His mouth snapped shut. The end of his tail flicked a few times. At last, Phillip let out a heavy breath, his ears drooping slightly. “No, they aren’t.”
“Then tell me again.”
The way he stepped in toward me, leaning close enough that I could feel the touch of his warm breath on my face, made my stomach swirl. He slid a hand along the curve of my jaw, cupping my cheek, and my heart hit the soles of my boots. My eyes fluttered closed.
“Jenna?” He used that hand to tilt my head back farther. I could have sworn I felt his lips brush mine ever so lightly.
“Yes?”
“I love you,” he murmured softly.
My insides turned to jelly.
“Every scar you think is unsightly. Every mark you consider horrible. Every flaw you believe you have—I love every single part of you.”
Phillip’s mouth pressed against mine, still soft and smooth. The instant we touched, it sent a jolt through my body and my legs went numb. I leaned against him, gripping the back of his tunic. His strong, solid arms came around me suddenly, lifting me off my feet and backing me up against the wall. With his newfound strength, pinning me there didn’t seem to take any effort at all.
Not that I resisted.
I wrapped my legs around his waist and kissed him back, combing my fingers through his hair along his scalp. It made his body shudder with a deep growl of delight.
I didn’t want it to end. But it had to. We couldn’t stay in the hallway all night. So finally, Phillip put me gently on my feet and stood back, breathless again. His hair had come free of that ponytail and hung around his jawline, covering all but the last inch of his long, pointed ears.
For a moment, all we could do was stare at one another.
“We should go back.” He didn’t sound thrilled with that idea.
I wasn’t, either. “I guess so.”
Together, we began the long walk back to the North Wing.
“Why did you come down this far by yourself?” Phillip asked as he strode along beside me. I could tell by his tone he was treading lightly, not wanting to upset me.
I smiled down at the floor. “I started thinking about Mother.”
“Are you all right?” He sounded worried.
I wasn’t sure how to answer that at first. Was anyone here all right? “Mother was always the one person I knew I could talk to whenever Father and I disagreed, or I was feeling overwhelmed,” I replied at last. “Being here, not knowing what will happen next, I guess I just let it get the better of me.”
“Oh. I see.”
After a bit longer of walking in silence, I noticed his hand brushed mine a few times, like he was testing the waters. Finally, he seized it and wound our fingers together.
“I … I know what you mean.” He said like it was a confession.
“What?”
“When he came back from dinner, Jaevid caught me trying to leave.” Phillip rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. “Miri had fallen asleep while she was reading and … it just seemed like the right thing to do. I’d taken a dagger, some of the food they’d brought us for dinner, a blanket—whatever I could find that I could use—and threw it all in a pillowcase. I thought I could be long gone before you came back.”
Wait … what? This ridiculous man, who had driven me nearly insane for years, chasing after me like a bloodhound while professing his undying love and devotion, was trying to leave me? Now?
“Why?” I demanded. “Why would you leave like that? Without even talking to me about it?”
He shook his head a little, his face screwing up slightly as though he were in pain. “Jaevid said the same thing. That I shouldn’t go yet—not without talking to you first.”
I tried gulping back my anger. But unfortunately, a nasty temper was something my father and I shared.
I stopped, keeping my grip on his hand so he was forced to either stop or drag me down the hall like a ragdoll. He was not going to get out of this—not that easily. I deserved an answer. “Phillip?”
He stopped as well but kept his back to me. The thick muscles of his back had gone tense under the tight fabric of his too-small shirt. “Because I’m ashamed.” His voice was so quiet, I could barely hear it. “I know you say it doesn’t matter how I look now, but Jenna … it will matter to other people. I see how the others look at me. It’s as though they’re all just waiting for me to make a wrong move.”
“It’s just going to take some time for them to adjust, Phillip.”
“No. They don’t trust me—and I don’t blame them. I’m not sure I trust myself, either. Jaevid says the venom won’t affect me anymore, that my mind will stay intact, but how can he really be sure? What if he’s wrong? What if I forget again and—?” His body jerked, shoulders cringing up as he bowed his head. “If I hurt you, I’d never forgive myself.”
Letting go of his hand, I stormed toward Phillip, stood up on my toes, and grabbed the end of one of those pointy ears.
“H-Hey! Oww! Those are sensitive!” He growled as I dragged his face down far enough that I could look at him eye-to-eye.
“First of all, forget everyone else.” I glared at him. “Second, I trust Jaevid. If he says you’re going to be fine, then I believe it. I don’t see how you could get a more professional opinion about it than his.”
Phillip swallowed hard, staring back at me with big, slightly-frightened eyes. Once again, his pupils were wide enough to nearly blot out the silver color of his irises.
“And finally, I am a bloody dragonrider, so don’t act like I’m some fragile little damsel who can’t take care of herself. You got your one free shot at Northwatch while I was wounded. That won’t happen again. So just try to hurt me—I dare you.”
He started to protest. “Jenna, I-I—”
I let go of his ear and stood back, trying frantically to blink away the tears that welled in my eyes. “I can’t believe you’d just leave like that without even telling me. You’re … Gods, you’re such an idiot!”
Phillip tilted his head to the side, watching me. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking straight.”
I looked down at the floor between us. Maybe the dim lighting would hide the way my face screwed up. It wasn’t fair. Why did getting this angry make me cry sometimes?
“You forgive me, don’t you?” His voice was closer, and his breath tickled my cheek again.
“No,” I growled, gritting my teeth. “Not unless you swear you won’t do it again.”
Phillip seized my chin and turned my face up to plant a quick, rough, passionate kiss against my lips. When he pulled back, my mouth was still puckered, and my face was flushed and hot all the way down to my neck.
“I swear.”
He was smirking when I finally raised my gaze to stare back at him. “I mean it. Don’t you dare try to leave me ever again, Phillip Derrick. Because if you do, when I find you—and make no mistake, I will find you—it won’t be pretty.”
“I know.” One of his rough, claw-tipped thumbs brushed gently under my eye, wiping away one of those stupid, embarrassing tears. “Does this mean I finally get to call you mine?”
“Fine. But for the record, you are completely ridiculous. And annoying. And sometimes infuriating.” I smiled and flicked the end of one of his ears again. “And those are all my favorite things about you.”
Waiting was agony.
Even with more than enough to keep us busy, a thick fog of suspense hung in our midst. We hoped to see Reigh and Aubren arrive or, at the very least, receive word that they had escaped and were waiting for us somewhere. But after two more days, there was still nothing. Not a single sign of them. Jaevid insisted he could still sense their life forces—so neither of them was dead—but they were far away, faint, and out of contact. Even Vexi, Reigh’s dragoness, was unable to answer his calls.
The waiting continued.
I slipped away as often as I could to see Phevos, who was initially unhappy that I
’d waited so long to visit him. My purple monster sulked and gave me his shoulder, ears slicked back as he refused to look me in the eye. He puffed little agitated snorts when I called his name and smacked his jaws … until I’d bribed him several times with fresh cuts of raw fish. Salmon had always been his favorite. He couldn’t resist the aroma of the fatty orange and white striped filets I waved in front of his nose. It only took four to make him purr and lay down, so I could rub his scaly head again.
Seeing him gave me a tiny bit of peace amidst the tension. Sitting with him down in the undercrofts, I traced my fingers along the teal stripes that adorned his dark eggplant-colored hide. His massive head rested in my lap, so heavy it made my legs tingly from cutting off the circulation, but I wouldn’t ask him to move. As a hatchling, I’d lugged all twenty pounds of him around in my arms and snuck him through the castle and into my bed more times than my father knew about. He could crush my legs off if he wanted; he was still my baby.
Days passed without any news, and Jaevid seemed to sense everyone’s growing anxiety. He began delegating work out to the rest of us in what I suspected was an attempt to keep us occupied. He put Calem and Eirik to work acquiring our gear and supplies for the journey to Halfax. They had to come up with some sort of saddle he could use on Mavrik as well. Aedan, Phillip, and Miri were charged with researching the route that led from Cernheist to Luntharda—which wasn’t easy. It had been decades since anyone had gone that way, so finding a map or text would mean combing the keep’s archives. Fortunately, none of them seemed to mind spending a day amidst books. I tried not to be too jealous.
Jaevid asked Haldor and me to accompany him into the city to help him make the rounds to every city square in Cernheist, healing people. It took nearly a whole day just to deal with the soldiers. He could only heal one person at a time, and while the effort didn’t seem to drain him all that much, the weather took a toll on us all. The storm was growing worse by the hour. The skies were darker, and the temperatures plummeted until my face was numb and my fingers tingled painfully even under thick gloves. By evening, the snow was falling in sheets again, and we were forced to return to the keep.
I sat in the main room, hugged up as close to the hearth as I dared without risking a singed eyebrow. Phillip came to sit down with me, wrapping a wool blanket around us both and rubbing my hands between his. Part of me was totally embarrassed to have him doting on me like that. His special attention had not gone unnoticed by my dragonrider brothers. I caught Eirik grinning at me wolfishly more than once, his eyes practically glowing with mischief. But Phillip was so warm—I couldn’t refuse. Every inch of him seemed to resonate an unnatural, almost feverish heat. Not to mention his size now made it all too easy for him to wrap around me like a living barrier of star-freckled muscle. Sitting with my back against his chest and his arms draped lazily around me, I found myself nodding off to the soothing crackle of the flames in the hearth.
“We won’t be able to go back out tomorrow if the weather doesn’t improve,” Haldor said to Jaevid over mugs of warm cider. “We can’t ask them to bring their sick and injured out into the city squares under these conditions.”
“I agree,” Jaevid murmured. “We have no choice but to wait it out. The good news is while the storm has us locked in place, it’s also likely preventing the Tibrans from making any progress as well. We are all forced to a standstill.”
Haldor sighed. “That’s something, I suppose.”
“I counted fifty-three infantry soldiers, but only thirty-eight that would be battle-ready.” Jaevid was rubbing his jaw and brow, his speech a bit slurred from exhaustion.
“Why so few?” Phillip asked.
“Some had complications before we could get to them,” Haldor explained. “Amputations due to blood poisoning, gangrene, frostbite, or simply wounds to limbs that they believed were unsalvageable. Turns out no one was counting on a divine healer paying them a visit here.” He flashed Jaevid a grin.
“I bet.” Eirik chuckled. “Did anyone faint? Fall on their face and start praying to you? Offer you their firstborn?”
Jaevid blushed. “No, nothing like that. They were just a little surprised, that’s all.”
“Liar.” Haldor snorted.
Jaevid smirked over the rim of his mug. “Excuse you, but unless the dragonrider code has changed over the past forty years, then I believe any story I tell only has to be ten percent true.”
“Hah! He’s got you there!” Eirik crowed with delight.
Haldor just waved a hand and made a pffft noise.
“I may be old, but I’m not senile.” Jaevid looked smug as he took another sip of his cider.
I wasn’t about to question that. He’d taken to the task of deciding our next moves without missing a beat. And if he was recalling the dragonrider code, then maybe he was also remembering more of his past as well. I wondered exactly how much he did remember now, but it didn’t seem like the right time to ask. Except for Aedan, I was the only one here who knew about his scrambled memories. I didn’t feel right about revealing that to the others. Some truths weren’t mine to tell.
“If the snow lets up tonight, we’ll see about going out again tomorrow as planned,” Jaevid went on. “Otherwise, we’ll just have to wait.”
“I hate this feeling, like I’m sitting on my hands until something happens,” Eirik grumbled as he stood up and stretched. “I’m going to bed.”
“Make sure it’s your own.” Haldor heckled him as he wandered out of the room.
Eirik shot him a poisonous look that might have made a point—if he hadn’t been blushing as red as a tomato. From her chair by the fire, I saw Miri duck her head like she was trying to bury her nose in the crease of her book.
Haldor and Jaevid chuckled and went on talking quietly while they finished their mugs. When they decided to turn in for the night, Calem followed. Eventually, Miri got brave enough to emerge from the crack of her book and wished us all a goodnight before retiring to her own chambers.
After that, I could barely keep my eyes open. Phillip finally insisted it was time for us to go to bed as well. I’d nearly forgotten Aedan was still there, curled up on the sofa with a heavy quilt pulled all the way up to his chin. He stirred some when we stood but never woke up.
I draped the blanket we’d been using over him as well and left him alone. Aedan had been through a lot. We all had, of course. But looking at his nearly-shaved head and that brand-shaped scar on the side of his neck reminded me that the fact that he was lying there, sleeping peacefully, was nothing short of a miracle. If I’d seen him on the battlefield, I might have burned him along with the rest of the Tibran soldiers standing nearby. I would have never known who he was or why he wore the Tibran armor.
I wondered how many of our own I had already burned.
That thought haunted me as I wished Phillip a goodnight and lay down in my own bed. The room seemed empty and cold. It was unbearably quiet except for the faint howl of the stormy wind outside the window. My mind, more restless than ever, raced as I tossed and turned. I thought about Aubren and Reigh. Were they safe? Were they sleeping somewhere warm tonight? I didn’t want to imagine that the sight of Aubren in Tibran chains would be the last time I ever saw him.
Knowing that he would have betrayed us all, betrayed Jaevid and handed him over to Argonox like that, filled me with conflict. I wanted to be angry. I wanted to hate him. How could he have been so stupid? Did he honestly think Argonox would ever honor that agreement? Aubren had never given me the impression he even wanted to be King of Maldobar. So why? Where had this come from? Did I even truly know my own brother?
It felt as though my brain was being torn in half as I lay awake, struggling to make sense of it all. Whatever the case, I was certain about one thing: I wanted them back—both of them. And if they couldn’t escape Argonox on their own, then I was going to find some way to get to them—even if that meant I had to burn a path through every rank of Tibrans between here
and Northwatch.
TWENTY-FOUR
Years of training to become a dragonrider at Blybrig Academy had done more than chisel me into the perfect killing machine. It had also made me an incredibly light sleeper, which was unfortunate when you slept in barracks surrounded mostly by men—some of whom snored a lot. I’d almost gotten used to Calem’s familiar wheezing. Since he was my wing end, we usually roomed together. Being a princess and a woman didn’t entitle me to my own room at any of the places I’d been posted for duty. Not that I would have had it any other way. Fair was fair, and special treatment was not something I wanted or expected. I’d signed on for this, fully aware that I would be the subject of scrutiny and abuse simply because I was a woman attempting to survive what had always been deemed a “man’s profession.”
That said, earplugs would have been nice.
A faint scuffling sound woke me instantly. My eyes popped open and I tensed. My hand instinctively reached for the place next to my bed where I usually kept my sword. Naturally, it wasn’t there. I wasn’t in dragonrider barracks.
Sitting up in bed, I raked my hair away from my face and squinted around the bedroom. Everything was dark. The storm outside the window didn’t allow any moonlight to filter in, so I could only barely make out the faint dark shapes of the furniture. Maybe it was just the wind? My groggy mind was willing to accept that explanation as I snuggled back down into the blankets.
Then I heard it again. Soft, faint scraping. It was coming from under my bed.
I lunged for the nightstand and quickly lit a candle. Hanging over the edge of my bed, I sat the candle on the floor and peered around for the culprit. I was expecting a mouse, or even a rat. Both weren’t so uncommon in big castles like this. They found all kinds of nooks and crannies to hide in.
Then I saw it—a big, long, hairy leg.
Then another.
And another.
So many hairy, spindly legs.
Clamping a hand over my mouth, I sprang back onto my bed and drew my legs in to my chest. It was a spider. A huge spider. What kind of demonic spider could live in a place like this? Wasn’t it too cold for them here?
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