Even now I sought that which no longer lived inside me. The loss hollowed me. Everything I was…gone.
Tears burned, a shock in itself. I didn’t try to stop the hot droplets as they fell. My chin trembled with certainty, all doubt removed. There had been no fake bond with Taron. No illusions of love. Everything we felt—every look, every touch, every fight—had all been all too real. And we destroyed it with one stupid, irreversible choice.
Now I was dragonless. Mateless. Hopeless. “What if Taron and I drink the tonic again?” It could break the dragon’s attachment to Taron and return to me. Maybe. Unless the link was irreparable? What if we tried it, and the dragon left us both? Who would serve as the next host?
“The risks are massive,” she said, and chewed her bottom lip. “Plus, there’s more.”
My chin trembled. I wasn’t sure I could take anything more.
“Cedric and Lorik… they’re coming with an army. A big one. They’ll reach our borders by morning.”
Dread choked me. Here it was, the overall grand plan, and I’d rushed headlong into it. What a fool I’d been. Too consumed with my feelings for Taron to see the truth unfolding right before my sight.
A low, feral roar echoed through the castle walls, vibrating the floor beneath me. Taron. My chest clenched.
Adelaide cringed. “Your professor’s not taking his new hosting duties well.”
“Where is he?” I rasped, trying to sit up. Pain seared through me as if I were being cut with claws all over again. My body folded, flopping uselessly back onto the pillow.
Adelaide leaned forward, gently brushing damp hair from my forehead. “He’s chained in the dungeon. We didn’t know where else to put him. The further he got from you, the more he raged out, but you’re human now and we couldn’t risk…”
Yeah. “Take me to him.” I fought to sit up again, and this time, I ignored the pain and succeeded. I had countless bruises and multiple gashes, all sewn together.
“Olyssa—”
“I’m queen,” I interjected. “I may have lost my dragon, but I haven’t lost my title.” Not yet.
She sighed, exasperated, but she also complied, helping me to my feet after doing a little typing on her phone. My ruined clothing had been replaced with a nightgown that snapped in front.
“No one but us knows what happened,” she said. “I’ve instructed Lucinda to clear the path to the dungeon.”
Good. That was good. Better we keep the information secret until I figured out my next move. With war on the horizon, I needed my soldiers focused.
Slowly, we made our way through the castle. With every step, sweat broke out along my brow. But still I persisted, putting one foot in front of the other. Perhaps Taron sensed me. By the time we arrived at the dungeon, he’d worked himself into a lather, scorching the walls and floor, leaving streaks of soot.
Every instinct ached at the sight of him. Bound. Feral. Burning beneath the surface. I knew it all intimately. The new human part of me demanded I flee. Survival lay in distance, chains and locked doors. But this wasn’t a series of tests like the gathering of ingredients for an unbinding tonic or a challenge of a curse. This was life.Mylife.Myfuture. And even afraid, my future was him.
At the moment, he was hurling his body into the reinforced bars…and they were bending. But the second he spotted me, he went motionless.
“Lyssa. You live,” he breathed and reached out, tracing his fingertips over my cheek. Then he scowled and drew back, as if he feared harming me again. Regret and anguish radiated from him. “I cannot apologize enough. The look on your face as you fell…the blood. I will never forget it. And all of that, after I had harmed your people all those months. What I did to you was unforgivable and?—”
“I’ve already forgiven you,” I interrupted, giving himthe same words he’d given me yesterday. “I’m going to open the door and enter. All right?”
He widened the distance between us. “I want you close, but I don’t trust myself…”
“You won’t hurt me again.” The lock was coded to me and required only a print scan, which I initiated, even as I wobbled on my feet. Hinges whined, and the bars slid apart. I stepped inside the cell. Taron stepped toward me, only to wrench away, horror contorting his features.
“You need to leave,” he snapped and turned his back on me. I don’t think he meant to do it, but he huffed and a stream of fire sprayed from his mouth. The flames climbed the walls before dying, leaving more soot behind. A new dragon unused to his power.
“We must?—”
“Leave!” he roared, and another stream of fire escaped. “If you stay, I will burn you. Already the desire is nearly uncontrollable.” He swallowed hard and shuddered. “I don’t know how you resisted. How you held at bay this hunger to flame me alive.”
My jaw dropped, hope igniting. Ja! We may have found a way to reverse this situation. Well, not reverse, but rectify in some small manner. I might have lost my dragon, but I could still be made immortal. In Taron’s fire.
What ifIwere the phoenix?
Did I have a pure heart? Nein. But as Adelaide once said, legends sometimes got things wrong. Here was hoping.
