“Of course she is,” the king says aloud as if in answer to an unspoken question, and then grins. “You’re ready, aren’t you?” he asks me.
“Ready for what?” I ask doubtfully.
“To fly,” he says.
I balk as his meaning sinks in. “Onthem?”
Razulek and Indira both chuff at my screeched words, and I watch, mesmerized, as Darrius easily scales one of Indira’s extended wings and settles himself in place behind a ridge on her sinuous neck. He looks so small up there, and I let out a stunned laugh.
He waves. “Your turn, Starbright.”
“I’m not doing that,” I say. “No.”
He doesn’t try to convince me. Instead he shrugs. “Your loss. Razulek’s, too, as he has chosen you as his bonded rider.” With that, he gives some signal to Indira, and she dives off the edge of the cliff, taking him with her and making my heart lurch. It’s only when her crimson wings spread wide that I am able to breathe. Together, they climb the winds.
“What did he mean that you chose me?” I ask Razulek.
Azdahas can only have one bonded rider at a time. You are mine.
I exhale and bite my lip. “What if I fall off?”
His snout brushes my side.I would sooner die than let you fall, little queen.
I watch as he extends a wing, similar to Indira, and the slant of it doesn’t look that hard to climb. Without letting myself think too much about my fear, I start the ascent, using the bony protrusions as makeshift steps, until I am nearly at the apex where the wing bones meld into huge overlapped scales. I touch them and gasp—they’re hot under my fingers.
Careful on the scales,he cautions.They are sharp and slippery.
Using the small groupings of spines that dot his powerful flanks, I gingerly maneuver my way to a similar ridge on his neck where Darrius had positioned himself. The hide there is more reptilian than scaly, and I wedge myself in place in front of the thick, ropy muscles of his wings, keeping an eye on the rows of long, frilled spines that look viciously sharp in front of me.
Grip the spines atop the ridge,he instructs, and I do as he says.Now tighten your legs and hold on.
“Wait, Razul—” But his name cuts sharply into a shrill scream as we leap from the cliff’s edge and my soul practically stays behind. Shrieking, I clutch the spines in a death grip, my thigh muscles shaking as I dig my heels into his leathery sides, feeling the pressure of his formidable wings as they flare and widen, keeping us aloft.
His huge body ripples beneath me, the connection between us pulsing with magic. With pure akasha. The bracers on my wrists don’t even brighten—nothing of the earthly world, no human-wrought magic, can suppress this. Air rushes into my face as we soar upward to where Darrius and Indira are but a speck, the mountain range dropping away and becoming smaller and smaller.
As I suspected, you were born for this.Razulek’s voice is more than a little smug, but I can only grin so hard that my cheeks ache. By the gods, we’re fucking flying!
This is amazing,I think back to him, our bond humming.Faster, Raz.
He roars victoriously, and those great wings pump, propelling us through the sky like a shooting star splitting the heavens.
Chapter Eighteen
THENIGHTKING
Gods, she’s so fucking beautiful upon the azdaha—a queen in her own right—that I can hardly think as all the blood in my body rushes south in a frenzy of need. I want her. I need her. My curse rattles its cage, and the reminder of the fact that I can so easily condemn her to a monstrous fate is sobering.
For all my posturing about wanting to end her to break our soul-fated link, I can no sooner harm a single hair on her head than I can wound myself. Keeping her at arm’s length, and safe, is the only way I can survive her presence. Notcoveting her like this.Notwanting to spend hours in the blissful wake of her joy.Notcraving her like my next breath.
And while the smartest path of least resistance is to return her to Oryndhr—and her king there, as he has demanded or he will bring war to my doorstep—I cannot bring myself to do so, not with what Razulek has now shared with Indira.
They treated her like a thing to be controlled, chaining her will and binding her magic to those godscursed cuffs. I have tried everything to remove them, but not even the sovran strength of my magic can break the hold, not when it’s her own divine blood being harnessed against her. She is both lock and key.
I watch her fly for hours, long after Indira leaves to tend to her nest, feeling the chaos bleed into my veins as the curse takes root.
I’m a king chained to a soul-fated bond and damned by a devious god... a man doomed to tear apart the one he loves if he embraces the union. It’s only by rigid self-control I’ve resisted chaos, eschewed passion, forgone feeling.
Until now. Until my entombed heart felt her starlight.
