Does a baby bird receive instructions the first time it tries tofly?
Lucyan frowned. That hadsoundedlike his voice…and yet, the words weren’t his. Had the dragon god spoken to him? Or had that bit of snark come from hissubconscious?
In any case, he didn’t see how that was relevant—birds relied on instinct, which was why they needed little instruction to get airborne. And yet…was that what Lucyan was missing? Was he not listening to his instincts? Or was the problem that there was nothing for his instincts to respondto?
How was Drystan able to change in the first place? Lucyan thought back to that time. Their father had slammed him into the wall with his tail. Lucyan’s ribs twinged with phantom pain at the memory. Just before he’d lost consciousness, he’d seen Drystan’s eyes flare red with shock and anger, andthen…
He hadn’t actually seen his brother change. The darkness had taken him before it had happened. But Drystan had been angry, filled with hate and fear because Lucyan had been injured. Necessity had spurred him to change, to face their father in battle before he destroyed themall.
Closing his eyes, Lucyan focused his attention not inward, not on his desire to change, but on his desire to have Dareena back, safe and sound in his arms. He pictured her sweet, smiling face in his mind, then imagined it morphing, changing to grief and fear. She screamed his name as a pair of elven hands wrapped around her upper arms, dragging heraway—
Lucyan snarled as fire flared in his chest, burning hot and bright as rage consumed him. He channeled that energy into his all-consuming need to save Dareena, to rescue her from the cruel bastards who had taken her away and burn their enemies to cinders. Something inside him snapped, and pain rippled through flesh and bone as his body stretched and changed, becoming something far bigger and stronger. Wings sprouted from his shoulder blades, scales popped up from beneath his skin, and his jaw elongated and filled with far more teeth than he could ever rememberhaving.
By the gods.He opened his eyes, and suddenly he couldsee. He zoomed in on a coyote chasing after a rodent, both animals clear as day despite only a sliver of moon hanging in the sky to illuminate his surroundings. He could count the individual blades of grass through the night sky,seethe currents drifting in the air around him—his wings flexed instinctively, wanting to catch the updraft, and without further thought he launched himself into thedarkness.
He managed to jump about thirty feet in the air with a powerful bound and snapped his wings out. The wind buffered them, and he coasted for a bit, relying on his instincts to read the current. His heart pounded as he pushed himself higher, his blood singing with exhilaration as cloud mist brushed over his scales. He was really doing this! He wasflying!
After only a few minutes, his wings burned from the strain. He coasted to the ground, landing only a few hundred yards from where he began. Panting, he tucked his wings against his sides, then craned his neck to get a good look at himself. The moonlight shimmered over his scales, a brilliant red-orange, as if each scale held a flame within itself. Stretching, he preened a bit—he’d look magnificent to anyone who could seehim.
Magnificently useless, so long as you’re inElvenhame.
Lucyan huffed. True, he couldn’t use his wings or dragon fire to break into Castle Whitestone. But he would eventually figure out a way to worm past the castle’s defenses. And in the meantime, there was no reason he shouldn’t hone his flying skills. With that thought, Lucyan flexed his wings and launched himself into the airagain.
Drystan might have been the first to shift, but Lucyan intended to be the first one to master the sky so he could carry their beloved matehome.
22
Dareena spentthe next few days studying the elven books she’d taken from the library and practicing magic every second she had. Which turned out to be quite a lot, as she had nowhere special to be. Princess Basilla liked to stop in at lunch to check in on her, the servants brought Dareena her meals, and Mari, the maid, came every morning and night to dress and undress her, but aside from that, she saw no one. She half-expected Arolas to come back to her room and accost her, but the prince was nowhere to befound.
Likely bossing around his soldiers,she thought, and not without bitterness. Oh, if only Ryolas were still in charge! Dareena had never met the younger prince, but if Tariana was smitten with him he had to be a noble man. He never would have separated her fromAlistair.
“My lady?” Mari knocked on the door, startling Dareena. The clock on the wall told her it was barely four, far too early for the maid to come. Hastily, she shoved the books beneath her pillows, then smoothed thebedspread.
“Come in!” she called, and Mari opened the door. “What are you doinghere?”
Mari bustled in. “The royal family wishes you to dine with themtonight.”
Dareena’s eyes latched onto the shimmering teal dress hung over her maid’s arm—it wasn’t one of hers. Who had sentit?
“I’m to get youready.”
Dareena’s palms grew sweaty at the idea of sitting down to a meal with her captors. “Is Prince Arolas back?” she asked, rising from the bed so Mari could help her out of her daydress.
“He is.” Mari hesitated. “You should try not to provoke him this time if you can help it, my lady. He was quite furious after your last…encounter.”
Dareena bit her lip. She remembered quite well how angry Arolas was after she’d slapped him and called him an insolent pig—he looked ready to strike her himself, and might have done so if Princess Basilla hadn’t come storming into the room, in a towering rage herself. The royal siblings had argued fiercely about Arolas’s decision to jail Alistair, and had taken the conversation out of Dareena’s room, to her mingled disappointment and relief. Basilla had come to her the next day and apologized for not being able to stop it—she had no power to challenge Arolas’s decisions, and he would not listen to her no matter how insistent herarguments.
Gods, would she be able to sit across the table from him and keep a pleasant smile on her face while he leered at her? She knew he wanted to bed her—apparently his hatred of dragons did not extend to her body, or perhaps it was a gesture of dominance. After all, if he could successfully bed the dragon king’s mate, that meant he was more powerful, didn’tit?
Please,a voice in her head sneered.Any one of my mates could crush him like the cockroach he is if not for this awfulspell.
Dareena allowed her mind to drift as Mari dressed and coiffed her, curling her mass of dark hair and fixing it atop her head with sparkling pins. The dress fit her like a glove, and as Dareena finally looked at herself in the mirror, a shiver crawled down her spine. Had Arolas ordered it for her? Had he imagined peeling her out of it afterward? The very thought made her nearly lose her appetite, and she swallowed hard against the bile rising in herthroat.
“There.” Mari smoothed out a non-existent wrinkle in her gown. “You look ready toeat.”
“Do you mean I look like I am ready to go eat, or that I look like I am ready to be eaten?” Dareena askedwryly.
Mari laughed. “Can it beboth?”
