Chapter 10 #2
He didn’t mind her defiance, but he didn’t want to play the courtship of battling her on it.
Clawing, biting, and fighting a female into submissiveness didn’t interest him.
It was beneath his concern, that playful violence.
Why must he show his strength in a battle of brawn and prove he was worthy as a mate in that way?
Alas, this is why my sisters believed I’d never mate.
Apparently he ‘didn’t care enough’ to want a female of his own. They even called him lazy.
What they didn’t understand was that they were the reason for it. He’d grown up fighting and bickering with dragonesses, and he’d become tired and bored with the fun of it. Now he just considered it play among siblings.
When he shrank his size to enter his sleeping alcove, he drew his brows together, both pensive and disturbed. Why am I dwelling on such things?
He sighed, shook his head, and parted his maw above his bed of coal to reignite it with a large, constant, fiery breath. Then he plopped himself onto the flames and heat to lie down, letting them burn against his black scales and provide him with additional warmth.
Kier closed his eyes, recalling the conversations with his sisters relating to his lack of matehood, then he thought about his siblings in general. He dearly missed them all, but not like his brother.
He missed him the most.
He thought of him the most.
Lying there for quite some time, he remembered them all. Maybe this was why he’d been evading sleep, as attempting to rest brought on a wave of memories pertaining to those of his lost kin. He feared he’d be adding the final member to them if he didn’t find a solution soon.
Balor... surely you and your abilities would have aided her. Kier likely never would’ve needed the witch had his older brother, only by a few days, still lived. Selene likely would’ve opened her eyes already, prepared to take on a hunt of vengeance.
Perhaps this wouldn’t have happened at all had he still been around.
Just as Kier was drifting off, his eyes snapped open. Wait. I didn’t check on Selene.
He’d made this mistake the night before as well and hadn’t realised until the morning when his mind was a little less muddled. Yet... he considered ignoring the urge.
What difference would it make? She lies there peacefully. He could stay here instead. I’ve already attended to her.
But it was the guilt that never lessened its press upon his being that forced him to get up. He shook his body of its lethargy, mentally promising to return promptly.
I’d best be quiet or the foul menace in my home will yell at me again, he mused, walking lighter than normal as he approached her alcove.
Being careful of the click of his claws, he attempted to tiptoe past the entryway of her sleeping space. He peeked at her, ready to cast a spell that hid him should she stir.
He halted. She’s not there.
Her bedding was empty. It wasn’t even disturbed, as if she’d never laid there.
Kier sprinted up the incline while shrinking his size, not wishing to alert her that he was awake and roaming. He wanted to discover what she was up to without her skilfully hiding it, especially as he neared the alcove containing his sister and fresh witchcraft wafted from it.
Light in strength, pure in scent.
Any trust that may have built in him over the past week evaporated. His snarl echoed off the walls as he shot himself inside and found her kneeling at the head of the altar.
He grabbed her wrist to yank her back from touching Selene’s face, being careful not to toss her like the other day. “I told you not to use witchcraft in this room!”
And what he’d seen was blatant.
The witch had been casting it on his very sister! I should’ve put up a ward. He’d garnered strength from sleeping the night before. He may have been able to handle the extra use of magic, and perhaps he could’ve ceased the spell that slowed her deterioration now that she was well.
Even if he wasn’t strong with barrier magic, he’d have felt her tampering with it if a ward was in place.
Is this why she’s been so incessant about my sleep? Not out of care or concern, but to hide this from him? He wanted to berate himself for so easily falling for such a trick.
Or that he’d decided to trust her at all.
No. Now I’ll place her within one of my prison cells. Or, rather, he’d have to make one, as he’d never needed one before.
“Well?” he asked, surprised she didn’t react even when he lifted her arm and she half-dangled while lying down.
She said nothing. No apology, no yelling at him for being rough with her. He’d dragged her a small distance across the ground, and she continued to lie there on her front with her wrist caught in his fist.
This was the most anticlimactic response he could’ve gotten, and he was rather upset about it. He wanted to fight with her and then toss a screaming witch into a prison alcove while he chuckled maliciously.
“Witch?” he asked, placing her arm on the ground.
She didn’t respond. Not even a twitch.
He shoved her to her back, and he found her eyelids open... but her eyes were entirely clouded with white. Her lips were parted on soft breaths, but they grew weaker with every second she lay there utterly motionless. Even the soft brown of her skin paled like the very life was draining out of her.
Her dusky-rose lips started to purple, and a struggling pant cracked past them.
Kier’s gut and heart twisted as he glanced at his sister, who lay there full of life, unharmed, and the female on the ground he could literally see withering away.
He flicked his gaze back to her cloudy eyes.