"How the fuck is he doing that?" Owain demanded. "No one can make a portal into the city except for Taranis."
Emyr hefted Avallach up into her arms. "I don't even think he knows how he's doing it right now, but I suggest we do as he says."
Valentine let them go in through the portal first before following them. He turned and looked at what was left of the fortress.
Not enough,said his dragon.
The words came unbidden to Valentine's tongue, and he sent a dark curse flying through the portal. It hit the fortress and sparked along the stone. Within seconds, the structure and everything remaining inside of it turned to ash and crumbled.
Gripping Yelena's frozen body to his chest, Valentine shut the portal. He stared down into her sleeping face, covered in pale frost and still heartbreakingly beautiful.
"You're safe now, baby girl. You're safe," he whispered, and he silently swore to all the gods that he would keep her that way no matter the price.
10
Yelena was aching from the top of her head to the tip of her toes. It was a good healing ache that told her that the ice had finally released its grip on her, and warmth was flooding back through her system.
She opened her eyes slowly and blinked a few times. She recognized the healing wing of the palace by the smell of mint and lavender.
There was another scent in the room that sent a different kind of ache through her. It was ginger with citrus and a lingering note of hot stone.
Yelena breathed the scent deep into her lungs until she could taste it on her tongue. Her left hand was the warmest part of her, and when she glanced down, she saw the source of the scent.
Valentine Greatdrakes was asleep in a chair beside her, his body slumped forward onto the side of her bed. His hands were both wrapped around hers.
He's okay. Yelena breathed shakily, in and out, as tears filled her eyes. Her plan had worked, but the cost of it was brutal. She hadn't let herself think about it while in Cathal's cell. Shecouldn't doubt it. She knew it had been the only way. It still wasn't a comforting thought.
But there he was, alive and whole and perfect.
Valentine looked different from the way she had last seen him, too. He was leaner as if he hadn't been eating properly, and his aura was thick with magic.
Slowly, so as not to wake him, Yelena moved her hand and ran her fingers through his inky black hair. He was so brutal in his beauty that it hit you hard when you weren't ready for it. Gods, she had wanted to touch him for so long.
The first time she had seen him, her dragon had pounced on him, unable to stop itself. It was so curious about the silky, dark sensation of his magic. She had licked his skin, tasted his blood, her ridiculous mouth running about him being a dark mage because she didn't knowwhathe was. The taste of his blood and skin had been intoxicating.
She didn't know how to handle it or how to understand him. The enigma of all that darkness that was used to do good. And she had made such a mess of things by not knowing how to be normal around him.
Yelena's hand was shaking as she stroked his hair, memorizing the sensation of the silky strands. It might be the one and only time he let her touch him after the fiasco with the letters. She had just wanted to talk to him so badly.
When Taranis had been hurt and they had worked together to help heal him, Yelena had felt the dragon inside of Valentine. It had been awake all along, unlike the rest of his family. Her own dragon had wanted to play with it, to provoke it into coming out.
Yelena had seen the magic he had done to keep it locked in, and she had almost wept. Valentine needed help, and no one was able to give it to him except for her. That was why she hadgotten Taranis to convince Valentine to write to her as Caelan. He would never have accepted the help if it had come from her.
Baby Girl Galadrial. She had heard the name he had mockingly given her. Layla had been more than happy to show her the movies, and afterward, Yelena realized that despite his tone, that name wasn't a mean one. She was flattered to be compared to the elf queen of so much power.
The letters had worked until Valentine found out the truth and sent her that final note. Despite the hurt in it, he had still travelled all the way into Faerie for her.
Yelena couldn't remember much while in the ice, but she felt him change into a dragon. She knew he had come for her and that she was safe again.
Tears tracked down her cheeks, her body languishing in the feeling of that safety and having him close. She looked at her arm, bound in bandages and in a sling. Her mind couldn't make sense of the part of her that was missing. She looked away, tried to keep breathing because she didn't know what to do about it.
Her eyes fell on the drawings that were scattered around Valentine on bits of paper. They were studies of her hand from different angles. Notes were written in tight script she couldn't read. She could also make out the designs of a sigil, half hidden by his arm.
Valentine shifted in his sleep and opened his eyes. They were scarlet, not their usual gray. Yelena slowly moved her hand from his hair, hating the feeling of loss that swept over her.
"Hey..." he whispered, and it was his voice and not a dragon's growl.
"Hey," she whispered back. "You okay?"
