There were times Soren wished he’d been lucky enough, too, but…
Dragons felt the mate-pull as surely as mantii did. If not more.
Years now they’d known each other and…nothing.
It was a shame, really.
Of course, the mate-pull wasn’t the only force that brought lovers together. Humans felt no such pull, and orcs chose who to bond themselves to. Plenty happy unions had been formed that way—and plenty more matings had ended badly.
Mantii themselves loved and bred outside of mate-bonds.Kigarawere sacred, but until one was found, a mantii considered themselves available.
Soren didn’t expect nor want akigara, so, really, there shouldn’t have been a problem approaching Briseis.
Except…he didn’t know how.
A woman like Briseis deserved far more than a scarred, bumbling fool like him. There was hope for her yet. Although the only other dragon in the Darrowlands was her half-brother Theron, Briseis had made it perfectly clear she’dneverbe with another dragon. That meant any human, orc, harpy, or mantii could be her mate.
Well, all except Soren, of course. If she was his, they would know by now.
Dragons by scent, mantii by instinct.
Briseis smiled sweetly at him, striding across the distance on her long, slender legs. “Good afternoon, Soren. I’m glad you’re here—you can meet Maeve Brádaigh.” A smile touched her lips again before she gently touched his arm with her claws. “I appreciate the both of you helping so I can see to my new duties.”
Soren nodded. “Of course.” It was the least any of them in Danann could do—for Briseis and the children.
Those gold eyes of hers searched his for a moment longer; for what, Soren didn’t know. It always seemed as though Briseis waited on him to say something. But Soren held his tongue. He’d never been good with words. And besides, she deserved someone who knew exactly how he felt and would say so.
Glancing over her shoulder, she waved at someone just stepping from the school.
“Maeve, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
Soren followed Briseis’s gaze, expecting to see a young woman resembling Orek’s wife Sorcha. Instead, what he found was all the colors of the sunset.
The most beautiful human woman he’d ever seen walked—no, glided toward him, her smile radiating warmth. Soft wavesof reddish-gold hair had been tied back with a blue fillet ribbon, a few stray locks escaping to frame her heart-shaped face. Pinkened cheeks and lush, rosy lips, arching gold brows and long reddish lashes, radiant skin with just a hint of freckles on her nose and chest, glittering light brown eyes that sparkled in the afternoon sun—she was loveliness incarnate.
The embroidered flowers of her blue skirts nearly looked alive as they swayed with her comely figure; a set of stays had been tied around her middle, binding the soft, ample swells of her breasts. Those lifted as she took in a breath to say, “Good day, Mister Soren. I’ve heard so much about you.”
Those perfect lips curled around the words, around hisname, but Soren could hardly hear above the sound of blood rushing past his ears.
His heartbeat gained momentum and volume, striking against his ribs.
She lifted one slender hand for him to take. His vision caught on that hand, not tipped in claws but perfectly rounded nails. Soft. Pink.
Instinct jolted through him, and a mighty itch crackled down his right wing. He knew without looking that one of the long primary feathers had just come loose, fluttering to the ground between them, declaring for everyone to see that—
Saba em pash-ket.
The feather has fallen.
Histurukroared in his head, a possessive glee nearly overwhelming him.Finally!
Soren did the only thing he could think to do—he got a running start and leapt into the sky, winging away as fast as his remaining feathers could carry him.
The stories thought the loosing of a feather when finding one’skigarawas symbolic—a clipping of one’s wings. It forced new mates to stay near, to learn and claim each other.
That was all well and good, perhaps, but Soren fought his way through the sky anyway, managing to soar over the trees to his secret place.
The Darrowlands were all rolling hills, most of them densely forested. However, there was the occasional escarpment, where a hill had grown too large and the wind and rain sheared away its face. Soren made for one such shorn hill, hurtling toward its gray facade as though it were sanctuary.
