With immense effort, I manage to pull my magic back and then also sever that final thread that I can now see thanks to the union bond with Draven. It makes the emotion disappear completely from the guard’s chest.
Cold, harsh reality rushes back into me.
Do it again, my mind chants.
Squeezing my fist, I barely manage to block out that incessant voice. But the boost of pleasure at least broke the spiral of pain enough that I can once more focus on Isera instead of my own pathetic emotions.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “Is there anything I can do?”
She shakes her head. “No. I just…” Raking her fingers through her long black hair, she drags in another deep breath. “I just wish I could get answers. I think that would make it easier for me to move on. But I’ve already asked Draven, and he doesn’t know anything since he was out on different missions almost the entire time my mother was in the Ice Palace.”
“Maybe we can try to force Jessina to tell us,” I offer.
“Maybe,” she replies. But the tone of her voice suggests that she considers it highly unlikely. To be honest, so do I.
For a little while, we just stand there side by side, watching Galen, Orion, Lyra, and Alistair perform the bonding ritual.
A slight smile blows across my lips as I watch Orion press his bleeding palm to Galen’s scales and then sway back slightly from the force that pulses out when the bond is established. I’m glad Draven made the decision to trust Orion and his court with this instead of going to the Seelie Court. If anyone has proven his trust and reliability, it’s Orion.
A jolt goes through the Unseelie King and he blinks when Galen no doubt says something straight into his mind. Then, with a smirk on his gorgeous face, Orion apparently thinks something back at Galen that makes the huge black dragon almost jump in surprise. I watch the two of them with a smile on my face while Alistair presses his own bleeding palm to Lyra’s scales a short distance away.
“Will you be forming a bond with anyone?” I ask eventually.
“No. I don’t want to form any bonds with anyone. I can’t. I just… I don’t…” She lets out another sigh, leaving the rest of her sentence unfinished.
Since I understand the gist of what she’s trying to say anyway, I just nod. Then I reach out and give her wrist a small squeeze before simply saying, “I’m here.”
“I know.” A soft smile blows across her face for a second. “You always are.”
An unexpected burst of warmth pulses through me, and my chest suddenly feels too tight.
She slides me a glance from the corner of her eye. “Sometimes, I wonder if this is what it would be like to have a little sister.”
My throat closes up, and a whole host of emotions surges through me. But I know that if I express them, Isera will just feel uncomfortable since she doesn’t like dealing with any kind of emotion. Let alone the joyous, teary mess that pulses inside me now.
So instead, I let out a teasing laugh. “Hey, I’m actually seven years older than you.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Really?” Then a smirk slides home on her lips. “I never would’ve guessed.”
“Azaroth’s flame!” Lyra suddenly exclaims across the grass. “Draven! Galen! Look at this!”
We all whirl towards her.
I jerk back in shock as I find her standing there with a pair of black wings flaring out on either side of her human body.
All the other dragon shifters around them gape at her.
Galen, who has now also finished performing the ritual with Orion, quickly shifts as well.
When the black smoke drifts clear, he is also in a half-shift form.
Next to me, Isera lets out a low whistle under her breath.
“Mabona’s tits,” I blurt out, staring at the two of them. “This must be what Lavendera hinted at.”
Isera nods. “The lingering effect that the dragon shifters get from the union bond.”
Out on the grass, Lyra lets out a whoop. “Oh, I can’t wait to show my brothers! They’re going to be so jealous.”
