Beneath the fresh scent of air so high above the ground, the cold sting of misty clouds on my skin, there was another smell I couldn’t place, and I feared I knew what it was when that buzzing, pulsing ache returned to my head.
That was just another reason to keep my eyes closed, to hold on tight, to try not to think too hard about anything.
The sky was purpling with sunset when I felt the first lurch that sent my head snapping up. I could see the coastline beneath us, much closer than I’d imagined. Aderyn must’ve been listing downward for a while, and I hadn’t much noticed beyond a pop of my ears or another lurch in my stomach that had all seemed irrelevant until the sand was rushing up to meet us.
It was too fast, the flap of Aderyn’s wings too jumpy, as if the simple pressure of the wind trapped beneath the thin membrane of his wings caused him pain.
He was trying to slow our descent.
Failing.
I clung tight in time for us to hit the ground. A spray of sand flew into the air so high it might’ve been magic, if not for the impact of a full-grown dragon.
The power of that impact tossed me back, and I fell over his arm and into the sand too. The wind had been knocked out of me, but as I lay there gasping for breath, I was whole.
Whole as I could ever be, anyway.
There was still that blasted buzzing need.
And I sat up to see Aderyn shiver, to push himself up on four legs just for them to buckle again. His wings twitched and?—
Andthere, a shimmer of gold in the sunset.
Aderyn was bleeding.
It sprayed across the inside of his emerald wing, like the air had caught the drip and thrown it back at him. Now that we were on the ground, it gushed with his thundering heart, dripping down the smooth, delicate scales that made up the only vulnerable part of a dragon.
Aderyn was injured. The bastards had shot him with arrows, and at first, horrifyingly, my mouth watered.
But this was Aderyn, my Aderyn, and it only took a second for me to shake myself. Perhaps I wanted dragon blood, but I didn’t wanthis.
I pushed to my feet, sore from clinging onto him for so long, and put my hand on his neck. With a huff of breath, he set his jaw flat on the dunes.
“Relax,” I said, stroking his scales. Each one was the size of my hand, and so damned beautiful. “We can rest here. There’s no rush to get back.”
Aderyn grunted, and—well, I couldn’t blame him for getting quiet. Another hangup from his terrible childhood, that when things were bad or he felt unsafe, he clammed up.
I hated it and understood and wished I could hear his voice saying that he was all right and that he forgave me and that we would be fine.
Instead, I reached for the clasp of my cloak. “Can you shift back?”
It took a fair amount of shivering before he did, shrinking there on the sand until he was trembling and naked and I had to kneel to wrap my cloak around him.
When he looked up at me, bright green eyes pink with exhaustion, I touched his cheek. “I should clean up,” I said, nodding down to my clothes. “Will you be all right to sit here for a moment?”
He nodded.
On the way down to the waves lapping the shoreline, I stripped my tunic off. This wasn’t the ideal place to wash, but I’d take a garment stiff with saltwater over one stiff and smelly with sick.
I cleaned what I could and laid my clothing out on a stone. I didn’t know how well they’d dry overnight, but we’d make do.
I shuffled my way back to Aderyn’s side in my small clothes and dropped down beside him with absolutely no grace whatsoever.
The sea stretched out beyond us, and I leaned back on my hands. I didn’t know what we were going to do for food or water. Right then, it didn’t matter. The world was spinning and I was finished with it.
Aderyn was staring at me, blinking slow, and I didn’t know what to say.
“I’m sorry you were hurt,” I said, throat tight because the need told me that I shouldn’t be sorry, that I should revel in his wound, and it made me sick.
