Donovan looks down at himself, then runs a hand through his hair. “Shit, baby-girl. You, you fixed me.”
“Who me?” I reply, laughing but also a tiny bit freaked out.
“Yeah, you, baby. You’ve got some fucking power inside that magic pussy of yours.”
I laugh again, but something about his words rings true. I did feel a sensation inside me that was more than just amazing orgasms.
Donovan looks serious. “Tee, baby.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know the right words, but like, you’re totally amazing. And the rest of my life is going to be by your side. We can’t be parted—not ever again. This is til death, no fuck that, this is for infinity.”
He looks at me so earnestly, like a knight pledging allegiance to his queen, and tiny hairs on my arms stand on end.
Donovan cups my cheek. “And you’ll be able to heal Wes if he needs it,” he says.
The thought of Wes, lost and hurt, snaps my thoughts back to worry mode. “Was he healthy when he…disappeared?”
“In full fighting shape. Wes and Max were fitter than fiddles,” Donovan tries to assure me, his thumb stroking my cheek. “This place hadn’t started wearing them down yet.”
“How exactly does this place wear you down?” I ask, a shiver crawling up my spine. “I mean,” I gesture to his chest, “you had all those injuries. What caused them?”
“Gods, Theo,” he sighs, his breath warm against my temple. “I wish I could explain. There is nothing here. Nothing! But sometimes it feels like this land is crowded with a million other invisible souls. I’ll be minding my own business, and then wham, I’ll stumble. Like I’ve tripped over someone. Or something.”
He sighs, and I see the years of loneliness in his eyes. “I think we’re very close to another world, or reality, or something, and the veil between the realms is so thin, sometimes it hurts.”
“Oh, my love.” Had those dreams been my subconscious hearing his cries? When I slept in my basement room, was he there, but just through this weird veil?
“I spent several months just clawing at this non-existent atmosphere,” he tells me. “Trying to puncture a hole in whatever was keeping me here.” Donovan’s lips twist into a wry smile, shrugging off the melancholy. “But that’s all over. Now you’re here, we’ll go find the guys, then split to sweeter pastures.”
“Yes. Yes, we will. We’ll do just that.” I have a burning certainty that we will find Wes, that we will find Maximus.
That we’ll all be safe.
Donovan tucks me firmly under his arm, and he lets out a massive sigh. “Tell me everything, baby. Seems like Cosmo is still being an asshole—but don’t worry, I’ll kick him in the dick.”
I’m enjoying that mental image when a sudden, earth-shattering roar echoes through the landscape. “What the? What now?”
My heart is almost pounding out of my chest.
I grab at my clothes and hurriedly start dressing as another sound reaches us, a low, rhythmic beating that vibrates the air.
“There!” Donovan bursts into uncontainable laughter. “Will you look at that!” he wheezes, pointing to the horizon. I follow his gaze, my breath catching in my throat. Swooping across the stark white plain is a creature of breathtaking, stunning, terrifying beauty.
A dragon.
“That, babe, if I’m not mistaken, is Cosmo fucking Drakeward.”
Cosmo? A golden dragon?
Of course he is.
5
Ludo and Alexis are jogging towards us.
I run to meet them. “Are you both OK?”
