I flexed my fingers, giving my hand a little shake to wake our connection, to rousehim, to feel the comfort of his heartbeat inside me so that I could feel as confident in my answer as I pretended to be.
I clung fast to his gaze, diving into those frosty depths. I stretched my fingers wide at my side, searching for the pulse of him, desperate to revive him, to reviveus.
He was here in front of me. Desperation spread through me like a fever. Why could I notfeelhim once again? Why were we not joined? Where was our bond?
“Fell?” I queried, searching the face of the dragon before me—looking for the man I knew.
He stopped, still gazing at me with the cold, f lat eyes of a killer.
He’d always been the Beast of the Borderlands. Now, gazing at this dragon, I found little evidence of the man who’d married meand brought me north with him, and that moniker felt more true than ever.
I let go of Kerstin and rose shakily to my feet, my legs as insubstantial as jam as I faced him. The only fear I felt was the fear of not finding him inside this creature with its huffing breath and flaring nostrils.
The dragon pawed the ground in front of me in a way that very much felt like a warning.
Kerstin whispered my name, cautioning me.
I ignored her. I had to do this. If he wasn’t Fell anymore, who—what—was he?
We stared at each other, eyes locked for one endless moment. “Are you in there?” I whispered, the words barely audible, but they didn’t need to be heard. Not if he was in there. There washearingand there washearing. He should feel me and know.
With his dead eyes fastened hungrily on me, he didn’t feel like anything to me. He felt like a stranger. Worse—an enemy. An animal. As far away from me as ever—and it gutted me.
“Tamsyn?” Kerstin reached to grasp my hand, but I shook her off. I didn’t glance down at her as I stepped forward, walking determinedly toward him on trembling, unsteady legs.
He held menacingly still as I advanced, canting his head, watching me with a predatory intensity, his nostrils the only thing moving, flaring wider with heavy, panting breaths.
“It’s me. Tamsyn.” I held out my hand, palm facing out as one would do when approaching a wild animal … but also so he could see the mark there, as though that might jog his memory into recalling we were bonded, blooded. “Tamsyn. Remember me?”Remember you?“I’m your wife,” I said, surprised that the word emerged so readily. It meant nothing to dragonkind, but not so with me. It meant something to me, and with a choking epiphany I realized I wanted it to mean something to him, too. “Remember?” I prodded, my voice cracking with entreaty.
He didn’t.
He didn’t remember. I saw that—too late—as a sudden feral gleamcame into his eyes that should have had me lurching back and fleeing to escape him.
He didn’t know me.
He didn’t know himself.
He surged forward, and Kerstin cried out from behind me, her fingers circling my arm and yanking me back.
I resisted—foolishly, hopefully.
“He won’t hurt me,” I said, standing my ground, not permitting myself to think about what it would mean if I was wrong.
I resisted the urge to flinch when he came to a hard stop directly in front of me. He lowered his head, the deadly sharp spikes shooting off his frill a mere inch away from slicing across my neck and ending me—if he so willed it. Several of those spikes glinted with blood from the earlier melee, and I swallowed down a surge of bile. Would he kill me as coldly as he’d killed those warriors?
He blew out a hot breath against my face, fluttering my hair.
“You know me,” I said again, my voice cracking. “We’re alike. The same, you and me.” I fought down the lump clogging my throat.
No recognition flashed in those feral eyes. He chuffed against my face, and his mouth parted, revealing the ruthless length of his fangs … so … close.
“I missed you even when I wouldn’t let myself think about you,” I confessed in a whisper, my voice a plea. I knew he was in there … somewhere. I just had to reach him.
He released another breath, and I turned my face to the side, squeezing my eyes tightly shut, waiting, ready for those fangs to sink into me, to tear through me—to end me like all the warriors whose bodies littered the ground around us.
Wind whispered over me.
I opened my eyes.
