“How do you know?” Dianthe looked at her curiously.
“Because I sat next to that thing all night.” Without opening her eyes, she pointed in the general direction of Sylas’s pack. “The power coming off of it made my skin tingle. If there is one thing that vampires love, especially powerful ones, it’s skin-tingling magic. I’m willing to bet that not only does Demidicus have the orb of Nochtbend, but he also likely keeps it close to his person.”
“I don’t know the way,” Dianthe said. “I’ve heard where it is in general, but—”
“I do,” Sylas said. “I’ve met with rebels in Nightfall, although I didn’t come from this direction. Before, I followed the river halfway to Paragon before cutting through Grimtwist. Still, I’m sure I can get us there.” He darted a glance between them.
No words were spoken, but an agreement was made. Together, they crossed into Nochtbend.
Chapter Fifteen
Dragons could see in the dark. They were born in the heart of the mountain, after all. Designed for cave living. Still, Sylas preferred the light. More importantly, he preferred to see his wife smiling in the sunlight, brought alive by the two suns that daily crossed Ouros’s sky.
The darkness in Grimtwist Woods was almost absolute. Just inside the tree line, he reached out to lead Dianthe. Not only could she not see in the dark, she hated it with a passion. But instead of accepting his offered hand, she squeezed and then released it before she spread her wings and glowed. “I know I’m the only one who needs this, but I’d prefer to be able to see where I’m going.”
Tobias raised his eyebrows. “That’s a neat trick. How long can you keep it up?”
She grinned. “Fairies are naturally phosphorescent when they want to be. As long as we get enough sun during the day, we can glow all night.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t attract anything… unpleasant.” Sylas searched the darkness for the beasts of legend that roamed these woods.
“It isn’t practical for me to hold your hand the entire time.”
Beside them, Sabrina gave a snort and then resumed her snoring. Tobias shifted her in his arms but kept on walking. A pang of something suspiciously like jealousy shot through Sylas’s heart. Would Dianthe ever let him carry her like that? She wouldn’t even let him lead her by the hand. Why was it suddenly a sin for him to want to care for his mate?
Sylas took the lead, heading in the general direction of the Palace of Nightfall. Dianthe dropped behind, off to the side of Tobias and Sabrina. He found himself distracted by her distance. If a creature attacked her, would he be able to get to her in time? Why was she so far away from the group?
Goddess, he was a dragon and she was his mate. Nature intended for him to guard her with his life. He would protect her. He would worry for her. He would keep her from harm. Whether she liked it or not. Sometimes a dragon knew what was best for his mate.
He walked closer to her. “Stay near me,” he said. “There are deadly creatures in these woods.”
“I’m aware.” She walked faster, putting more space between them.
“Did you hear me? That’s not closer, Dianthe.”
“I know.”
“What will you do if one of these beasts attacks? You have no claws. Your teeth are barely sharp at all.”
She glared at him. “I’ll fly away.”
Infernal woman! “What if the beast can fly?”
Stopping short, she turned to him, glowing brighter. Her lavender-and-honey scent increased with her light. “I guess it will eat me.”
His mouth fell open. “That’s not funny, Dianthe.”
“Honestly, Sylas, I’d rather be eaten by a Grimtwist beast than act like your helpless pet female, huddling beside you out of fear that some unseen threat will harm me!”
She turned on her heel and strode off again, mumbling something about pigheaded dragons.
He strode faster still, catching up to her. Any faster and one of them would have to break into a jog. “I never treated you like a pet. Never.”
“No?” Without slowing her stride, she glared at him over her shoulder. “You didn’t want to keep me in the gilded cage of Aeaea Island, like your own personal parrot, even though you knew my talents were badly needed on this mission?”
“Only to keep you safe, Dianthe!”
“Don’t you get it, Sylas? I don’t want to be safe. I want to be—”
Dianthe’s attention moved from him to the ground beside him. She missed a step and stopped walking. So did he. The leaves rustled, only there was no wind, nothing to cause their movement. The vibration turned into a full-fledged rumble that filled the forest around them. The earth shook hard enough to rattle his teeth.
“Fly, Dianthe! Fly!” He pushed her out of the trajectory of the vibration heading toward them.
Thankfully, for once she obeyed. She lifted into the air, landing on a twisted, mossy branch above his head. The dirt opened like a sinkhole, and rows and rows of teeth burst forth beneath him. His wings snapped out and he lifted from the earth, barely avoiding its gaping maw.
He’d heard tales of the Grimtwist hornworms, massive carnivorous beasts that were larger than any dragon and lived underground in this part of the world, but seeing one was far more horrific than what he’d produced in his imagination. The thing appeared to have no eyes, only two slits that might have been a nose on a smooth, gray-skinned body. Its defining characteristic was its teeth—rows and rows of teeth as long as he was tall—which spiraled around the tongue and into the throat. The thing was an earth-moving eating machine.
He veered right and it reared, blindly sniffing the air. He was right about it having no eyes; it was clearly following his scent. Only then it stopped and changed direction, reaching for Dianthe in her tree. She lifted off her branch, flying higher, but the thing continued to grow from the earth, ten feet, twenty. How long was the beast?
It was tracking her, locked on Dianthe’s delicious scent. He had to do something.
“Over here!” Sylas yelled, flying toward the worm at full speed. Did the creature even have ears? If it did, it didn’t turn at his voice until he was almost on top of it. Even when he buzzed by dangerously close to the worm, it ignored him in pursuit of her. Which left him no choice. He flew between the worm and Dianthe.
The beast’s mouth snapped closed around him, and everything went dark.
Chapter Sixteen
Dianthe screamed. Her body trembled with panic. Sylas was gone, swallowed whole and now within the belly of the beast. Worse, said beast was descending back into the earth. What could she do? She didn’t have so much as a knife to throw at the infernal creature.
A roar came from the left and a silvery-white dragon swooped in, its teeth sinking into the hornworm’s throat. Tobias! Thank the Mountain.
Dianthe landed on a branch and watched her mate’s brother dig his dragon claws in and haul the worm backward. Inch by inch, Tobias pulled it from the ground. The slimy gray body kept coming and coming, sliding from a hole in the dirt wider than her entire cottage had been. She gasped when its tail flicked from the dirt.
“Sylas!” she screamed. Could he still be alive in there? Or was he shredded by its enormous teeth? Dragons were tough, naturally immortal, but they could be killed. Beheading was the most certain way, but there were others. She knew nothing of the nature of this beast or its effect on dragons. Panic wrapped around her heart and squeezed. Sylas… Oh Sylas. Why had he flown so close?
Suddenly the worm let forth a strangled cry, its middle bloating like an overfilled balloon. Tobias’s dragon dropped the thing’s neck. Pop! Gray and brown flesh exploded from the worm’s center in a spray of blood that left the trees dripping and everything below her covered in goo. Sylas’s garnet-red dragon stood at the center of the carnage, wings outstretched, heart glowing bright red within his chest. His dragon sucked in a deep breath and sneezed, sending bits of worm flying across the woods.
Dianthe had always thought Sylas’s dragon was exceptionally
beautiful. Even in the darkness, his garnet scales reflected hints of sunset orange. He was lankier in this form than his brothers, with a gracefully long body and proportionally long and deadly teeth and talons. The only word she had for him was majestic.
He shook like a dog, clearing blood and guts from his scales before shifting back into his soma form. She swooped down from her perch and pulled him into her arms, kissing him ardently. Her hands slid over his naked, slime-covered skin, not caring one bit that the filth was spreading all over her as well.
“Oh Sylas. Goddess, I was so worried.”
At first his kiss was as passionate as hers, but then she felt him pulling away. Even before his lips parted from hers, she could feel the mental difference, the subtle shifting of his body, until he grabbed her by the shoulders and forced distance between them. His breath came in ragged pants. He pointed one hand northwest.
“If I remember correctly, there’s a lake about a mile in that direction. I need to get cleaned up, as do you. And then we need to talk.” He dug through the worm’s remains and pulled his pack from a particularly globular mass of flesh. After giving it a good shake, he loaded it onto his back, then strode in the direction of the lake.
“Don’t you want to get dressed, brother?” Tobias asked. He was donning the clothes he must have stripped out of before shifting.
“Don’t want to get a fresh set dirty. Besides, I doubt that was the only hornworm.”
Tobias lifted his packs onto his back and then collected the still-sleeping Sabrina from the base of a nearby tree. Dianthe followed behind them, overwhelmed with warring emotions and wondering if the schism that had appeared between her and her mate had become too deep to mend or cross. For the second time in as many days, a passionate kiss had ended with one of them angry.
It would be easy to presume that all their problems had begun when they’d fled Everfield after the raid by the Obsidian Guard, but she knew their marriage had been on the rocks for far longer than that. He’d been gone a lot the previous year, traveling the five kingdoms leading the rebellion in Colin’s absence. And then he was imprisoned in the dungeons of Paragon. When he’d finally escaped and she’d come for him, that was when she’d found Aborella. She’d insisted on bringing the fairy home to heal her even though Sylas was against it. And then he’d refused to sleep in the same cottage as Aborella, and so they’d spent even more time apart. When she thought back to the past year, maybe longer, she saw more loneliness, more separation than togetherness.
Had she allowed this to happen? Was she complicit in their gradual drifting apart? For a dragon, a mating was forever. Sylas would never love anyone but her. And she undeniably loved him. But loving someone and being able to live with them were two different things. Maybe there were just too many hurts for either of them to endure.
They walked in silence until they reached a lake, which thankfully was in full sun. Tobias stopped at the edge of the shadows.
“I’ll stay here with Sabrina,” he said to her. “Go, talk to him.”
Sylas dove in, the blood from the hornworm creating a muddy cloud in the water around him. When he broke the surface, Dianthe’s breath caught in her throat. Her mate rose from the water, a tower of tightly corded muscle and golden skin. The water shone like diamonds on the two block-shaped mounds of his chest and carved tempting trails through the shadowy valleys of his deliciously tight abdomen. They disappeared below the surface to where she knew the rest of him was just as inviting.
She raised her eyes to his and was snared by his gray gaze, unable to move. He’d caught her ogling him. He knew she wanted him. A wickedly inviting grin twitched at the corners of his lips.
Dropping her pack next to his on the shore, she waded in and washed the worm stains from the front of her dress. The bottom of the lake was lined with large stones, and she felt off-balance as she leaned forward and splashed her face with the cool, pure water. When she wiped the excess from her eyes, he was there. Sylas was standing right in front of her, his smile gone, replaced by sternly pressed lips.
“We haven’t stopped fighting since we left Everfield, Dianthe. We need to work things out between us before it endangers our mission.”
She gulped at the intensity in his stare. He was right. This conversation was long overdue. “Thank you for what you did back there with the worm. I know you thought you were protecting me.”
“I was protecting you.”
She tipped her head. “I was out of its reach, almost through the canopy, Sylas. It never would have reached me.”
“You didn’t know how long it was.”
She frowned. “But I did know it couldn’t move through trees. I’d moved sideways. It was reaching straight up.” She saw a muscle in his jaw jump. “Listen, all I wanted to do was say thank you. I didn’t want this to turn into another fight.”
“I don’t want to fight either,” he said. “I just want you to stop taking unnecessary risks.”
She blinked twice. “What unnecessary risks have I taken?”
He put his hands on his hips and gave her an incredulous look. “Refusing my hand. Not walking close to me. Planning things with Colin without talking to me first.”
A gasp escaped her lips. “I don’t need your permission to do my job for the rebellion.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, and you know it.”
“I think you did mean it like that. I think you wish Raven had found a curse so that you’d have an excuse to keep me barefoot in the kitchen while you risked your life saving Ouros.”
He scoffed. “It worked out pretty well last year.”
Her hands balled into fists and she took a step back, shaking her head. So many thoughts rattled through her brain, she didn’t know where to begin. Finally she grasped at what she felt was the root of the issue. “The real problem is that you stopped believing in me the moment I told you about my vision of Aborella helping us. You sat back and waited for me to fail.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I didn’t want you to fail. I simply knew better what we were dealing with when it came to that wicked, filthy fairy.”
“Did you know her better?” She narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure? Were you so certain that my vision would be wrong and she would betray us?”
“Someone is behind Eleanor attacking Everfield. Aborella is the most likely culprit. She went straight back to the Obsidian Palace and told Eleanor everything.”
The events of the past couple of days had come and gone so fast that Dianthe had barely had a chance to process any of it. But now, thinking back, adrenaline still coursing through her blood, everything became crystal clear.
“If Aborella had told Eleanor everything, those guards would have come straight to our home. They didn’t. They were looking for a traitor among our kind, but they didn’t know who it was.”
He rubbed the back of his neck.
“I think Aborella is telling her something, but she isn’t telling her everything.”
“What’s your point? She told her enough to have the Empyrean Wood destroyed. Not exactly someone we would call a friend.”
Memories of Aborella flashed through Dianthe’s brain. Nursing her back to health. Conversations they’d had by the fire. Baking together. There was light in her heart, Dianthe was sure of it. “Maybe we can’t call her a friend, but I’m not sure we can blame everything on her either.”
“Oh?”
“Why are the guards digging in the Empyrean Wood? Why are they looking for four rebels and not the heirs of Paragon? Don’t you see, Sylas? She’s posing as Eleanor’s seer, but I think she’s giving her false information.”
Sylas shook his head. “It’s possible, but you can’t be sure.”
“What other explanation might you have?”
“Maybe Eleanor wants us to worry about her right hand while she plans something diabolical with her left.”
“You think the attack was a distraction.”
“Mother did attack my family when they a
rrived near Aeaea. Aborella must have told her the truth then. Why are you still making excuses for her anyway?”
She’d forgotten about the attack at Aeaea. She bowed her head. “This isn’t about Aborella. It’s about you believing in me.”
He scoffed and turned his head away. “I’ve always believed in you.”
“No, you lost respect for me the moment I brought Aborella back with us. You said yes, but you meant no.”
“I’ve always respected you. I still respect you.” His voice cracked.
“Do you remember when we met? I was already working for the rebellion. You came in, new, ignorant. I taught you the ropes. We fell in love, and the thing I remember most about those days is how you looked at me. You looked at me like I had all the answers. You were homeless. Cast out by your own mother. We made a home together in Everfield.”
“I remember and I’m so grateful, Dianthe.”
“So why can’t you look at me like that now? Why can’t you admit that you need me as much as I need you? You’ve been treating me like a child.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched. “I do need you. I need you as much as the air I breathe. Why in Hades do you think I wanted to spare you this? Why do you think I let that hornworm eat me to distract it from you?”
She shook her head. “This is beyond wanting me safe. You want to control me. You want to lock me up like a jewel and wrap me in wards so tight I won’t be able to breathe.”
His face was red now, and that muscle in his jaw was doing one hell of a dance. “I never wanted to control you!” His voice was gruff and deep, his dragon rising to the surface. She tried to take a step back, but he grabbed her by the shoulders. “You knew what I was when you mated me. You knew I was a dragon. Dragons protect their mates.”
“Of course I knew!” She groaned as he shook her again. He wasn’t gripping her hard, but she didn’t like how his skin roiled with his anger. His entire body was trembling. “You’re scaring me.”
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