“I’ll be here. You know I will and my hearth will always be warm and waiting for you.”
Just as his heart would always heat up with warmth for her.
Urian reluctantly let go and watched as she went inside and closed the door. The latch fell with an echoing sound of finality that cut deep to his soul.
His throat tightened even more as he waited for her to get the fire started. And with every heartbeat, he ached more, hoping he could keep his promise and that he would see her again.
But the life of an Apollite was an uncertain thing. Especially whenever they ventured into the land of the humans. Those who’d made it down to Kalosis had come with terrifying tales of the war between their two races. Of entire Apollite villages being raided during daylight hours where the humans would drag them out into daylight, just to watch them burn.
Humans weren’t content to let them die at twenty-seven. They wanted them gone completely. Their age didn’t matter. Apollite infants had been seized from their cradles and thrown from city walls to sizzle and die beneath the sun they’d been banned from. Suffocated in their cribs. Drowned.
Or worse.
Their women and children had been tied to Apollo’s outdoor altars and left in the sun to blister and die at dawn. The men had been beheaded and ritually sacrificed like animals for slaughter.
Unbelievable stories of horror abounded. Just when Urian thought they couldn’t get any worse, someone came in with one that topped the last one he’d heard.
And it was nothing compared to what the Greeks did to the humans they found who helped his people. He couldn’t imagine what they’d do to his mother for birthing them.
Trates came forward as he rejoined his men. “Are you all right,kyrios?”
He blinked at the question. Like all the Apollites and Daimons in Kalosis, Trates called him “my lord” in Atlantean. A formality his father insisted upon.
Urian nodded. “Just worried about my mata.”
The light finally began to cast shadows in the cottage. She pulled back a curtain to wave at him. Even though he knew she couldn’t see him, he returned the gesture.
Summoning a portal, Urian made sure that his voice carried so that the others with him would hear it. “If anyone ever harms her, I will make what the soldiers did to Ryssa of Didymos and her son look like a gentle caress in comparison to the vengeance I will wreak upon them and their families.”
The haste with which they ran into the portal assured him that they not only heard his words, they believed them.
Good. Because he had every intention of carrying them out. His mother might be human, but she was his mother and he would see her safe, no matter what.
Yet as he looked back one last time to see her loving face framed by candlelight, a horrible feeling of dread went through him.Please, don’t let this be a mistake …
And don’t let this be the last time I see my mother.
Heartsick with fretful worry and anxiety, he followed them to Kalosis.
While his men went home, he ventured to the dark garden where no Apollite was allowed to visit. It was a trek he’d been making every week since the night he’d met Sarraxyn.
Yet this wasn’t Hesperus—the time of night when they normally held their meetings. Not that the risk mattered to him tonight. Urian needed his best friend.
His only friend, really. Other than Davyn. But he had to share Davyn with Paris, and though Davyn was a good friend, Urian knew that in the end, Davyn’s loyalty would always lie with Paris above him. As it should.
Xyn was solely his. He shared her with no one else. Ever. She was always there when he needed her, through thick and thin. And he had no idea how he’d have made it through his life without her.
Everyone should have their own pet dragon. Even if she did threaten to eat him about half the time.
And those were the times when he didn’t get on her nerves.
Since he was intruding at an unscheduled hour, he made sure to spread his scent wide, and to make more noise than he normally would.
“Xyn?” he whispered loudly into the darkness, needing her more now than he ever had before. “You there?”
“Where else would I be, Uri? Not like I can hide.”
He froze at her voice coming from an external source. That was a first. He hadn’t known she even had real vocal cords until now.
