“How about now?” Eldris asked.
“No,” Nyx said.
Aristede let out a sharp, tormented sound against Eldris’ palm. This back-and-forth continued, though my eyes fell shut again despite my best efforts. Even so, I could hear Aristede’s breath grow increasingly ragged under Eldris’ ministrations… then that low, honeyed voice asking Nyx if he should finish him, followed by Nyx’s short denial.
Though I was barely awake, the exchanges still swirled through my veins like liquid heat. Aristede grew more vocal, the noises muffled to nonsense by Eldris’ hand over his mouth. Dreamlike, I imagined what he must be feeling… how badly he must need release as he was denied again and again.
His harsh breathing filled my ears, only to be interrupted by Nyx saying, “Let him come now,” in a shaky voice.
Eldris decadent chuckle rolled over me in the darkness behind my eyelids. “Happy to.”
The sound of flesh on flesh… and then Aristede let out an unrestrained cry, the sound caught between anguish and ecstasy. I didn’t have to open my eyes to imagine him arching off the ground, spurting ropes of long-denied release across his chest and belly. Somehow, I felt the relief and sated heaviness that followed his climax as clearly as though it had been my body Eldris had been playing like a fine instrument.
I had little doubt Aristede would sleep as deeply as I would tonight, even without the help of the herbal sedative blanketing my body and mind. I could hear his exhausted panting in front of me, and Nyx’s unsteady breathing behind me. Things went fuzzy again for a bit, before I roused briefly to the feeling of bodies arranging themselves around mine in a contented sprawl.
I had no idea who was lying where, and it didn’t really matter. My injuries were dulled by the tea. I was warm and safe, surrounded by love. It was peaceful, here in the dark with the others next to me, and Rayth on watch with the dragons outside.
There was no place I’d rather be.
Chapter 15: Frella’s Dilemma
Frella
FOUR DAYS OF REST and recuperation later, I was feeling more like a functioning human being and less like something that had been chewed up by a hungry dragon, only to be spit out afterward. I was also about to climb out of my own skin with worry.
We were running out of time.
I knew that. The others knew that. We had to get out of this valley, and we had to have the white dragon with us when we did. For three days in a row, I’d stared into the great beast’s pellucid eyes, willing myself to ignore the thing that had been nagging at me ever since Aristede explained his theory of why dragon’s formed soul-bonds with humans. I still had nothing to show for my efforts except my own frustration.
When Rayth beckoned me to walk with him out of earshot of the others in the cave, it wasn’t really a surprise. It was awkward as hell, given what had happened between us the night he’d rescued me… but still not a surprise.
“Talk, hellion,” he said without preamble.
I could have snapped something angry and unhelpful at him. I could’ve thrown our desperate kiss and his subsequent silence about it back in his face. But that kind of pettiness had no place in our current situation. My shoulders sagged in defeat.
“Aristede told you what he figured out, right?” I asked.
“Of course he did.”
We both halted, and I turned to face him. “I don’t know how to logic my way out of this conundrum, Rayth. Think about it—the white dragon will only bond with me if he senses that I’m willing to give my life for the dragons’ survival. But if I’m bonded with him, I can’t give my life for them. It doesn’t matter who I’m trying to protect. If I die, the only male dragon in existence will die with me… and the species will be doomed.”
I watched his brows draw together as he followed my argument. He drew breath as though to speak, only to pause. His lips parted, then closed. The silence stretched.
“I’m not entirely sure that’s the point,” he said eventually.
I growled and dragged my fingers through my hair. “Then what the hell is the point? What I’m saying is the exact truth. It can’t be argued! If I die and my death kills the last male dragon, then there won’t be anymore dragons… ever.”
“Whereas if you don’t bond with the last male dragon, he’ll be hunted down and the species will still die out,” Rayth shot back.
I started pacing, too pent up to stay in one place with Rayth’s dark eyes pinning mine. “Will he, though? If the other dragons all fly away to Eburos, wouldn’t he tag along with them? They’re his females. Would he really just let them flap away to who-knows-where without him?”
Much as I hadn’t wanted to, I’d spent most of the previous night lying awake, trying to come up with contingency plans. This particular question had occurred to me shortly before dawn.
“Apparently, he would,” Rayth said flatly. “When we flew for Safaad on the night we rescued you, we weren’t sure what to do about him. He followed us for less than an hour before turning around and heading back the way we’d come. When we returned the following morning, he was here in the valley, alone.”
“Damn it!” I punched a tree trunk as I passed it, only to wince and shake out my hand afterward.
Long fingers closed around my shoulder, startling me. Rayth turned me around to face him.
“I know you’re not a coward, Frella,” he said, frowning. “You never have been. But you’re placing barriers in front of your goal that simply don’t need to be there.”
I jerked away, gathering anger around me like a shield. “How do you figure that, Rayth? I’m telling you exactly what the problem is. It won’t disappear just because you want it to! Maybe that’s a hard concept for a prince to understand—”
“Have a care.” The words were as cold as the snow in the mountains on Eburos.
“You have a care!” I snapped, getting in his face. “It’s your gods-damned family that started this mess! It’s your family that wants to kill us all! You could have gathered up those dragon eggs two years ago and fled to another country with them. But instead, you hatched them here, right under the noses of the people who want to destroy them! And if I can’t do the impossible in the next day or two, all of it will have been for nothing!”
I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. Horror swept over me as I realized I was crying—great, ugly sobs interspersed with the words. I whirled, intent on fleeing Rayth’s presence, but he caught me by the arm and spun me back.
“My family,” he spat, “is poison. And I will not allow them to ruin my final chance for redemption. I will not allow you to ruin it, out of some kind of misplaced insecurity—”
I slapped him. Hard. It barely rocked him, though he did at least let go of my arm. And this time, when I stormed off, he didn’t try to stop me.
* * *
Evening. Five days since I’d been rescued. Around me in the cave lay bundles and saddlebags ready for stowing on dragonback—our belongings distilled down to the bare minimum necessary for headlong flight to a distant land.
Conversation for the past day had been strained. Eldris, Nyx, and Aristede had finally grown tired of my snappish responses whenever they tried to speak with me about the white dragon… or pretty much anything else, to be honest. My fight with Rayth might as well not have happened at all, since neither of us had acknowledged it in any way after I’d struck him and run away.
The dragons were going to die off, and it was all my fault.
Rayth looked around the cavern where he’d lived off and on for more than two years now. His gaze fell on Aristede.
“Your dragon is the largest and strongest in comparison to your weight,” he said evenly, as though everything weren’t falling apart around us. “Frella will ride with you when we leave tomorrow.”
To add an additional layer of uncertainty to the proceedings, none of us had any way of knowing what sort of endurance the adolescent dragons would have in flight while carrying riders and supplies. We’d all seen them wheeling in the s
kies for hours, day in and day out, riding the air currents over the valley. But would that translate into an ability to fly all the way from Utrea to Eburos with very little opportunity to rest during the journey?
There was only one way to find out.
“I’ve had a thought,” Eldris said, looking up from the pack he was securing shut. “No idea if it’ll help, really… but I figure it can’t hurt.”
The others’ focus settled on him, hoping for some last-minute inspiration that might somehow change our current outlook from terrible to less terrible.
“When we flew to Safaad, we didn’t really want the male tagging along with us,” Eldris began. “The situation was too unpredictable. Unbonded, there was no way of knowing what he’d do once we got there and started attacking the defenses.”
“Yes…” Aristede agreed, drawing out the word.
“So, what if our dragons sensed that we didn’t want him coming, and somehow passed it onto him?” Eldris continued. “What if they communicated that he shouldn’t follow us?”
Nyx’s eyes widened. “You think we might be able to communicate that he should follow us, in the same way?”
Eldris shrugged. “I think it’s worth a try.”
A tiny thread of hope pierced my growing despair. “That might work,” I breathed. “It seemed so strange that he’d just turn around and let all of his females fly away without him. But what if they told him to do it, somehow?”
Rayth gave a slow, thoughtful nod. “It’s still not ideal. But if it comes to that, we’ll convey as best we can to our dragons that they should entice the male to come with us. And we’ll fly in a diamond formation with the male in the center, to discourage him from turning back. Aristede will lead the way, since his dragon will have the heaviest burden. That way, she can dictate the pace. Eldris and Nyx will flank the male, and I’ll bring up the rear.”
“I’ll fly out in the morning for reconnaissance,” Aristede offered. “If there’s still no sign of the army, perhaps we can justify waiting for another day before we leave.”
He didn’t add, so Frella can have another day to get her shit together. He would never say that… but somehow, it’s still what I heard. As if another day would make any difference when I’d already proven my complete inability to bond with the white male.
Though, maybe there was still a chance for us after all. Could we somehow herd a wild dragon through the skies, across two kingdoms and fifteen leagues of open sea? The uncertainty of the plan ate at me. Yet I had nothing better to offer.
I had nothing at all to offer, as I’d already thoroughly proven.
* * *
The following morning found me once again staring into the white dragon’s gemlike eyes, trying to fall into their depths despite the knowledge that it would be as impossible today as it had been all the other days. The great beast blinked at me, translucent membranes sweeping back and forth across the aquamarine orbs with their catlike black pupils.
“I don’t know how to fix this,” I told him, forcing the words past the ache in my chest. “Please. You have to come with us. Can you understand that? Can you understand me at all?”
He tilted his large head, still staring at me.
Footsteps approached, rustling the dry autumn grass—man and beast together. Eldris and Iyabo, the sapphire female, came to a halt a short distance away. I swallowed a sigh as the white dragon broke eye contact with me in favor of casting a wary gaze at Eldris.
“Aristede should be back from his reconnaissance soon,” Eldris said. “At which point, we’ll have to decide what we’re going to do. Any luck with him this morning?”
I resisted the urge to snap, ‘Does it look like I’m having any luck?’
This wasn’t Eldris’ fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault except mine… and maybe Rayth’s massive clusterfuck of a family, for deciding to kill the dragons in the first place.
“No,” I said shortly. Dragging my morose thoughts away from my own shortcomings, I tried to focus on something else. “We should un-hobble the horses and let them go free. It’s not like we’ll need them anymore, whether we leave today or tomorrow.”
It saddened me, a bit, to think of leaving them here. But the valley was a bounty of grass and fresh, flowing water, with high cliff walls to shelter them from storms and no predators large enough to hurt a horse—once the dragons were gone, anyway. I just hoped they’d have the sense to run away and hide in the forest once the Utrean soldiers arrived. It would piss me off no end if they somehow ended up belonging to Oblisii, and carrying members of his troops on their backs.
“It’s already done,” Eldris said, watching me carefully. “Frella… you need to go a bit easier on yourself. This isn’t your fault. None of it is.”
“Don’t be nice to me right now, damn it,” I snapped, hating myself just a little more. “Just… don’t.”
Eldris was silent for a moment before he nodded slowly. “Right, then. If you don’t think you’re going to make a breakthrough with the male this morning, then come on back to the cave so we can have a meeting and make our decision on what to do.”
I sagged under the weight of my self-directed misery, and nodded back. The white dragon nudged my shoulder, making me stumble a step to the side; adding insult to injury. Before I could start my walk of shame back to the cave, the sound of leathery wings cutting through the air drew my attention upward. Eldris followed my gaze.
Shantha swooped toward us from the sky, Aristede a dark form hunched low over her neck. The male dragon arched his neck, preening for the approaching female. Dragon and rider came to a controlled landing perhaps twenty paces away, and Aristede straightened from his crouch with a hand braced on the red dragon’s shoulder.
His eyes glowed with red dragon-flame as he met first Eldris’ gaze, and then mine.
“It’s time. The soldiers are coming,” was all he said.
Chapter 16: Wild Flight
Frella
MY HEART TRIPPED twice and galloped into double time. “Go,” I said. “Tell the others. I’ll stay here and try to keep the male from leaving until the rest of you are ready.”
Aristede nodded. Shantha flapped her powerful wings, propelling them into the air and toward the cave. Eldris gave me a final, long look before vaulting onto Iyabo bareback, steadying himself with a hand on either side of her neck as she followed her nestmate into flight.
I’d seen him do the same a handful of times before. But this time, a wild and quite possibly insane idea sparked in the depths of my mind, causing me to suck in a sharp breath. No. I was mad to even think of trying it. My eyes tracked back to the pearlescent dragon behind me.
It couldn’t possibly work. Could it?
My pulse pounded loud in my ears. This creature could kill me, even though I was trying to help. He could extinguish my life between one breath and the next. And… gods help me, I was afraid of heights. Terrified of them. My grand plan for getting through what was coming next had been to cling to Aristede’s back like a limpet, bury my face in his curtain of dark hair, and squeeze my eyes shut as tightly as possible until we were back on the ground.
I continued to stare at the dragon, my breath rushing in and out past my lips, fast enough to make me lightheaded. He could kill me. But I was trying to help him. And… wasn’t that the entire point? The entire fucking point? I swallowed hard, my throat feeling as dry as the Utrean desert.
Oh, gods.
The dragon watched me with that same faintly puzzled air he always gave off when I was trying to connect with him, as though he didn’t understand me in the slightest. Time passed, my pounding heart and rapid, panicked breathing not subsiding in the least.
This could end up being the stupidest thing I’d ever done in my life. And with my track record, that was truly saying something.
I must have been standing frozen in place for longer than I realized, because the others swooped in on their dragons. The beasts were all saddled, strapped with the packs of our belongings on thei
r backs. I looked from them to the white dragon. It was now or never.
“Frella!” Rayth called. “Mount up behind Aristede. We’ll fly out to the north to avoid the troops, as we discussed.”
I wet my lips. “Right,” I called back. “Um… one slight change of plans, though. And… if this goes tits up, I apologize ahead of time. I’m really, really sorry. For all of it. I’m sorry I failed you.”
Ignoring Eldris’ voice as he shouted my name, I turned and raced to the white dragon’s side, not even hesitating as I vaulted onto his back without benefit of either a saddle or a soul-bond. His scales were warm and slippery between my knees. He threw his head up, letting out a startled screech as I centered myself—a feat I managed just in time. The sinuous body beneath me reared up, only the jutting edges of his massive wings allowing me to cling to my precarious seat.
With a complete lack of anything resembling self-preservation, I yelled something unintelligible and smacked the dangerous beast on the side with the flat of my palm. With a second piercing shriek, the dragon flapped his wings with a powerful stroke and launched upward from his muscular hindquarters. The ground dropped away beneath us.
I had a brief glimpse of four shocked faces below me, but an instant later all of my attention was firmly on the fact that I was in the air, far above the ground and getting farther every second, propelled upward by a dragon I couldn’t control. A dragon that had every reason to give itself a simple, full-body midair shake that would dislodge me and send me plummeting to my death.
I was the most idiotic fool who’d ever fooled in the history of fooling. And I was probably going to die now. My eyes squeezed shut of their own accord as I clung to the scaly neck in front of me.
Seconds passed.
The dragon didn’t kill me.
I peeled open one eyelid, only to find tears blurring my vision from the wind. I managed to blink them away, and found the others flanking me, as per the plan. Well… the parts of the plan that didn’t involve me doing something completely crazy, anyway.
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