Guilt blooms in the lingering tightness of my chest. “Kellan wanted more than I can give.”
Sybil sits back, her brow creasing. “He wanted to marry you. Mate. Have a family. Is that so bad?”
“Yes, when I realized I didn’t want to marry him.” The guilt still eats at me. For hurting Kellan. For the tension still impacting the team. Some days are fine. Some are strange and hard and so incredibly awkward I wish I could reverse time and never start something that was going to end.
That I was going to end.
“I know he antagonizes you, but that’s only because he wants your attention.”
He definitely antagonizes me. He’d also lay down his life for me in a heartbeat. “Kellan wanted all of me, and I don’t even know who I am. What I am. I just…couldn’t.”
“It’s more than that,” Fyrestar rumbles in my mind.
“And something was missing,” I add softly. “It just didn’t feel right.”
“It sounded pretty right,” Sybil says saucily. “And you gave very detailed descriptions at the time.”
I can’t help smiling. Of course I did. Kellan was my first love, my first—and only—lover, and Sybil is my best friend.
“It was great,” I admit. “I just didn’t want what he wanted in the end.”
“Which might be why Kellan can’t get over it.”
I bite my lip, slowly rolling it between my teeth. That—and the fact that we’re still stuck together, day in and day out. We both chose to stay with the Elite Wing, even after the breakup and all the ensuing resentment and unease. If we’d gone our separate ways, things would probably be different. Kellan would’ve moved on, and I could’ve stopped feeling irritated and guilty when nothing terrible even happened—no lying or cheating or violence. I just broke his heart. “I wish he would get over it.”
“Me too—especially for his sake. A dragon shifter’s life is long.”
Sybil pours me a glass of water from the pitcher at my bedside, then pours herself one too. She leaves mine where it is, within easy reach of my cocoon of pillows, and sips from her glass as she sits back. Dehydration is an aftereffect of healing magic, and I worry sometimes that she doesn’t put the same effort into taking care of herself as she does into taking care of me.
“But if he’s not the one, he’s not the one.” She shrugs, draining half her glass. Then slyly, with interest she can’t hide sparkling in her eyes, she asks, “What’s this about Bale chomping straight through a weretiger to rescue you?”
Tension rips across my chest. I don’t answer right away, seeing it all in my mind again. Those burning amber eyes. That precise, deadly spiral. The brutal bite.
Goose bumps splash over me, but the sudden shiver feels hot and settles heavily at the base of my spine.
“He got there just in time.” My pulse beats hard, pushing a flush I can feel to my face.
“That’s it? That’s all you’re giving me?” Her expression begs for more, and my take-it-or-leave-it shrug makes her huff, incredulous. “He came, he killed, I lived?”
“That’s all there is to say.” I don’t want to bring up how Bale praised me, even when I nearly got Fyrestar and myself killed, or how he hesitated to let Kellan carry me home. There could be a hundred reasons for that.
“Your bright-red blush begs to differ,” she says tartly.
I heat even more, and my heart gives a nervous thump against my ribs. Sybil is the only person to ever guess at my secret crush, but I’ve never confirmed it, even when she fishes for information. I don’t want to admit it to anyone. Maybe I don’t even want to admit it to myself, because there’s nothing more stupid I can think of than getting involved with my king, the leader of the Elite Wing, and the man who holds the fate of my birds. As much as I call the three of them mine, in truth, they’re also Bale’s.
I turn my attention to Fyrestar to avoid Sybil’s probing gaze. His everlife heals him of his injuries much faster than any human magic could heal mine. It also brings him back from the dead—something unique in Ellonrift, at least if magic endures. I can’t imagine how many years Bale must’ve shaved off his own long life to put that gift into the warbirds. I know he did it with the help of a human sorcerer, a woman long since dead. The talented witch lived in lavish comfort here in Drayke Mountain for her remaining years, and I’m glad she did. “You okay, old friend? All healed?”
“Who are you calling old?” Fyrestar ruffles his feathers, but a soft coo follows the protest, negating its heat.
“If you’re old, then I’m old, so I should watch my words.” I’m roughly the same age as the warbirds of Torridaig, but since they’ve all burned back to their primal lifespark at least once, including Fyrestar, I’m their elder by far. “And I take it that means you’re fine?”
“Fit as a dragon, but it took three days.”
I gape at him. “Three days?” I whip toward Sybil, straining the tender skin on my back. “How long was I asleep?”
I don’t like the way she shifts in her chair. “A while…”
My eyes narrow. “Three days is a lot longer than it should take a warbird to heal.” Too long. It makes me want to reach into the night sky, pull down the Star of Ellonrift, and shake the magic out of her. “How long was I unconscious?”
