“Mallory?” His voice cracked as he dropped to his knees and hovered over her. “Mallory, talk to me.”
She lay unnaturally still, half-curled in the snow. Blood spread dark and terrible beneath her head and stained the white ground like spilled ink.
“No,” he whispered as the word tore out of him. “No, no, no. Gods, please no.”
He gathered her into his arms, careful and frantic all at once. Her head lolled against his chest. Her skin felt too cold and her breaths were shallow and uneven.
“Hey,” he said hoarsely, brushing snow from her hair with shaking fingers. “Hey, I’m here. You’re okay. You’re okay.”
The lie tasted like ash.
His dragon surged forward, no longer restrained.
She will die if you don’t act.
“I know,” Jakob whispered and bowed his head until his forehead rested against hers. His hands trembled violently now. “I know. I’ve got you. I won’t let you go.”
Take her to our healers.
The words hit like a thunderclap and Jakob froze.
“That’s forbidden,” he breathed. “You know it is.”
The springs are forbidden. Loving her is forbidden. And yet here we are.
His jaw clenched. “If the elders find out…”
Let them. Human healers will not save her. The guardian’s strike was effective. Her skull is fractured. She needs dragon magic.
Jakob’s chest ached with the weight of it. Every rule he’d been raised with pressed down on him at once. Dragons did not reveal themselves. Dragons did not take humans beyond the veil. Dragons did not bring outsiders to their sanctuaries.
But dragons also did not leave what was theirs to die in the snow.
Mine,the dragon growled.Ours.
Jakob forced himself to his feet and cradled her against his chest. The forest felt suddenly exposed, with every shadow a threat and every open space a risk.
Too many eyes. Too many rules.
Panic overruled his common sense that no one else was around as he pushed deeper into the wilderness until the branches grew thick and tangled enough to hide what he wasabout to do. When he finally stopped, his breath came out in ragged clouds.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured to Mallory, unsure whether it was for the pain, the fear, or the truth she was about to see if she woke too soon. “Just… hold on.”
He laid her on the ground and then he let go. The change ripped through him like lightning.
Bones shifted and power surged, wild and blinding. White light exploded outward as his human form disappeared and a pearl-white dragon stood where Jakob had been. His gleaming wings unfurled with a thunderous snap that sent snow cascading from the trees.
Frosted feathers shimmered along his neck and wings and sparkled in the winter sunlight like tiny shards of ice.
Carefully he gathered up Mallory and curled his massive body around her. His wings folded protectively to shield her from the cold as if she were made of something impossibly fragile.
“Hold on,” he rumbled, his voice a deep echo in the clearing. He lowered his head and nudged her gently with his snout. “I’ve got you. I promise.”
He launched into the sky.
The wind tore past them as he flew and clouds ripped apart around his wings. The mountains fell away beneath him, reduced to nothing more than jagged shadows. His muscles burned with the effort, but he pushed harder, faster, with every beat of his wings fueled by fear and fury alike.
Mallory stirred against his chest.
