Page 91 of Fallen Nocturne

No one should touch her wings where the cartilage is weak and wrong.

“Stop!” The word bursts from me as I leap from my hiding place.

Arescaine turns, his hand dropping to where a weapon would hang. His eyes find me in the darkness. For one moment, something flashes across his face.

Recognition and… longing.

Then it’s gone, replaced by surprise.

“Your Highness,” he says, and his voice is formal. Nothing like the warm tone he used with Coral moments ago. “I didn’t hear you approach.”

Of course he didn’t. Astefar built silence into my bones.

I step into the light of the forge, my heart pounding and my hands clenched to fists.

“Step away from my wyvern,” I say, trying to sound commanding. “Now.”

He doesn’t move. Arescaine looks at me with those dark eyes.

“I’m not going to hurt her,” he says quietly.

I glance at his hand hovering near Coral’s vulnerable wing. “I don’t know that. I don’t know you.”

Something flickers in his expression.

“No,” he agrees. “You don’t.”

I hold out my hand toward Coral. “Give her back to me.”

Coral, oblivious to the tension, chirps happily and wags her tail harder, looking between us like we’re both here to play with her.

The silence stretches between us, broken only by the crackle of the forge fire and Coral’s happy chirping. Arescaine hasn’t moved, his hand still suspended near her wing, his eyes locked on mine.

“Coral.” I cannot keep the tension from my voice. “Come here.”

She looks at me, head tilting in that way that usually means she’s about to do the opposite of what I’ve asked.

“Coral. Now.” I point firmly toward the ground beside me.

My wyvern doesn’t move. She just makes a small questioning sound and looks back at Arescaine, as if asking him what she should do.

My chest tightens. “Coral, come to me right now.”

The stubborn wyvern shifts her weight but remains firmly planted next to the vampire. Her tail is still wagging, perfectly content to stay exactly where she is.

Panic prickles beneath my skin.

What am I supposed to do now? Walk over and drag her away? Coral may be small for a wyvern, but she is still heavier than I am and infinitely more stubborn. If I pull at her, I might hurt her weakened wings. If I leave without her, I am abandoning her with a vampire.

I take one uncertain step forward. Coral immediately presses herself closer to Arescaine’s leg.

“She’s fine where she is,” Arescaine says quietly.

“Coral’s my wyvern.” The edge in my voice surprises even me. “She usually comes when I call.”

Arescaine and I stare at one another across the forge. He does not threaten me or move to block my path, but Coral has planted herself beside him as firmly as if she has chosen a fortress.

I realize I have no way to retrieve her without his cooperation. Coral trusts strangers too easily, and I have followed her into a vampire’s forge at dusk without telling anyone where I was going. If I have misjudged him, there is no one here to help us.