Chapter Thirty-One
THEO
Tears burstfrom her eyes as I fell to my knees and gently gathered her in my arms, tugging her against me as her body shook with the force of her sobs.
“Hey, wench,” I murmured, my body finally regulating as I held her and felt the steady thrum of her heart beating against my chest.
She was alive.
I swore things moved in slow motion as I pictured the fire licking at her body, burning away the woman who stole my heart. Something had snapped within me, my dragon and I falling into agreement that she was to be protected—no matter the cost.
“You stupid fucking dragon!” she screamed as she buried her cheek against my chest, lifting her hand to hit against my shoulder. “I had killed him, and now it doesn’t even matter!”
Of course she was pissed at me, meanwhile all I felt was relief. That was my wench, assuming the worst of me and my intentions.
My hands grabbed her face tenderly, tilting it up until she was forced to stare at me. “Please don’t cry for me. I’m not worthy of a resource as precious as your tears.”
Was she this bereft because I’d lost the same part of myself she hated only two months before? It simply could not be.
“Why would you give your dragon up for me?” she questioned, absolutely hysterical as she began to hyperventilate, ignoring my pleas that she calm herself.
It seemed she was truly distraught, but wouldn’t me being a human be more in line with her interest and life?
Whatever the case, my chest constricted at the anguish pouring from her. I wrapped my arms around her tightly, holding her close and burying my nose in her hair, breathing her in as she fell apart.
Her question rolled through my mind, and while I could think of a hundred answers, only one mattered. “Because I can’t imagine a life in which you don’t exist, wench. Somewhere along the way, you became as deeply ingrained within my soul as my dragon.”
“I…” she struggled to say between the ragged breaths blowing against my neck. “I had it. I killed it. Why did you sacrifice your dragon right at the end?”
My nostrils flared as I nodded against her hair. It was unfortunate that the beast was dead as my feet touched the ground, but I’d done what I needed to in the moment, and I wouldn’t apologize for it. “All I saw was the dragon beneath our platform, pinning you in the hallway and about to engulf you in flames. I didn’t think, wench. I just jumped down, ready to take him out or die with you.”
She pulled her head back, and I lifted mine to stare down at her dirt-smudged face, tear tracks running over her and cheeks and ending at her chin. Her bottom lip quivered as she sucked in a breath, seeming to attempt to calm herself. This was the dirtiest and most broken version of her I’d ever seen, yet I’d never before found her quite so breathtaking.
Here she was, heart shattered into jagged pieces, the pain on display for the world to see as she sobbed. And all of this…for me.
I lowered my head, touching our foreheads together as I breathed in her scent, the stench of sulfur masking the citrusy, woodsy scent I had grown to love. “All I know is that I couldn’t stand there and simply watch as the other half of my god's damned heart risked her life for me, simply to allow me to keep my dragon.”
“But…” she rebutted, her voice cracking as she did. “Your dragon is who you are, Theo.”
Our breaths mixed together in the space between us. I desperately wanted to taste her lips, but I needed her to understand first. “Me without my dragon is anguish, but I’ll still be alive. Me without you, wench…” I trailed off, unable to get the words out as emotion clogged my throat for the first time since my mother passed. “It’s unimaginable. It would be like being alive while my heart was dead in my chest, no longer beating.”
“I can’t bear knowing I’m the reason you gave half of your soul up,” she admitted as fresh tears pooled in her eyes. “It’s too heavy to carry in my heart.”
I lifted my lips to press against her forehead as she hiccuped. “And I couldn’t bear the thought of you giving your life up for me to keep it.”
Before Sia could reply, my head snapped to the left, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end and alerting me to the presence of the undine god. He stood at our sides, staring down at us with his hands clasped behind his back. The grin he wore tore a growl from my chest, my dragon threatening to surge out of me for the last time, just so I could rip the skin from his bones.
All of this was because of him. He’d made my wench inconsolable.
“Well, it appears we are at an impasse,” he chirped, like life just couldn’t possibly get any better for him. “Just as her blade pierced his brain, killing him, your feet touched the ground of the arena after breaking your binds to interfere.”
Sia jerked from my hold at his words, pushing to her feet to glare at him as I stood to my full height next to her. I entwined our fingers together, squeezing lightly as she vibrated with rage. Fury rocked me to my core, but I was more afraid of what she would try to do to him than what he could ever possibly do to us, in that moment.
“I did what you asked,” she spat, bitter and full of rage. “I killed the ember on my own without interference. You can’t take his dragon.”
While I did understand her rationale, this god had already proved to not care about reason, preferring to take joy from our misery. This right here? This was the perfect opportunity for a heaping spoonful of it.
He tsked in return, holding a hand up to stop her from continuing. “He willingly gave his dragon up the second he made his decision to intervene and the magical restraints dissolved.”
