Page 71 of Sapphire Seas

He had to be exhausted after Griffin and Luna. Of course I don’t think he failed.

Then stop thinking that you did, I told him. Look at our boys’ egg. Do you see the size of that thing?

They are going to take after their Papa, he said.

They’re going to take after their Daddies, too, I reminded him. We did this together.

We reached to caress the double egg at the same time, fingertips brushing over the shell, some places as cool and fluid as the sea, others as cold as the frozen arctic.

Soft snores drifted from their egg as they slept, but the power I felt when I touched their shell…wow…things were going to be frosty in our place.

Do you feel that? I asked Kes as I caught his hand and dragged it over the coldest parts of the shell. You gave that magic to our sons. Not me. The Gorynych took you because of your abilities, while they cast out their own dragonets for not displaying them quickly enough. Whatever else you’ve come to think about yourself at their hands, you should consider that piece carefully, as well as what was done to you.

I…

Let me finish. I wasn’t sure if he was about to protest or not, but I wasn’t going to give him the time to head back down that path again. Not when I had his undivided attention as we caressed the shell of our sons’ egg together.

You were the only one who arrived here with the connection to their dragon severed. I pointed out. Think about that for a moment Kes. In every other instance we’ve come across so far, they’ve used leeches in order to weaken or control the dragons they wished to enslave. But not you. Why? Ronan lava bombed a village and yet they still believed they could control him through the leeches. What did you do to make them fear you?

They weren’t afraid of me.

Bullshit, mate. I call bullshit right here, right now. Somewhere in that beautiful head of yours is the answer. Somewhere in your heart, you know the truth. I still had one hand splayed over his heart, our fingertips tracing a slow pattern over that egg he’d fought so hard to bring into the world when I felt his heartrate speed up. His dragon’s roar echoed through my mind, accompanied by an image I’d carry with me into eternity.

Ice rained from the sky. Not tiny, pea sized chunks that could easily be brushed off and forgotten about. These were the size of daggers, some of them longer, like someone had ripped all of the icicles off the side of a house, multiplied them by a thousand and sent them flying through the air with a bloodthirsty mission in mind.

I followed their trajectory as they cut through the wind, whistling like bottle rockets, some of them were going so fast. An endless army of them shattering on impact, save for the ones that made a far different sound when they struck their massive targets.

As I watched the memory replay, of dragon after dragon being struck down by that barrage of icicles, I understood exactly why the Gorynych had sought to possess Kes and control him.

Slaughter.

Bloodbath.

Gorefest.

There were so many words I could use to describe the memory his dragon shared with me and mine. By the time someone had gotten a hand on Kes and pinned him down, eight dragons lay bloody, broken and in several pieces, while a ninth tried to drag himself away from the carnage without a tail. He’d been missing a chunk of wing too. His dragon’s roar echoed through my head again, sharing more of the scene. A face snarled down at my much smaller mate, teeth bared, tongue dripping as it leaned in like it was going to taste him.

An icicle suddennly protruded from it’s mouth with such swiftness that there was a moment of pause, as the dragon’s eyes widened to an almost comical degree. We lingered in that memory, as the dragon ‘s eyes rolled back, blood dripping down its face in slow red rivets, until it’s eyes rolled back and it’s body shuddered. It had died pinning Kes in place.

His dragon refused to show me any more.

What he’d shared made me long to wrap him in bubble wrap and keep anything from ever happening to him again. Still, what they’d shared was proof of why the Gorynych feared him even as a teenager.

Unworthy of being a protector’s mate my ass.

They punished you harshly for what you did, but they didn’t kill you because you were valuable to them. You were exactly the kind of dragon they wanted to have in their ranks. A powerful Omega. Quint learned from Torin that their methods have become far more reckless today than they used to be. In the past, they would approach under the guise of friendship, presenting as nothing more than a visiting group of dragons passing through a territory, exchanging stories and supplies. Few thought anything of those encounters, until they began conversing with other dragons who’d also interacted with them.

Some of them were missing a young dragon or two, weren’t they? Kes asked. They were looking for the Gorynych so they could get their children back.

Aye.

That was their strategy. When the parents hunted them, they’d find themselves ambushed. I’ve heard that story too. Eventually, it grew too risky for them. They were losing dragons they couldn’t afford to lose during each encounter. There was a story, about a teenage dragon who…

Kes groaned and went silent on me again.

What is it mate? What’s wrong?

I am the dumbest dragon in the history of dragon kind. Kes replied.