Then we lift off into the air, flying high above the kingdom I’m never coming back to.
I just pray that I can find someplace safe where I can examine Irena…and that she’s all right.
83
VALEN
We don’t fly far—just long enough to get free of the castle and put some distance the guards won’t find it easy to cross between us. Then my Drake spies a large, placid lake, all silver in the moonlight. There’s no one near—not a single cottage nearby—and its miles from the castle.
Good enough.
He sets us down carefully and I’ve Shifted back almost before either of us can blink. There, by the banks of the vast silver lake, I cradle Irena to my chest.
“Princess? Sweetheart?” I ask, patting her cheek. “Baby, please be all right! Please don’t…don’t be dead.”
My voice seems to stick in my throat and my heart is pounding. I pat her cheek again and then put my hand over her heart. Is it still beating? I can’t tell. Is she still breathing? Why is she so still? What am I going to do if she’s really gone?
I crush her to me as burning tears like liquid flame rise in my eyes.
“Irena, please baby—come back to me!”
“Master Drake?”
The soft voice is so unexpected that it actually makes me jerk in surprise. I look all around me and see a familiar face reflected in the water. It is the Sorceress—the Lady of Thornmere—staring back at me from the lake.
“What…how…”
“She is dying,” she interrupts my muddled questions. “But you may still save her. You must give her your blood as she gave you hers. The power of your Drake’s blood should be enough to neutralize the poison in her body.”
I don’t question the magic. Before she’s finished talking, I’m already using my fangs to slice my wrist. I cradle her head and tilt her mouth open to let the rich hot blood pour in.
At first, nothing happens and despair fills me, squeezing my heart like a mailed fist.
“It’s not working!” I say in a strangled voice.
“It is…give it time,” the Sorceress counsels.
A moment later Irena’s eyelashes quiver and her eyes flicker open. She swallows convulsively and pushes at my wrist.
“Valen?” she whispers. “What…what are you doing?”
“He is saving you, my dear,” the Lady of Thornmere answers for me.
“Who…?” she begins.
“The Sorceress.” I lift her and point at the lake where the Sorceress’s face is still reflected in the water.
“Listen to me, both of you,” she says, her voice filled with urgency. “You must bind yourselves together. The poison is only neutralized for a moment—it will come back unless Irena’s life is bound to a stronger one—much stronger.”
I understand what she means…but I don’t know how Irena will feel about it.
“We must Bond,” I say in a low, harsh voice. I look down at Irena. “It’s the only way.”
“Bond?” She shakes her head. “I don’t…don’t know what that means.”
“It means we’d be tying ourselves together—for life,” I explain to her. “We must form a connection that never dies until one of us does. We’ll be together all the rest of our lives.”
I’m afraid she won’t want that—that she’ll turn me away and refuse me. But to my surprise, her face breaks into a smile.
