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After I fetched the satchel, having folded the blanket and packed it inside, I looped my fur cloak back around my neck. The scent of sex, of her, had me groaning inwardly. I wanted to rewind time to that moment Una moaned with pleasure when I first entered her.
After the Rite of Servium, it wasn’t a privilege I thought I’d ever experience again. I’d expected every coupling to be herenduringme and her burden, her face turned away with tears in her eyes.
I smiled at her crooning and whispering softly to Drak, his half-lidded gaze showing he was enjoying her attention.
“Before long, he’ll no longer be my dragon, but yours,” I teased her, helping her up into the saddle.
“You told me that no one could own a dragon.” She smirked over her shoulder at me as I settled behind her.
“True. However, they do have their favorites.”
Dragons have no masters. Yet, I was a dragon demon, a brother in blood, and I knew then and there that I was owned—body and soul.
Una gripped the two pommels and I held onto her as Drak leaped over the edge of the cliff and beat his wings toward Näkt Mir. Night had stretched its arms over Silvantis, a half-moon peering from behind billowy clouds. The storm had left a glistening sheet of ice over the land, glittering like stars in the dark.
“You know,” she said softly, turning her head so that I could hear, “Drak has let me see into his memories.”
Puzzled, I asked, “What do you mean?”
“When I told you that I had no magick, that wasn’t entirely true.”
“I’m aware. I can sense magick living inside of you. Even while you denied it. Are you saying that you have a telepathic link with Drak?” My heart raced wildly, for I had the same connection.
“It isn’t exactly telepathic. I’m able to see through the eyes of winged creatures. It only ever happened with birds before. Back in Issos. I tried once when you first introduced me to Drak, but he wouldn’t let me connect.”
“But he has since that time,” I confirmed.
“Yes.”
Fascinating.
Then she said no more as we glided over Esher Wood, the starless night deepening the landscape in shadow.
“You won’t tell me what you saw?”
“I saw you,” she answered after a moment. “I saw you saving him when he was an adolescent dragon.”
“Mm.” I remembered that day. “Some fucking shadow fae dragon slavers had him chained in a cave. I was on a hunt in Meerland when I heard him. They were torturing him for entertainment.”
She stiffened in my arms. “Do the shadow fae always do that sort of thing?”
I held her more tightly as Drak banked left toward the palace, lowering out of the clouds. “No. To be honest, they didn’t seem right. They didn’t seem well.” Shadow fae were a peculiar race, but they weren’t innately cruel. No race was. Something was wrong with those fae. “After that, Drak followed me back home to Silvantis. I let it become his home.”
“And eventually he let you ride him.” She spread a palm over Drak’s hide next to the saddle. “I read there has been no dragon rider for over a hundred years.”
“That’s true. The last was Verek, the blue-eyed boy who became king, the one you mentioned to me once. But he managed to befriend a full-grown dragon on his first boar hunt.”
Drak glided closer to Näkt Mir, the black spires reaching toward the heavens.
“This is a wondrous gift you have, Una,” I said close to her ear. “It’s extraordinary.”
“I don’t see how. All I can do is fly with birds and, apparently, dragons.” She sighed. “I think sometimes it was a gift from Lumera since I can no longer fly with my own wings. She has given me a gift to allow me to still feel that sensation.”
“It could be from Lumera.” My gaze lingered on her dark wings hanging low between us. “Or it could be from Vix.”
She huffed a laugh. “Why would a god I don’t worship give me a gift?”
“The gods exist, whether we worship them or not. They have their own designs for our destinies, and they’ll do as they wish, regardless of whether or not we acknowledge them.” My mind strayed back to the reason she’d left the palace. “Will you show me your book of visions?”
