54. Eradin
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
ERADIN
The bond settled into my bones like a second skeleton.
I could subtly feel all of them. Reece’s shallow breathing. Lyndie’s racing pulse. Fen’s heartbeat matching mine so closely I couldn’t tell which rhythm was whose.
Pack, Selira said. Real pack. Should’ve made long ago.
It was too much and not enough all at once.
“I can feel where you are,” Reece said slowly. “Even with my eyes closed, I’d know where all of you are standing.”
Lyndie’s hand lifted toward her throat, her fingers splaying wide. “It’s like you’re all living inside my chest.”
Reece paled as he looked at me. “I feel your grief like it’s mine. Is that what you’re carrying all the time?”
I couldn’t drag in a breath.
“I didn’t know this would happen,” I said. “I knew my magic was moving, and I let it do what was needed. I thought it would be… I don’t know what I thought.” I looked at my hands. The red lines had faded to their usual faint glow, and they’d disappeared from my friends’ arms and hands completely.
“What does this mean for us?” Lyndie asked.
“I don’t know yet.”
“We chose this,” Fen said, but his jaw was tight.
“We should rest,” I said. “The last trial could start at any time.”
I took three steps toward my tent, but the bond yanked, a hand reaching into my chest and pulling me backward. I stumbled, catching myself on a tent pole.
Across the fire, Lyndie had frozen mid-step, her hand still pressed to her throat.
“Is it supposed to hurt when we separate?” Reece asked.
“I don’t know.” Fen shook his head. “I’ve never bound myself to three other people before.”
The pull eased when we settled closer, forming a loose circle around the dying fire. Close enough that the invisible hooks in my chest stopped trying to drag me back.
Exhaustion hit harder than the strangeness. This had drained me more than previous uses of my magic.
Will fade, Selira said.
Completely? I asked in my mind.
Enough to survive.
That wasn’t much comfort, though I shared it with the others.
“We don’t have to be whole,” Fen said, though his voice carried doubt even as he said it.
I wanted to believe him. I needed to believe him.
I wasn’t sure I did.
Eventually, I was able to stand and walk away without being yanked backward. I ducked into my tent, and Lyndie joined me, dropping down onto her bedroll beside mine.
We’d sleep in our leathers.
Fen and Reece shared goodnights and then Reece’s tent flap rustled. He settled inside with a groan.
Sleep wouldn’t come. I lay on my bedroll, staring at the tent ceiling. Fen was still awake, though I sensed he’d moved away. He was somewhere near the river.
Lyndie kept tossing and turning. Reece had dropped into exhausted sleep the moment he’d lain down.
I gave up after twenty minutes and crawled back outside.
Can’t sleep? Selira asked.
Too much in my head.
Too much in all heads. Bond makes thinking loud.
She was right. Even when I closed my eyes, the others were right there. Lyndie’s restless turning. Reece’s shallow breathing. And Fen’s stillness that wasn’t actually rest.
Will it always be this loud? I asked.
Be much quieter soon.
There was comfort in that. We’d learn to handle this without drowning in it.
I passed both dragons lying curled together, continuing toward the river where I could vaguely see Fen sitting.
He looked up when I approached.
I felt the exact moment his thoughts shifted to what might happen during the final trial. He wasn’t afraid of dying. He feared watching me die and being unable to stop it. The thought carved through our connection with such painfilled clarity I gasped.
When his eyes found mine, I knew he’d felt my answering terror. That I’d survive and he wouldn’t. That I’d have to watch him fall and keep flying because the trial wouldn’t stop for grief.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I said.
“You mean the way you’re looking at me?”
“You’re already mourning me.”
His jaw worked. “I can feel what you’re thinking. You’re doing the same thing.”
“What I’m trying to focus on is how to keep you alive,” I said.
“Knowing you’ll throw yourself in front of every danger that comes my way.
I can feel you now. Almost as well as inside the drowning trial.
You’re already calculating which risks you’ll take so I don’t have to. And I’m doing the same thing.”
I dropped down beside him, leaning into his side.
“We’re going to tear ourselves apart trying to save each other,” I said.
“Do it with me, then?”
“Alright.”
We lay down on the bank, turning to face each other.
His hand found mine in the grass, his palm rough with calluses earned from years of training with weapons and holding reins.
We laced our fingers together.
He shifted closer. The contact sent warmth flooding through the bond, his awareness of me sharpening into something that made my breath snag in my throat.
“If the trial kills me, I need you to know something.” He stroked his knuckles across my cheek. “This isn’t desperation or trial madness or—”
“I know it isn’t.”
“You don’t. I’ve spent my entire life being what people needed me to be. But with you, I don’t know how to pretend, and I don’t want to.”
I kissed him, latching onto his tunic and rolling onto my back, pulling him on top of me. The bond between us sang. His mouth opened, and I tasted his desperation. He felt good lying on top of me. Right.
The bond flared, feeding our need back to each other. I was drowning in the certainty that tomorrow might rip us apart.
Through the bond, Selira’s happiness purred.
Took long enough, she said.
Not now, I thought back, unable to suppress the flutter of embarrassment mixed with—
Fen lifted his head enough to murmur against my mouth. “What is it?”
“Selira. She…talks to me in my mind.”
His eyes widened. “Truly?”
“Truly. It’s both amazing and… Well right now, it’s embarrassing. She’s just…there. I don’t know how to block her out. Reece or Lyndie either, though at least they’re asleep.” I sent out my sense, verifying this was still true.
“Selira was talking to you while we were kissing?”
My face overheated. “Unfortunately, yes.”
His laugh came soft, intimate. “What was she saying?”
“That we’re idiots for not giving in to this long ago.”
“She’s not wrong.”
“She isn’t.” I swallowed. “You need to know that for me, this isn’t about your crown or status. It’s always been just you.”
“I knew that.” His gaze searched mine. “Try something for me. Picture a big hole in your mind and slide Selira into it, then cover her up.”
“She might not like that.”
“Try it anyway. You can let her out later. There may be times when you don’t want her listening in.”
“Like now.”
“Especially now.”
“Alright.” I envisioned a large hole and when Selira wasn’t “looking”, I slid her over and into the opening, covering it with something that blocked her out. Grass or… Stone. Yes, stone.
His grin rose. “You did it, didn’t you?”
“I did. Not sure how long she’ll remain there, though.”
“Maybe she’ll go to sleep and leave you alone, at least for now.”
“We can hope.”
“There’s always hope, Feral.”
“I like it when you call me that,” I said.
“Then I’ll use it more often.” His gaze fell to my mouth. “We were kissing when she rudely interrupted.”
“Let’s not waste another minute talking about an impertinent dragon, then. More kissing instead.”
“Agreed.” His hand slid into my hair, angling my head, and he captured my mouth again.
The kiss deepened, turning feverish. Words built in my throat, too big and terrifying to release.
Saying them meant admitting I had something to lose.
A dragon shrieked in the elite camp, the sound cutting through the night, pulling us apart.
We waited to see if more would follow, but the shriek wasn’t repeated.
“This…You…” I stroked his face. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t need to say anything.” His gaze searched mine. “No matter what happens tomorrow, I’m with you.”
“And I’m with you.”
“We should try to sleep,” I said, though my body was screaming at me not to move.
“Yes.” But his hand tightened on my hip, keeping me there.
Behind the stone I’d buried her under, Selira stayed silent. For once, we were truly alone.
His fingers flexed against my hip, and the bond carried the truth his words wouldn’t. He wanted sleep about as much as I did.
“Liar,” I whispered.
“So are you.” He braced himself above me. The stars caught in his hair. “Say the word and I’ll walk you to your tent right now.”
I latched onto his tunic. “I don’t want to go to my tent right now.”
My body felt hyperaware of everything. Him. The others still sleeping. The way the river flowed, eddying around a boulder before continuing into the far wall. Did it go to another rest stop or back to the start, waiting for the next Scorching to claim a new generation of elites and commons?
His control gave. I felt it snap open down the bond, a heat that sent his mouth crashing back to mine, no longer careful, no longer holding the shape he wore for everyone else. He kissed me like he’d been starving, like I was the first thing set in front of him in years.
His lips left mine and dragged lower. Across my jaw. The line of my throat. The wild flutter beneath my ear that sent me arching up into him. Everywhere he lingered, the bond echoed it back doubled, his want at my undoing folding into mine until we were one.
“Fen.” His name came out half warning, half plea.
“I’m here.” His voice had gone rough. “Always here for you.” His hand slid from my hip to the laces at my waist and stilled there, his knuckles warm against my belly. Even now, even wrecked, he wouldn’t take what I hadn’t given. “Can I touch you?”
“Yes.”
He drew my pants down slowly, over my hips, my thighs, baring me to the night, and the cool air met skin gone fever-hot. He chased the chill with his mouth on the jut of my hipbone, the soft inside of my knee. Moving higher, each kiss a promise he appeared in no hurry to keep.
“You’re killing me,” I breathed.
He looked up the length of my body and made certain I was watching him. Down the bond came a pulse of dark, pure satisfaction. “Then we’re even, Feral.”