by E E Everly
Volcanic rock cut into my knees. Pain seared my scalp where the guard held me, immobilized, forcing me to watch as my dragon struggled. Neifion. Save yourself. Flee!
He couldn’t. My heart sank as I realized the empress was pinning him with her dark power, with his head digging into the rock.
I had failed. And she would show no mercy.
“Your Highness, it’s not what you think,” I said.
Her fingers caressed Neifion’s black snout. He huffed rebellious smoke into her face.
“Tsk. Tsk. Tsk, Neifion,” she cooed.
The empress turned slowly. With each step closing the distance from my dragon to me, she glared. “This. Is. Unforgivable. How dare you? You pretended to love me. You spoke pleasing words to me. You devoted yourself to serving me.”
“My Empress, let me explain,” I bellowed.
Her boot came down on my hand, and she ground it into the volcanic rock.
I held back my cry of pain.
“You betrayed me,” she said with even words.
“Not betrayal.” I grunted. “Freedom.” The empress was volatile. She was capable of anything. She couldn’t see how I’d die to save her from her servitude.
The empress turned to her men. “Exile, Caedryn. Into the divide.”
“That holds no fear for me.”
“No?” she asked.
Her tone made my heart clamp down and thud in constricted half beats.
Then she pulled a blade from its sheath. Eighteen inches of silver death. Maybe she’d show mercy and shove the blade into my chest instead of exiling me.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Neifion rose, suddenly free of his bonds. He reared up enough to expose his chest. In an eye blink, the empress surged up to Neifion and plunged the blade into his heart, right between the scales on his breast.
I wheezed, paralyzed with pain and shock. Neifion writhed, flapping his wings furiously, but he fought as if a tether held his ankles to the earth. The empress pushed the blade in to the hilt. Neifion shuddered and fell on his side.
His stinging inhalations ripped through me. I clutched at my chest. Neifion! Neifion. I’m here. I’m sorry. Oh, I’m so sorry.
He was unable to speak. In his dying moments, I didn’t know a single one of his thoughts. The magic of our dragon bond couldn’t save him. The power of the stone around my neck only guaranteed an eternal life if that life wasn’t taken from him.
NO! Neifion!
His voice returned to me. No sorrow for me. I will be at peace.
Don’t leave! I cried out as my soul cleaved in two. Tears blinded me. I couldn’t even hold my dying dragon. My world spun. I fell farther than any soul ever fathomed. I could no longer see as Neifion lost his sight. Coldness swallowed me. Blackness. Then stillness.
Unnatural freedom.
Come back, Neifion!
Lightness.
As Neifion gasped one final time, a part of my soul died with him.
I dry-heaved, convulsing on the ground.
Empress Rhianu’s fingers scorched my neck as she yanked my head back and ripped the dragon stone from me. The chain cut into my skin.
Neifion. I couldn’t breathe.
The empress dropped my stone and pulverized it with another rock. As she ground the last link to my dragon’s spirit into the abyss, I prayed she would cut out my heart…
As the dream released me from Caedryn’s point of view, I jerked, hyperventilating. “Caedryn. Caedryn. Oh please. Oh please. Oh please.” I clutched his shoulders.
He crushed me to himself, rocking slightly. “Niawen. I’m here. You had to see. You had to see.”
Tears streamed down his face, but he didn’t wipe them off as he swiped mine away.
How could he live with the horrors every night? My wrists burned as my grip intensified.
“I need to show you one more,” he said. “An earlier memory.”
“Oh, no. No.”
“You must understand. I can’t ask you to make any further commitments with me if you don’t see this next one.”
I tilted my face to his. His brows were crooked with worry. His eyes were sorrowful. He didn’t like showing me his nightmares one bit, but he wanted me to understand.
“Promise me that after I show you this memory, you’ll let me explain,” he said. “Don’t run from me. Don’t cower.”
“Show me.” I tucked into his chest and shut my eyes as I saw through Caedryn’s mind once more…
She shouldn’t have reached for me. I should have left her to deal with her grief alone. Too late I realized we were in each other’s arms. I brushed Empress Rhianu’s red hair back, looking into her deeply brown eyes, trying to understand her need.
“Make me forget,” she whispered.
I didn’t hesitate. My lips dropped onto hers—her plump, pursed lips. I never wanted to taste anything else. Let her be my sole sustenance for eternity. Please. Nothing else.
Apparently my kiss unchained a hungry demon. The empress clawed at me with ferocity, ripping and pulling at my clothing.
And without meaning for a kiss to progress in such a heated fashion, I found myself at her mercy.
I was powerless.
As I met her advances, a blistering drive tore through me. I wanted her to consume me. We would consume each other until nothing remained. Not even the dust of the earth.
I had to either draw back or allow my inner dragon to emerge.
I had no control.
She took my control and shredded it into pieces that fit through a needle’s eye.
A beast was born.
A demon and beast devouring the flesh of one another…
More than just the one encounter accosted me. Each intimate detail Caedryn showed me was graphic. Desperate. His love was never slow or purposeful. It was a fury. Explosive. Overwhelming. And the more Caedryn and the empress joined in their fury, the more he was never satisfied. He couldn’t stop. He could not stop thinking about her every waking second.
He was obsessed.
Possessed.
By her.
I didn’t react. I wouldn’t react. I steadied my breathing. Whereas I had cried for Neifion and the trauma he and Caedryn experienced—to the point that my eyes were still swollen and my nose congested—I purposely numbed myself to the images Caedryn had shown me of himself and the empress.
I should have been disgusted that he revealed his indiscretions to me. Intimacy between two people shouldn’t be shared with others. What I wanted to understand was why these caused nightmares.
Because he once loved her.
Once gave himself to her.
And he was forced to live them over and over.
I brought myself to the present before my thoughts became carried away. My cheek rested against Caedryn’s chest. The thump thump drove into me. I splayed my palm on his warm and solid chest. I pressed my finger pads into the muscle. This was real. Caedryn was real. He bore no marks of a tussle. No bloody scratches. Whenever the empress drove a fingernail down his skin, Caedryn howled—with pleasure. He bit her in return.
I took a deep breath.
A sick passion. Not just violent. Sick.
Ways I should have reacted coursed through my head. Push away. Run. Yell. Cry.
Caedryn took a deep breath. His long fingers combed my hair. While he studied my hair and my forehead, I studied his chin. Smooth lines. No hair. Fine pores. Beautiful.
We were both too petrified to speak.
I don’t know how long we sat together on the bed, with the blankets swirling around us and the canopy seeming to wave in and out with my inhales and exhales, as if it’d come crashing down on us. The room was moving. Vibrating with my spirit’s inner tornado.
His fingers traced my jawline. “I swear to you I will never react with you as I did with her, never abuse you as I did her. Do you believe me?”
“Yes.”
“Do you understand why I showed you?”
I nodded.
>
“Before I open my mind to you, you must know the basis for my thoughts, for the patterns they’re stuck in. I still might think these things. I might think them about you, but I swear—”
“I know. I’m not going to run from you.”
“I wish I could blame my forcefulness on my darkness, but that’s an excuse. I own my actions. I know what I became. There’s a hidden animal side to our makeup as emrys, as dragon riders. But we can control it.”
“Perhaps it’s our light that gives us the control.” The idea was hope to me. “As a Dark Emrys, the empress didn’t have light. She triggered, even amplified, your darkness. You’ll be safe with me, Caedryn. I know it.”
“Niawen. I—you can’t imagine. I want to be yours forever.”
My heart lodged itself in my throat, and I couldn’t speak. This is so soon. So soon. I sat up and pulled his hands off.
“I know,” he whispered. “I know. But I’m ready to love you—always.”
I reached for his hand and wove my fingers between his as I closed my eyes. I imagined how it’d feel to access touch like this anytime I wanted. I imagined what his fingers would be like on my skin. I imagined his peaceful dreams, his nights without anguish because he spent them in my arms.
I imagined my heart healing because I was loved for me. Caedryn didn’t care if I was marred. Caedryn didn’t care where I came from or what I had done. I felt hope in these thoughts.
Hope in this person, this emrys I could share every joy, every sorrow, every change of life and new season.
Without warning, Caedryn grunted.
I opened my eyes and dropped his hand. I nearly evaporated. What did you do?
With the strength of a miniature sun, his light—in its entirety—hovered in front of me in a compact orb the size of his palm.
I had never seen this before. The bonding of two souls happened in private, with a small party consisting of parents and the High Emrys and her mate.
“Niawen,” he rasped. “This is more excruciating than you might think, holding one’s light in the palm of one’s hand. I feel empty. Make me whole. Say you will bond with me for eternity. Unite our light.”
My mouth gaped open. I couldn’t let him sit like that for long. His other hand clutched at his chest, over his heart.
“I want to say yes. You make me insane. You make me want you and need you and crave you all at the same time, but we have to be more than that.”
Caedryn inhaled shakily. “I give you my heart, my mind, my soul. I give you every part of me in every way. Physically, emotionally, spiritually. Say you will too. Please. I’ve shown you my torments. Lay this one to rest.”
“This is rash.”
“No, this is right.”
I touched my chest. I tugged slightly, testing. My light willingly responded to me. “What happens once I pull my light out?”
“They join together. As one. Then they divide into two and reenter us. We’ll have a part of each other. Inseparable.”
I knew the general concept. Once light mixed, deciphering a distinct origin, dividing the energies, was impossible. Like two colors of paint swirling together to make a new color. The union was permanent.
“Niawen, please, my love.”
My light filled my hands. Purple light. Vibrating light. An ashy covering dimmed the color’s purity.
“Why can I see the shroud over my light while yours is pure? Where’s your darkness?”
“My darkness is a separate entity. The light in my heart pushes the darkness away, but they don’t touch. Right now my heart-center swirls with the dark matter because of the space the light has left. It’s agonizing. I need to return my light, or the darkness will crush me.”
“Caedryn!”
“Niawen, you can restore me. Join our light.”
My hand moved closer to Caedryn’s. Our lights stretched toward each other, as if drawn to each other, as if two opposite poles were attracted to one another.
“They want to join,” he said.
I cried out in a defeated whimper. I felt the pull. My purple light jumped together with Caedryn’s greenish-yellow one. The orb swirled between us, growing larger, spinning until the color became pure white. Flecks of gray drifted into the sky like ash from a roaring campfire.
“What is it?” I asked.
“They’re healing. Together they’re pure. Your stain is gone. Are you ready?”
My eyes widened. There’s nothing she can do to erase the stain on her heart-center. My father was wrong. I could be healed. I could return home to Gorlassar. My father would have to let me enter.
Even as this peace filled me, I felt a greater contentment. I was where I needed to be. My home was on Bryn—the mortal world. I loved the people.
“Yes.” I spoke with surety.
As we embraced, the light between us sank into our hearts—half inside me and half inside Caedryn. The light broke apart into our own bodies, making me gasp. I exhaled in a rush when the brand-new orb, unblemished, settled into my heart-center.
I felt him—his love for me—his need for me. I no longer had to dive with my light.
I stared at him with my mouth open. I shut it into a slight part, knowing I didn’t have to say a word to convey how I felt.
Caedryn was already breathing heavily. “This is indescribable. I did not anticipate these feelings. By the Creator’s might, my lovely Niawen. I’m hyperaware of your body next to mine. Your breath as it whispers in and out. I feel the pulse in your neck. The electricity under your skin as you respond to my roving eyes. I haven’t even touched you yet. You feel me, do you not? You feel the pull?”
“Yes, oh, yes.”
He leaned toward me until I sank onto our bed. He hovered over me, searching my face, smiling with such happiness his eyes glowed. “I’m saying this only once, and I won’t mention her again. With our bond, our intimacy will be nothing like what it was with her. Nothing. You are all new to me. You’re my wife, whom I feel as a part of me. I think we will understand how to please each other exactly.”
I traced the contours of his chest muscles, so nervous I couldn’t speak.
“Speaking will be unnecessary. Don’t fret. The full gravity of what we’ve done will sink in by morning. And I for one will never regret it.”
He inched his hand up my thigh, and I squirmed. “I’m ticklish there.”
“All right.” He laughed. “We shall not start there.”
He stifled my giggles with a very steady, very solid kiss.
FIFTY-NINE
A week of blinding bliss. We didn’t hide ourselves away from the world as we wanted to because duty demanded us, but each moment of the day was blanketed with the sighs, the contentment, every inhale and exhale, every vibration signaling the other was alive and we lived for each other.
I was overwhelmed. I was delirious.
I know I healed my patients.
I know I stepped one foot in front of the other as I danced through the snow.
Somehow I ate.
Somehow I breathed.
My skin tickled when Caedryn thought of me. My face flushed when he whispered through my mind.
I was tense throughout the day until I finally lay in his arms at night.
No one, and I mean no one, ever described bonding the way I was experiencing it. They kept it sacred. Only the two people involved shared the details of their intimacy.
I’m not sure if two souls would bond if they knew how consuming it was.
I stretched my body under the covers. Caedryn leaned over me, sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Do you think the intensity fades?” I asked. “I’m not sure I can function at this level.”
Caedryn laughed. “I hope not. But you have to consider. We’ve opened ourselves up because it’s new, and we wanted to. The bond is like your dragon’s bond; we still have some semblance of privacy if we choose.”
I purred under a wave of satisfaction from Caedryn.
He was satisfied. Satisfie
d.
I couldn’t even begin to think of him that way.
“I’ve been waiting for you to wake—for three hours,” he said.
“What? Why? Why are you grinning like that? Don’t keep me in suspense.”
He leaned over and whispered into my ear. “You don’t see it, do you?” He straightened and stepped back from the bed. He covered his mouth with his hands as his body trembled with excitement.
I jumped up, standing on the bed, my head hitting the canopy. His tremors raked my spine. “You’re exciting me with terrific joy.” Wide-eyed, I looked within myself. “You’re thinking about how I’m going to screech and throw myself into your arms because what you have to tell me will blow me away.”
Caedryn’s countenance remained unchanged.
“You’re killing me! Just tell me!” I exclaimed.
“I think you don’t see it because it’s inside you. Your own light is blocking the tiny speck of brilliance.”
“Tiny speck?”
“It blinked into existence last night. Like a jolt through my system. You were so dead asleep I guess you didn’t feel it.”
My breath caught. My foot tangled in the covers as I moved to the mattress’s edge.
“You mean—”
“Niawen, please tell me you see it—I mean, him or her. Please tell me. I’m bursting here. Look inside yourself.”
“You’ve blindsided me. I can’t think. Tone your enthusiasm down.” I touched my stomach. With my hand guiding my vision, I focused. A light. New and pure. So small. “I see it! Caedryn, I see it!”
I bounced on the bed, and my tangled feet pitched me into Caedryn’s arms.
“You have an inkling of panic,” he said. “It’s all right, my love. I know we didn’t talk about this. I’m shocked, but I’m beyond happy.”
I relaxed into his arms while he kissed me. Our child. We’re having a child.
My legs rippled like jelly. “I need to lie down.” This excitement crowned all others.
“I think we shall just stay in bed today.”
I sighed. “Yes, darling. That would be wonderful.”
SIXTY
I rushed into the courtyard. “Seren! You didn’t tell me you were coming. You’re early.”
