She was wonderfully made, too.
She was wonderful.
“And so are our dragons,” Celia said as they watched Spark take off for another lap around the clearing.
“If he keeps doing this, he’s going to be spotted soon,” Darian pointed out gently.
“I know.”Celia gnawed on her bottom lip.“They need to leave.”
He reached out and covered her hand with his, his heart aching for her.
“Tomorrow,” Celia said abruptly.“I want you to come and tell them that they have to leave tomorrow.”
“You need one more night with all three of them trying to sleep on top of you?”Darian teased in an effort to keep her from being too sad.
Celia laughed, but it was hollow as she admitted, “I’m going to miss that.”
Darian slid over and put his arm around Celia’s shoulders, letting her lean against him as they watched the baby dragons play in the sunshine.
“I’ll miss them too,” he admitted.
He had never expected that he would miss the baby dragons like this, but from the first moment he’d met them, they had become part of his heart, and he couldn’t imagine what it would be like without them anymore.
“We’ll figure it out,” he said, squeezing her shoulders, “and someday we’ll see them again.”
How he knew that, he wasn’t sure.But deep down, he knew.These dragons were part of his destiny.
And so was Celia.
Chapter thirteen
Celia
Celiacouldhardlykeepherself from crying all morning.
Darian was coming later today, and they were going to go see if the last fire dragon nest was ready to hatch and tell the triplets that they had to leave.She didn’t want to, but Darian was right.
They were getting too big, and they were more than old enough, and they needed to go, even if she desperately didn’t want to see them leave.
She had never grown this attached to a set of hatchlings, and if this was how much it hurt to watch them leave, she never would let herself again.
She was going to be alone again.
Flame growled as Celia leaned over the fire with a match, as if to say,What do you think you’re doing?
Well, she didn’t have to be alone yet.Celia moved, and with one breath, Flame lit the fire for her, then leaned back and looked at her in satisfaction.
“I’m sorry, I should have known better,” Celia said with a laugh as she reached for the dragon’s head and scratched it.Even Flame, the smallest of the three, was the size of a small donkey by now—except she had wings and a tail that kept getting everywhere.She tried to back up, nearly tripping on her tail, and instead curled it around herself, looking disgruntled as Celia tried to walk around her.
“You should be outside,” she said.“There’s far more room for you out there.”
Flame merely grunted.Of the three, she was the most attached to Celia and rarely left her side.Celia wasn’t sure how she was going to navigate life without her there anymore.
There would be less tripping, at least.
Celia prepared breakfast for herself, making a few extra biscuits and setting them to the side when they came off the fire.Darian was always hungry.
It wasn’t much later when she heard the sound of hoofbeats and heard Spark and Sizzle calling back to him.
