I will even attempt to placate three princely babies who don’t deserve to get within ten feet of this incredible woman.
“Do I have your heart, Harper?”
She glances down, her long lashes covering her eyes. “I think you do.”
It’s the best I can hope for right now. “And do the princes have your heart?”
“A part of it,” she admits.
It hurts, like a knife to the gut, but I try to breathe through my pain. My people rarely share females, so I’m not built to share my woman, nor did I envision a future as such, but this is what I’ve agreed to. A deal that will change my people's lives.
Not just change our lives,savethem. Because the truth is, the deep, dark, dirty truth that I can never tell her people, is that the Hollowborn are dying out, just like their dragons. We need this deal, or else we face extinction. Our rough lands simply cannot keep providing the things we need to survive. So even if it pains my soul to share this beautiful creature with fucking Dravari princes, I’ll do it, for my people.
Even though I already don’t like the pricks. Not just because they’re Dravari, but because they had this woman in their orbit and didn’t appreciate what they had.
I’ll never make that mistake.
“As long as they don’t have all of it.”
Kissing her fiercely, I try to mark her with my kiss. To reach down to her very soul and make her feel me, like I'm an extension of her, a part of her very heartbeat. When I pull back, I’m hard and aching.
“We really can’t stop?”
“Well…” She hesitates, then shakes her head. “The storm already delayed us. They’ll be worried.”
“Fuck,” I mutter, trying to calm my desire for her.
She pulls back. “When we get there, I imagine the princes will be… protective. The deal will be signed, and they’ll want to have our own marriage ceremony, probably as quickly as possible.”
“I don’t care for their ceremony—the only one that matters has been done—but I’ll do what I must for this deal to be made. For us five to be binded together.”
My thoughts move to what I can expect there. I trust Harper, but I do not trust King Stormvale to keep his word. I do not trust that this isn’t a trap. If we hadn’t been so desperate, I would’ve never put myself in such a vulnerable position.
Not that I can let them know that.
Right now, they think we’re equals. Everything will change if they smell desperation on me, so I won’t let them. Luckily, I’m good at hiding my emotions.
“We’ll be there today?” I ask, even though I know the answer.
She releases an anxious breath. “Soon.”
I snuggle against her. “I guess we’ll have a little more time just the two of us. Luckily for me.”
She rewards me with another smile that makes my heart feel like it’s full of sunshine, but I keep that stupid thought to myself. I want her to know that she is my beloved mate, but she doesn’t need to know just how lame I am in my head.
There’s time enough for her to learn that.
But first, we have to survive this deal…
In the back of my mind, I feel my bone wyrm faintly in the distance, heading back to Volcaris with my men. I debate about letting him go, pulling my powers back from him and letting him crumble into nothing but a pile of bones once more, but the instant the thought occurs to me, I push it away. Finding the body of a dragon to raise is almost impossible. I can’t let go of my bone wyrm unless I’m certain that I’ll never need him again.
And right now? Well, there’s nothing but uncertainty about my future. So, I’ll keep my bone wyrm until I’m certain I’ll never be returning to Volcaris.
5
Harper
Nerves cracklebeneath my skin as we spot the academy just ahead. We’re here. We’re finally back. And somehow, I feel the fantasy world I was living in with Sevrin is about to be destroyed, replaced by a sharp reality.
