"I… I can't breathe."
The words slipped from Kael's mouth like fragile slivers of glass, trembling on the icy air between them.
They were not spoken — hardly above a whisper — yet Valkar heard them anyway. Of course he did. The man's senses were more subtle than any knife, tuned to the most microscopic misstep of breath, the faintest quiver of sound.
The change in him was instant. Valkar's arms, which had wrapped the female — wrapped him — in the metal vice of a predator protecting its prey, eased.
By a fraction.
It was enough to release the pressure on Kael's lungs. His head tilted, his eyes narrowing, sighting on Kael with an intensity that seemed to suck the air out of the room for an entirely different reason.
For a silly, fleeting instant, Kael pictured great Valkar — the fellow who could smash mountains in dragon form — looking like a housecat caught in felonious mischief.
