He smiled against her. There was no greater gift, no finer treasure in Gevra than his wrangler’s heart. He would guard it steadfastly with his own.
And every beast and weapon at his disposal.
She licked her bottom lip, the blush in her cheeks deepening. Her pupils flared, echoing his own desire. This kind of declaration required a kiss, if not a marriage and a lifetime together. ‘At the risk of failing as your nurse, are you in too much pain to—’
He kissed her fiercely, his hands sliding into her hair as he claimed her mouth. Her lips parted for him, and his tongue swept in, caressing hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pouring herself into him with a languid moan.
The kiss was slow and deep and lingering. Despite their growling hunger,they were gentle with each other, too bruised and aching to throw themselves into the bonfire of their lust, but every stroke of Alarik’s tongue was a promise of more to come, her ragged gasps a fervent, answering vow.
Eons later, they broke apart. Cheeks flushed and eyes bright, neither one of them could keep the smile from their face. With great effort, Greta tore herself away from him and stood up.
‘Come to the balcony,’ she said, gently tugging him to his feet.
Alarik joined her at the balustrade, where they stood looking out at the Fovarr Mountains, the once unbroken line of peaks now shattered down the middle, as though some great, lumbering beast had trampled through them. Which, of course, it had.
It would take months to properly clear away the rubble and excavate the rest of the caverns, but at least now he could see all the way to the horizon.
Greta pressed a kiss to his cheek, then jerked her chin downwards. ‘You’d better say a proper hello.’
Alarik peered over the balustrade to find a dragon sprawled across the frosted lawn. She was lolling on her back, idly picking her teeth with the branch of an elderberry tree.
‘Go right ahead, Fern,’ said Alarik, waggling his fingers. ‘Make yourself at home.’
‘This was her home long before it was yours. It looks like she intends to stay.’ Greta gestured to the bony carcasses littering the lawn. ‘She ate all your wedding food, by the way. Including the ceremonial squid. Lief fainted in horror, and she almost ate him, too.’
Alarik chuckled, swiftly warming to the magnificent beast. ‘If she’s happy and you’re happy, then I’m happy.’
Greta beamed, her smile shooting through him like sunlight. ‘So, we’ll keep her?’
‘Only if you promise to keep me.’
She hummed in delight. ‘Then she’s yours.’
‘No, my love. She’s ours.’
But as the dragon stretched, releasing a flaming yawn that set the entire sky alight, Alarik had the sudden unshakeable sense that they belonged to her just as surely as she belonged to them.
He wouldn’t have had it any other way.
CHAPTER 44
Greta
Perched on the ridged back of her dragon, Greta looked down on the snow-drenched peaks and sprawling pine forests of Gevra and felt as though her heart might burst with love. It was a jewel, this proud and ancient land, a place so rare and beautiful and wild, it demanded to be treasured.
To be defended.
Greta did not relish the idea of war. She hated the bloodshed and loss and grief that had followed the Battle of the Blackspires, the pain of which still lingered over Grinstad. And yet she understood that at vital times, through the grand and tangled tapestry of history, war was a necessary evil. One that, even despite victory, always exacted a great and far-reaching cost. She reminded herself of that as the familiar black mountains appeared in the distance, their jagged peaks stark against the dawn-kissed sky.
Gruesome memories crowded in on her, making her stiffen in her seat.
‘I’ve got you,’ whispered Alarik’s voice in her ear. He tightened his hold on her as he pressed a kiss to her neck.‘We both do.’
Fern was too busy navigating to respond with her usual huff of smoke, but Greta felt the dragon’s steadiness in the measured beat of her wings as they descended towards those menacing black peaks.
It had only been a handful of weeks since they’d blasted their way out of the Fovarr Mountains, but that fateful day had forged an unbreakable bond between the three of them. Alarik was overseeing a painstaking excavation of the crumbled mountains, where his soldiers had retrieved three golden dragon eggs from the ice. They were currently thawing in the orangery at Grinstad, though Greta could already sense the spirits inside them slowly yawning to life. It was a thrill to imagine what other extinct beasts might turn up in the thawing ice of those uncapped mountains in the weeks and months ahead. More dragons, she hoped. And griffins and wyverns and mammoths, and perhaps even a unicorn! The possibilities were so enchanting, they often kept her up at night.
Alarik had promised a dragon egg to King Nilas of Halgard, Elva’s father graciously accepting the offer and the alliance that came with it. It was more than enough to meet Alarik’s debt to the wealthy neighbouring nation, officially freeing him from a marriage that neither he nor Elva had ever truly wanted.
