It offered to help but like everything in life, it wanted something in return. A favor to be called due in the future. Favors were as binding as a bloodsworn oath, but I gave it willingly.
Anything.
And my wildfire healed.
When shadows came to steal her last breath, I healed her once,the dragon said.Now you ask for healing again. So I ask you. Will you fulfill your side of the bargain?
“I will,” I hissed.
When that time comes, make sure you do.
What would Wildfire say if she knew I’d bartered the unknown for the chance to hold her one more night? Would she still look at me with the same trust?
What would it ask of me, and would I truly be willing to give?
My hands shook. Heat pulsed around my wrist, making my mating mark glow. Veins of silver and red throbbed beneath my skin. A mark seared to life across my forearm. Curling. Shifting. Alive.
A dragon? It moved into place as if it had remembered that it belonged there.
My mouth went dry.
Drawing Reyla closer, I curled my body around hers. Her breath barely shifted the air. Her shadow flickered again, uneven.
“I don’t know what you want,” I whispered to the beast. “I don’t know what it means. But take it. Whatever it is, it’s yours.” My heart pounded, and desperation filled my voice. “Anything. I’ll give every piece of myself. Take my strength. My crown. My life. Take it all. Just help me save her.”
I was king of nothing if she died. My power and title might as well be ashes if I couldn’t keep the one person who made me want to rule in the first place. Burn it. Break it. Bury it. If only she'd look at me again.
The wind stilled. Branches quit creaking. I sensed the world waited.
The dragon mark on my skin flared, hot silver weaving through it like fire licking across dry grass. Tendrils of light left it, spiraling up my arm to my chest. The etched dragon clawed into movement, wings outstretching, its jaws wide in a soundless roar.
The creature came closer. Broad as a house, its scales gleamed like shards of polished obsidian. Moss shriveled beneath its weight and bloomed again behind it. Smoke drifted off its body as if it was halfway between form and air.
Dorion hurtled backward, his hands raised, wisps of fire coiling across his fingers. “Lore—” he choked out. “What is that?”
Farris whined and slunk around to cower behind me, pressing himself against my spine.
“I don’t know what it is,” I said, my voice shaking. “I didn’t call it. It came.”
When the dragon loomed over us, it lowered its massive snout to Reyla. Drawing in a breath, it exhaled. Heat wrapped around her chest and shimmered into her skin. The wound that would not close began to knit together slowly, strands of magic looping back where my own had failed. I watched, barely breathing, as blood faded into clean flesh.
I wasn’t sure how I knew, but this dragon was female. She pulled back, and her voice filled my head again, pressing deep into my bones.She saved you today. Now you must save her.
I blinked fast. “Tell me what to do.”
She’s caught. Locked in shadow and pain. Her spirit sleeps, but she does not rest. Her sleep is an open wound that bleeds her very lifeblood.
A pit opened in my stomach.
Enter her shadow. Inside, Prager has bound her with dreamcraft chains. Only a true soul mate can sever those chains. Shadow and love must fuse together.
It sounded like madness, like nothing real.
“How do I do this?”
The dragon tilted her head, her eyes as old as stone meeting mine.Ask Valera.
I stared at her, stunned and reeling. “What does a librarian know about this?”
