by Kenna Bardot
Reaching under his face, I cradled it in my arms as best I could. Even if my arms stood no chance of wrapping around the entirety of his head, I pressed my cheek to his snout and let out a deep sigh when he didn’t move to bite me on Jarek’s behalf. “You deserve better than him,” I whispered, stroking the scales at his jaw.
Finally releasing him, I moved toward his side as I’d done previously in practice sessions with other dragons. He started to lower his wing to help me up, but stopped and cast his eyes to Jarek. “That’s alright,” I reassured him. He held still for me as I used the ridged edges of his scales to climb up his side until I straddled his back directly between his shoulders. The moment I positioned myself and grabbed hold, he pushed off the ground and erupted into the sky like a rocket.
There was no warning, no hesitation as he flapped his massive wings and gained air at an alarmingly rapid pace. I clung to his back, barely glancing over his shoulder to watch Chett and the others race for their own dragons so they could follow.
It wouldn’t do to have me die in my exam.
Hydra flew at our side, shooting her attempts at intimidating flames at Sobek in warning, but there wasn’t much she could do without risking burning me when Sobek spun his body in a tornado of motion.
Over and over he spun until I didn’t know what was up and what was down.
Until nausea tormented my stomach and threatened to steal my lunch. I held on for dear life, feeling like it was all I could do in the face of my racing heart and the dragon who was completely out of my control.
But I wouldn’t fail myself, and I couldn’t fail Hydra.
So with another calming breath, I surrendered myself to the flight. I stopped clinging and fearing the motions, breathing through the sensation of the air whipping against my face and let myself enjoy the freedom of flight itself.
As I relaxed, I tucked my heels down and tightened my calves against Sobek’s side. Giving him a warning, gently asking him to stop spinning with my body. When he persisted, I tightened my thighs and forced myself to sit straight up and exert more dominance in my body language.
I dared him to defy me, holding on with only my hands as everything in my body sank into his.
The spinning stopped so suddenly that I almost fell off with the jarring halt.
“There we go,” I murmured, ignoring the feeling of the others flying around us as they caught up.
“Through Ridge Valley!” Chett yelled from next to me. I nodded to him, petting Sobek’s scales briefly before I tightened my grip again.
“What do you say we show them what the underdogs can do, hmm?” I asked him, getting a purred response that vibrated through my hands on his back. I flattened myself some, leaning forward in a communication that he could pick up his pace again.
He listened, sensing the motion and flapping his wings to propel himself faster as we glided through the sky toward the ridges that jutted into the sky out of the woods surrounding the Southern boundary of the Reserve.
The air whipped my hair back from my face where it had come loose from my ponytail, but in a controlled sense it stayed away from my sight as we flew straight and steady. Applying pressure with my left calf, I tested how responsive Sobek was. He slid his body to the right, moving away from it like a well-trained dragon should. Pulling up on my grip, he angled his wings to raise higher into the air. Pressing down, he lowered.
When I tilted my hips to the left, he followed, tipping his body in the same way. As the ridges came into view, I loosed one last deep breath and prepared myself to navigate the rocky terrain. I centered myself, trying to let the instinct take over. Even if it wasn’t finely honed, I was a Dragon Guard for a reason. The connection to the creatures ran in my blood.
We swerved right and then left, tilting and shifting as we flew as a unit and rose to go over a low hanging rock face. We spun in a tailspin through a circle of rock, ducking below a bridge and then did it all over again as we navigated each obstacle that came to us.
I laughed, enjoying the freedom of the movement and the bond with the dragon who wasn’t even mine. I could only imagine what it would be like when Hydra was grown enough that we could fly together as one.
When we reached the last ridge of the valley, Sobek landed on the top of the rock and let out a blast of icy triumph. Chett and I connected eyes, and he grinned at me.
“Want to go again?” I asked Sobek, patting his back with a smile on my face.
He jolted into the air.
And we did it again.
✽✽✽
Sobek landed in a sudden crash to his feet that shook the ground, making the Gods standing in the surrounding area sway on their feet. Jarek immediately met my eyes, his nostrils flaring as he narrowed his eyes in a glare and his lips parted ever-so-slightly in his shock. The others landed behind us, more delicate in their landing.
Apparently, Sobek had approved of my desire to make an entrance with our landing.
The blue dragon held out his wing, giving me an easy exit off his back despite his God’s eyes on us. I stepped onto it, letting him lower me to the ground gently before I moved toward his head. His nose touched my face, puffing cool breath all over me in a familiar way that I returned with a touch of frost at my fingers as I stroked his scales.
“Thank you for a beautiful ride, Sobek,” I murmured, rubbing my nose along the top of his. He purred a response, leaning down to nudge Hydra with his nose where she pranced happily.
“Congratulations, Mireyah,” Chett said, confirming the words I hadn’t needed to hear. It had been my most successful ride yet.
On the back of a dragon who should have hated me, but it appeared dragons were better than their God counterparts.
“You’ve impressed me. That doesn’t happen often,” Gaige said, nodding once before he turned and strode to his own dragon.
“Mireyah,” Corbin said with a smile, following the other man as they went about their days.
“Would you like to go choose your weapon now?” Chett asked, and I grinned at him with a nod of my head. We ignored Jarek’s fuming as we turned and made our way to Thorus, Hydra swishing her tail back and forth at Jarek mockingly. She took to the sky as we climbed up onto Thorus, meeting us in the air.
Riding behind another person, not being responsible for communicating with the dragon in flight, was an entirely different experience. Like being a passenger rather than the driver, I could watch everything we passed on the ground.
The Reserve was beautiful on the ground, but from the air was the way it felt like it was always intended to be enjoyed. A beautiful mix of nature and manmade structures, of new and old and all the juxtaposition that went along with those things. My home was with my Sires and that would never change. But if there had ever been a world where I didn’t have them, where I’d never met them, I thought I could have lived a very fulfilled life never leaving the Reserve. Even more content than I’d have been working with my plants and herbs as a human.
Thorus landed outside the buildings in the North smoothly, helping us down as Hydra jumped up and down at his feet.
“We’ll leave them here. Thorus will watch after Hydra. This… this is something you should do alone,” Chett explained. I nodded, even if the idea of separating from Hydra filled me with dread. I never liked separating from her, but she was in excellent hands and only just outside the forge. The enormous building looked unsuspecting enough from the outside, but the moment we stepped in all that changed.
Massive iron doors swung open, a dragon’s tail flicking them as we approached. He laid in the center of the massive room, next to the hearth where his fires burned for his Goddess to forge weapons when needed. The Goddess herself was nowhere to be found, the room an empty cavern of sharp stones and metal.
“What do I do?” I asked Chett with a nervous glance.
He pointed his chin to the wall of weapons at the back, around the edge of the hearth in the center. “The weapon chooses you.”
“How?” I aske
d. “How will I know?”
“Just go, Mireyah.”
I nodded, stepping forward with slow, steady steps. As I rounded the hearth, twin curved blades seemed to glow in the light shining through the open ceiling. I knew, in the depths of my soul, that they were mine.
The same way I’d felt the pull to Hydra’s mother, the same way my vision narrowed in on her. I stepped toward those blades, ignoring the other weapons entirely.
As I stepped up to the wall, I stretched up a hand to grasp one in my right hand. The hilt glowed bronze; the blade looked almost like glass.
“Good choice-” Chett started, trailing off when I stretched up my left hand to grab the identical dagger in my other hand. It glowed blue the moment my fingers touched it. “Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised,” he laughed as I stepped up to the two practice dummies positioned next to the wall of weapons.
I spun the daggers in my hands, loving the way the curved hilts and blades seemed to counterbalance so perfectly, and stabbed one into each of the dummies. Blue tendrils spread up the left dagger only to dissipate into nothingness. But it didn’t stop me from stabbing into the dummy perfectly. Ice spread from the blade in my right hand, turning the dummy to a frozen statue that shattered when I pulled my blade free.
Chett sighed, approaching a table at the side to grab two sheaths for the blades that he helped me secure around my thighs. “Show off,” he whispered, guiding me out to where our dragons waited. My hands kept wanting to touch my daggers, remembering the ones I’d been gifted in the Challenges. How temporary they’d been, and how it felt to finally have something that was mine. Hydra licked my hand, pulsing her joy in the decision back into me as I climbed back up onto Thorus and we flew to the West.
I needed to get home, to tell the guys all about my day. Zoned out during the flight, I couldn’t decide how to find the words to communicate the feelings I associated with the bond and with flying. As much as I loved them, it wasn’t something they were equipped to understand. So when we circled the West and landed just inside the entrance to the Reserve, the sight of the four familiar figures waiting within the security boundary shocked me. I jumped down from Thorus, running for them with a smile on my face.
Hydra, being the demanding little shit she was, collided with Ryle first. I veered toward Shep, letting him catch me in his arms. “We knew you could do it, Snow.”
“I didn’t even tell you yet!”
“As if you’d be smiling if you failed,” Tate murmured as he kissed my forehead. I didn’t care that Chett or other security guards watched our exchange. I was long past the days where I cared what people thought of my marriage.
“Char tried. He really honestly tried, Pet. He couldn’t get away. His duty is so demanding lately,” Hollis whispered, but I grinned back at him. There might have been a time where the absence hurt, but I understood duty. I had my own, and mine would only get more demanding too.
“I know. It’s alright. I’ll celebrate with him when I see him,” I said, laughing as Shep turned and strode toward the Springen Express so we could go home.
“See you tomorrow!” I called out to Chett with a wave. He shook his head at Hydra and I as Shep and Ryle carried us out.
It was absurd.
But so was love.
Nineteen
Mireyah
Sleep eluded me. I couldn't seem to get comfortable or turn my brain off, despite the utter exhaustion I felt.
I knew I was overtired, and I knew that it was ridiculous for me to get out of bed. Yet, I found myself doing it anyway. The others slept soundly, oblivious to the turmoil that controlled me, the joy that overtook me.
I peeked my head in the adjacent bedroom to check on Hydra before moving to the kitchen to make myself some tea. The Dragon Guard had exploded into a frenzy of activity with the new baby. Gwynna wasn't inclined to let anyone near her baby yet, but the unbonded Dragon Guards were determined to be there when she did. I couldn't blame the mother for being protective of her baby, it seemed insane to me that a baby might be bonded so early in its life. But judging from the size, Hydra hadn't been all that much older when we bonded.
Circumstances were different, considering her mother had died, but the principle was the same.
Haisley had informed me that it would be a very slow process of introducing the new guards to the baby once Gwynna allowed it, because they couldn't risk overwhelming her. It made a lot of sense, really, as I wouldn't have wanted to be ambushed by strange people essentially as soon as I was born.
The front door opened behind me just as I raised my mug to take my first sip, and I jumped from the sudden intrusion.
"Sorry," Char said, stepping up to look at me. I'd only narrowly avoided spilling on myself. "I wasn't expecting anyone to still be awake."
"I'm not surprised. It's very late, Charolais. Are you okay?" I wrapped my arms around him. He chuckled his amusement, moving to stand behind me so that he could wrap his arms around my waist as we looked out the window and into our yard.
“I’ve had better days. I’m sorry I wasn’t there today. I really wanted to be.” He sighed into my hair and I had to turn to face him. He seemed unperturbed and indifferent as he strode for the goals that were so ambitious given his fairly recent Ascension in the grand scheme of the extended lives Gods lived. But much like me, nothing would stop Char from achieving his goals. It was one of the things that bound us together so tightly.
I knew how he saw us, even if he sometimes forgot that it meant I needed to prove myself too.
A King and his Queen.
I chuckled, thinking that he just liked to let the blacksmith and other servants fuck me too.
"How was it?" he murmured, pressing his lips against the back of my neck. I sighed, relaxing into his embrace and nuzzling the side of his face with mine when he rested his head on my shoulder.
“I would have thought you’d noticed it.” I pulled my daggers from their holsters and showed them to him.
He picked me up and spun me around with a big smile. “Congratulations, they’re beautiful and you deserve them so much. Why do you have them with you at this time in your pajamas?”
“Nothing nefarious, I promise you. I don’t know what possessed me to strap them on when I was simply going down to have tea but they already feel so much a part of me, an extension almost.”
“And they symbolize so much. The things that have changed for you in such a short time.” He closed his hand over mine, thumb grazing the tattoos on my wrist.
“I know, but I can survive it. I’ve survived so much before.”
"I worry about you. You've been so tired and you're taking on more and more responsibility without giving time for things to die down from the last change first. I don't want you to burn out because of stress, Mireyah," he whispered. Leaning forward, I deposited my tea on the counter and turned in his arms to wrap mine around his waist.
"It's good stress," I told him. "I feel like I'm figuring out where I belong, and I finally have the opportunity to make a difference. Hydra and I have succeeded, made progress. The Dragon Guard just welcomed a new baby, but things will die down after she’s bonded."
"A new dragon, hm? I suppose your winged demon is no longer the baby of the Reserve, then?" he chuckled, and I knew he pictured what I did. Hydra did not like losing the attention that came with being the cutest thing on the Reserve. Hopefully, it would enable her to focus better, but I had a sinking feeling it would have the opposite effect as she strove for more and more attention.
"She isn't pleased," I laughed, staring up at him as he smiled down at me. His perfect teeth gleamed in the dim lighting coming in through the windows from the moons in the sky, and I noted the tired lines around his own eyes. "You're one to talk about being tired," I murmured, reaching up a hand to touch his cheekbone.
"Much like you, I didn't pick an easy road for my career," he whispered.
"What's it like? The Land of the Unwanted? I want it, don't get me wrong. That won't
change, but I know nothing about it aside from the rumors. I'm a little afraid of what it will be like." I swallowed loudly, thoughts of Lysandra assaulting me as I tried not to think of my friend in that Hell.
"It's...harsh," he admitted. "Crossing into the boundary is painful, make no doubt about that. Pain is my lover, but even I find it to be unbearable at times. Because the magic of the dragons are necessary for caging in the Unwanted, you'll have to go all the way through the boundary and to the entrance itself. The pain is cumulative, so it gets worse the closer you get."
I stared up at him, wanting to know everything so I could prepare myself. "And inside?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Only the Unwanted go inside. The wards keep everyone else out. I have no idea what it's like, but I don't imagine that it's a palace and a cozy life." He sighed, and I knew he didn't want to discuss it with me. I knew it was because he worried about my need to protect humans especially since a majority of the Unwanted were human at some point.
"What makes you so sure?" I asked, playing the devil's advocate fully. We both knew the Gods didn't make idle threats, so if they used the Land of the Unwanted as a threat worse than sexual servitude to the Gods, then it had to be a miserable place.
"The entrances are giant pits, holes in the ground. Let's just say it doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy about what's beyond it. The thought that you might have gone there if you'd decided you didn't want to be Sired terrorizes me at night. One wrong choice, and that would have been your fate."
I swallowed, thinking of Lysandra's choice, remembering everyone’s words telling me that she was at peace, but scared for her regardless.
"There are people suffering there. How do I deal with that? I'll want to help them. They deserve to have a voice too," I told him, pressing my face into his chest. But even I knew I could only fight so many wars at once. I could only bring change for one population on my own.
"Maybe someday," Char said. "They don't have you to fight for them, but maybe someday they will. They’ll have all of us."
