His warmth and scent enveloped her again as he shushed her. “Rest easy, mo chridhe. I’ll not have ye dying either, and yer precious Otto is safe in Wraith Tower awaiting yer return. These two are friends and will watch over ye while I do what needs to be done.” He kissed her forehead again and lingered there for a heartbeat, maybe two.
She cupped his face between her hands, finding comfort in the perfect bristle of his close-cropped beard. “Please come back to me. Please.”
“I will always come back to ye, my own. Always.”
He brushed a tender kiss across her mouth before moving away and leaving her comfortably cradled in some sort of leathery sling tucked against a warm, hard shield. She touched her eyes and made herself blink. “Please let the blindness be temporary,” she whispered as she covered her face with her hands. And where was Litress? She had gone too quiet. Was she all right? Maybe they were both dying. If they died, would they be separated for the rest of eternity?
“Litress?” She held her breath, waiting for the answer that didn’t come.
“Yer pale wolf rests,” said the male angel, his voice soothing and full of reassurance. “She has taken Bansys’s poison into herself to save ye, but never fear, my Bresag has tears for the both of ye. They will strengthen and heal.”
“Tears?” Calia bit back a groan as a painfully hard shudder battered her against the warming shield. “I don’t understand.”
“Drink this, cherished mate of mighty Cain’s grandson,” said Bresag, the female angel. “My tears will ease ye…and, in time, heal ye and yer wolf.”
The hard, leathery rim of what Calia assumed was a cup pressed to her mouth, but when she tried to hold it, it felt more like the fold of a tarp or a cloth funnel. Then, a salty-sweet liquid, more thirst-quenching than any water she’d ever tasted, trickled into her mouth. She drank it down in greedy gulps.
“Enough for now,” Bresag said. “More later. Once ye have rested.”
“I didn’t know angel tears could heal.” Calia breathed deeper, the horrendous ache in her chest already becoming more bearable. “Thank you, Bresag.” She sagged more comfortably into the leathery sling, curling over onto her side and facing the shield for its warmth to bathe her face. “And thank you, Mr. Angel. What’s your name?”
Both angels chuckled.
“I am Noirgarth, Protector of the Weak, and Bresag Gentleheart here is my mate.” Noirgarth rumbled with more amusement. “And we have been called many things, but ye are the first ever to call us angels.”
Struggling against a sudden weariness as she curled closer and rested her hand on the shield, Calia yawned. “Well, you’re angels to me for making me feel so much better, but what do you call yourselves?”
“We are dragons,” Bresag said with a gentleness that eased Calia into the reality of what she’d just said. “Blood rite brethren to Cain Shadowmist, and therefore, blood rite brethren to his grandson, Grand Chieftain Mathison Shadowmist.”
Calia blinked, still unable to see anything but utter darkness. “Dragons? As in, real dragons?”
The amiable pair chuckled again. “Yes, mistress. Real dragons.”
“I wish I could see you.” And she truly did. She wasn’t shocked. Nothing shocked her anymore. Not after everything she’d been through. She smiled as she remembered her and Gillian’s favorite storybook, a book about dragons who saved a village. If these two were like those dragons, even though it had been a fairytale, they could leave her here to sleep and go help Mathison fight the witches.
“Yer sight will return with healing,” Bresag said. “Sleep for now.”
“It’s not that I’m not grateful for all you’ve done, but could you leave me here and go help Mathison? I’m so afraid of what kind of traps those witches have set. It’s not just Bansys, you know. Carman, a much more powerful witch, is helping her.”
“We are aware of both their dark energies,” Noirgarth said, “but Mathison wishes us to tend to ye—not join him in the fray.”
“But rest easy.” Bresag touched something to Calia’s face. Something smooth and cooling. “Our sons, Kannis and Giddrie, fight at his side. The dark energies fear our formidable sons.”
“I can’t lose Mathison,” Calia whispered, fighting the urge to drift off. The constant, gnawing pain had made her so tired. “It took me thirty-nine years to learn to love and trust someone the way I love and trust him. He taught me how to love.” She released a shuddering sigh and repeated, “I can’t lose him.”
“Thirty-nine years is a mere blink of an eye,” Noirgarth said ever so gently. “Ye have ages and ages yet to enjoy one another. Close yer eyes, mistress. If Cain’s grandson inherited his temper from his grandsire, he’ll be ever so cross if he returns to find ye weary and sick from fretting.”
“Aye, mistress. Rest,” Bresag said even more quietly. “Sleep and let those precious dragon tears cleanse ye of that poison. When ye awaken, ye may sip more so to have ye fine and fit as a fiddle once yer mate returns.”
Calia didn’t want to sleep, but even in her sickly delirium, she realized that arguing with this pair of dragons was a losing battle. Frustrated, worried, and still amazed at all the wild turns her life had taken, she closed her eyes and tried not to cry. Maybe she’d wake up back at her cottage and discover this had all been some weird dream. No, she refused to believe or even think this might be some weird dream. It was real. Mathison was real, and they were married in every sense of the word.
“I love you, Mathison,” she whispered. She willed him to hear her and knew without a shadow of a doubt that he did.
“I love you, Mathison.”
Mathison halted his course down the tunnel, bowed his head, and willed Calia to feel the ferocity of his love wrapped around her and keeping her safe.
“What is it?” asked Kannis, the larger of the dragon brothers. As dark as a starless midnight sky, the glow of the young dragon’s golden eyes seemed to hover in midair as they lit his expression enough to reveal his readiness for whatever might come. Silvery tendrils of smoke rose from his glistening nostrils.
