I feel her small weight between our wings, still and quiet—too quiet.
At the start of the journey, when she climbed onto our back, I heard it—the soft, broken sounds she tried to hide—sobbing. She was crying as softly as she could, probably thinking I couldn’t hear her over the wind.
But I heard. Fuck, of course I heard.
My chest tightens painfully at the memory. My Drake wanted to turn his head—to nuzzle her, to show her how we both care for her.
But she’s been so distant since the Sorceress told her about the effects of the collar and how I would be stuck in Drake form if she died. She’s withdrawn—like she’s built a wall between us and I don’t know how to tear it down.
My Drake shifts restlessly beneath her, wings beating harder than necessary.
She is hurt, he tells me, a mournful certainty in his voice. She thinks we came only because we had to.
“I know,” I growl softly. “And that’s not fucking true.”
…Is it?
The doubt slides into my heart like a blade.
I tell myself—I would have come for her. That I would have chased her across the forest, across the desert, across the fucking world if I had to.
But we started as enemies.
She was my captor—my Mistress. The princess of the kingdom that chained me in a dungeon and treated me like a beast.
I hated her at first.
So when did it change? When did I stop seeing her as the enemy and start seeing her as mine?
I don’t know.
Maybe it was when she bathed me in the wooden tub at the Slaughtered Lamb. Maybe it was the way her hands shook as she touched me—afraid, but determined. Maybe it was the way she looked at me like I was a man, not a monster.
Or maybe it was later—when I held her as she cried and she trusted me enough to be vulnerable. Or maybe it was when she trusted me with her body, her pleasure… her heart.
Fuck—I don’t know. I only know she should be mine—that we ought to stay together.
I swallow hard, my throat tight.
I love her now. There’s no doubt about that. I did everything but Bond her to me when we made love—everything but seal her as my mate forever. My Drake wanted to—Gods, how he wanted to.
She is our mate, he rumbles insistently. She just does not know it yet.
She might never, I answer bitterly. She feels bound to her family. To her crown.
We will lose her, my Drake says quietly, fear bleeding through our bond.
The thought is unbearable to both of us.
Losing her would tear us in half—me and the Drake both. Once a Drake gives his heart, it’s forever. There’s no taking it back—no forgetting.
I grit my teeth and push harder against the wind, wings straining.
I have to do something.
I have to find a way to make her understand—to make her believe that I didn’t protect her just because of the collar. That I didn’t come after her only because I was afraid of being trapped in Drake form.
I came because I wanted her.
