers even worse.

Cami moved to face forward and adjusted her clothes, trying to erase the memory of his hands slipping under her shirt, heating her skin. Not looking at him, she cracked open the door, then paused. Perhaps she should drive a nail into the coffin to be sure.

With deliberation, she turned her head and grinned at him, forcing a lightness she was far from feeling. “As fun as last night was…it was a mistake. One that can’t happen again.”

…

Drake stared at the woman in front of him, trying to shake out of a sexual fog and comprehend what she’d just said. What the hell just happened?

“Cami?” a female voice called from the direction of the house.

Then a woman who looked like a slightly older, and shorter, version of Cami stepped outside, her smile growing as she confirmed that her visitor was who she thought.

Without a second glance at him, Cami was out the car and across to her mother in a heartbeat.

“What are you doing here?” her mother asked, as they wrapped each other in a tight hug. From this vantage point, he could see the way Cami closed her eyes as she held onto her mother, even breathed her in.

Making a memory, he’d bet. Had she listened to him about the kind of love that sacrificed? The world stopped on its axis. Was that why she’d just ended things before they started? Which was what he should have done, dammit.

“I have two weeks for Thanksgiving break,” Cami murmured. “And wanted to surprise you.”

He could practically see when the time limit hit Cami—only two weeks with her family and then maybe never again—because her arms tightened around her mother’s neck convulsively.

Then Cami took a deep breath and stepped back. “Where’s Papá?”

“In the southern field. We’ve had to buy extra feed since most of the acres are burned, and he’s putting it out.”

Drake gripped the wheel tighter as Cami’s mother cast furtive glances toward him. He should get out, but first he needed to calm the raging hard-on that damn kiss had ignited. He should run from her, hard and fast, call Finn to watch her and walk away.

No. She was his to guard. Drake would see that through and return her to Rune.

A few deep breaths and thoughts of ice-cold showers didn’t help much, but enough to finally exit the vehicle.

Automatically he used his senses to scour the area nearest them, but hearing, smell, and sight picked up nothing. The land still smelled of fire, and the slightly pungent aroma of the goats lingered, but they were a few miles away. He’d prefer to take to the skies and do a sweep from above, but he’d have to wait for the cover of night to do that.

Instead, he approached the two women watching him—one with open curiosity, the other with a hint of concern.

Cami’s mother was a tinier version of her daughter, but her eyes smiled at him as he approached, even as her lips remained firm. “Who is this?” She directed the question at Cami.

“Mama, this is my…friend…Drake Chandali. Drake, this is my mother, Christina Carrillo.”

Drake held out a hand and felt like a fucking child as he did his best to recall etiquette. Charm was never his thing, a fact that his own mother had lamented when she still lived. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Carrillo.”

“None of that formality.” She bypassed his hand and stepped closer to hug him. Drake had to stoop to allow her to reach him. “Welcome to our home.”

Cami shot him a thumbs-up from behind her mother’s back, and Drake made a face at the laughter lurking in her dark eyes. She knew how uncomfortable this would be for him. He was not the hugging type.

Mrs. Carrillo pulled back and took his face in her hands, practically inspecting him like cattle. “You have a strong heart. I can tell. But maybe not enough happiness.”

He glanced over her shoulder at Cami who shrugged but couldn’t hide a smile.

“Come inside out of the chill and tell me all about yourself.”

Cami choked back a laugh. “Mama, please don’t interrogate my friend. He’ll never want to come back.”

“Who said anything about interrogation?” Now he could see where Cami got that whole innocent act she did, and maybe her stubbornness. “I want to know about your friend. Is that too much to ask?”

“It’s fine, Cami,” Drake said.

Cami grimaced and Mrs. Carrillo’s eyebrows shot up practically to her graying hairline, probably because of the nickname, but Drake pretended not to notice. He could handle a curious mother without being a total dick, if that was her concern. Not his preferred way to spend an afternoon but being here was as much about helping Cami situate her family for after she left as it was about protecting her. Something he could relate to.

Mrs. Carrillo led them into the house, and Drake paused on the threshold as Cami’s shoulders rose and fell on a deep breath. Suddenly he was happy that he’d saved this place. At the time, after leaving Cami and her family safely on that road, he hadn’t known why he’d stopped to save the house or create a fire line around as much of their pasture as he could.

But he’d done it for her, and he couldn’t not be glad.

Over the odor of smoke, Cami’s jasmine scent filled the air. Like she filled this house. Other human scents blended with hers, those of her family, but he was surrounded by her here. That wasn’t what had him pausing, though. The way his dragon eased inside him and his muscles unlocked as that smell surrounded him, that had him hesitating.

What was wrong with him?

He forced himself to continue following the two women down a long hall off which they passed a small office behind French doors, and a formal dining room before reaching a large great room that was a combination kitchen, family room, and breakfast room space. The house itself reflected most of the stucco houses in this area of California. But the inside was all Carrillo. They’d decorated in all natural wood tones, giving a rustic feel, but proudly displayed their Mexican heritage with pieces of furniture and mementos on the walls that he knew, based on the age of the items, had to have been passed down through generations.

Cami had told him that her family had been here since the time of the Spaniards. The splashes of color made the house feel warm, lived in, like a home with history. The antiques made him think of his own family’s history, pieces his brothers had kept. Drake and Lyndi hadn’t been able to bring much with them when they’d come here via long months on a boat crossing the Atlantic Ocean centuries ago. Did Lyndi wish they had? Ridiculously, he found himself missing that physical connection to the past.

After getting them some water, Christina Carrillo sat them all down on one of the worn leather couches in the family room.

She smiled around a sip from her glass. “So…where are you from, Drake?”

Cami rolled her eyes then looked at him like, I warned you and you said you could handle this.

For his part, Drake cleared his throat and settled in to satisfy the curiosity of a mother. An hour later they’d covered his family, his job—the usual story of a hotshot firefighter, but he incorporated looking to get into ranching now. They’d discussed how his parents were both gone but he was one of eight, and his hobbies. The hobbies he’d had to make up since he couldn’t very well tell her his involved flying, fighting, and fire.

Footsteps outside caught Drake’s attention, and the sound of the voices beyond indicated more of Cami’s family had arrived. He pretended he hadn’t heard as her mother talked about Cami’s childhood. The sound of the door opening had all three of them getting to their feet.

Cami with a little relief. Not that he blamed her. Christina Carrillo had been going on and on about Cami’s make-believe friend as a child. A boy named Doug. He’d disappeared when her sisters had been born.

“Do we have guests, Christina?” a familiar male voice sounded down the hall. A second later, the recognizable figure of Cami’s father appeared in the doorway. Behind him stood several other men and women of varying ages, a few of whom he recognized, including Leo with crutches and a walking boot cast.

Cami’s father stopped at the sight of her, blinked, then grinned and crossed the room to yank his daughter into his arms for a long hug. “Mija. Why didn’t you tell us you were coming?”

“She wanted to surprise us,” her mother answered.

“Of course she did.” The head of the Carrillo family held Cami back by the shoulders as if inspecting her for damage. They smiled at each other, in perfect harmony.

This was so different from his family who’d tended to be more formal, more distant. Except Lyndi.

Then her father shifted his gaze over Cami’s shoulder to Drake and every trace of his smile disappeared. Releasing his daughter, he held out a hand to Drake. “Miguel Carrillo. Cami’s father.”

Drake clasped the man’s hand with a firm grip, like he hadn’t ever met him before, careful not to apply the extra strength the gods had graced shifters with. “Drake Chandali. Cami’s boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend?” Christina Carrillo’s smile could’ve lit a moonless sky. Then she turned accusing eyes on Cami. “You said he was just a friend.”

Drake didn’t look away from Cami, who stared at him with wide eyes full of questions. Almost like his declaration had surprised her. But they’d talked about this. She seemed to give herself a shake. “I didn’t want him to feel any pressure,” she finally said.

“You don’t think he can take meeting his girlfriend’s family?” Miguel asked.

Cami and Christina both rolled their eyes in identical expressions of exasperation. “No, Papá. That’s not it.”

“Then what?”

“We haven’t been dating long. That’s all.”

But the frown tugging her father’s thick, black brows down over hard eyes had Drake jumping in.

“But you should know that I am in love with your daughter, sir. I have only honorable intentions as far as Cami is concerned.”

Across from him, Cami flashed him a look somewhere between shock and warning even as a sweet mauve crept into her cheeks. In all their interactions, she’d never blushed before. Her reaction only fed his own, because the second the words were out of his lips, they didn’t feel like a lie to set her family at ease.

They felt like the truth.

Which counted as the stupidest fucking thing he’d ever thought. Cami was meant for someone else. Hopefully he’d be dead before she found that someone else. That was something he didn’t particularly want to witness.

Miguel’s expression didn’t lighten exactly, but the hardness in his eyes changed subtly to one of respect. Still tinted with suspicion, so more convincing would have to happen in that quarter, but progress.

“Let me show you to your room.” Christina Carrillo broke the tension with the offer.

“Room?” Cami and Miguel asked at the same time. Miguel shot Drake a glower as if this was his fault. Drake kept his mouth shut.

Christina didn’t even blink at her husband’s glower. “They’ll have to take the twin beds in Valerie and Isabelle’s room since the girls are at school. We can move Leo to the pullout couch in the office. With the rest of the family staying here until we can rebuild, every other space is taken.”

Cami tossed him an imploring look this side of desperate.

Drake grimaced and jumped in. “I’m fine on a couch, Mrs. Carrillo.”

“Please call me Christina. And no, unfortunately, the only couch that opens to a bed is already taken, and too small for you anyway, and you won’t fit on the two that don’t fold out. The twin, which is an extra-long, is the only option.”

“They are not married,” Miguel pointed out. As if everyone in the room didn’t already know.

Drake turned to the man and looked him straight in the eyes. “You have my word that I will be a perfect gentleman with your daughter.” After Cami shutting things down in the car, he should be able to stick to that. But he intended to spend most nights on patrol, making sure she was safe. Remove that temptation and do his fucking job as protection.

After a long stare down, Miguel grunted.

Being familiar with grunts, Drake knew he’d won this round, not that Cami’s father was happy about it. He gave a nod to indicate his thanks for the trust. “I’ll go get our bags.”

Before anyone could offer to help, he left the room, giving the family a chance to argue it amongst themselves.

As he walked to the car, information his senses were picking up gradually penetrated his thoughts, and his steps slowed until he stopped, tension coiling his muscles back up like overwound springs.

A familiar scent drifted on the breeze. Above the still heavy scent of smoke and scorched earth. Above the fresh bite of pine needles from the trees that had survived. Over the top of the sweeter scents of the women close by, and the sweat of the men from their work.

Nidhogg. That green motherfucker.

The Alaz enforcer team’s lead interrogator. Drake had got up close and personal with the man when the enforcer team had held him, along with Titus, Hall, and Aidan, for questioning after Sera’s escape. He could never mistake that scent. Smoke, like most dragons, but along with something overly sweet, like a diabetic’s breath when their blood sugar was up too long. Now it blended with something sour, like skunk, but still unmistakable.

The way the guy had enjoyed those brutal sessions with him, when the Alliance had thought they were in on Sera’s disappearance, despite all evidence pointing to Rune, wasn’t something Drake was likely to forget only a few months later. Decades wouldn’t erase that one.

Nidhogg was close.

Why the fuck was he here? Close to Cami’s house? It had to be for a reason. Finn’s team already finalized the investigation of this particular fire since it occurred in their territory and they’d put it out. Had the Alliance decided more was needed? Taken over? Sent another team? If they had, that meant that they didn’t trust Finn or the Huracán team.

Shit.

Drake shoved his hand—the one that should bear the mark of the High King but no longer did—in his pocket. If Nidhogg was nearby, seeing the lack of the brand which marked Drake as a rogue would not end well. Why a dead man was walking around alive, and sort of well, was already a hurdle.

“Drake?” Cami’s voice from inside the house caught him on the raw.

He hadn’t closed the door behind him. It took a fuck ton of effort to hide a grimace behind a semblance of a stiff neutral expression, or as much as he could manage as he turned to face her. As close as Nidhogg was, the likelihood he’d heard Drake’s name on Cami’s lips was high. Would he check? Find Drake here with humans?

That, in and of itself, wasn’t against their laws. Many dragons took human women as lovers for short periods of time.

But what if the Alaz Enforcer figured out Drake had located a mate? That Cami existed and the Huracán team hadn’t reported it to the Alliance? Luckily, Cami’s smoky scent blended with the lingering odor of the fire. That should mask her for now. But they wouldn’t have long if Nidhogg dug deeper. Except now they couldn’t run, either, or the Alaz team would know for sure.

I need to warn Finn.