Chapter Fifty-Two Myla
Five days later, Lan’s wings beat hard against the wind as we soar to my meeting with the siren.
The sun reflects off of his blue scales, flaring directly into my fucking eyes.
My back screams at the jostling as we fly, but I clamp down on the pain that rolls through me and instead focus on the next task at hand.
This will be my third lesson with the female who had saved my life, having missed last week after the lashings.
At least now she would know what it was like to wait alone on a beach while the other didn’t show.
Navin’s shoulders tense where he’s sitting in front of me, and I watch him place a hand on Lan’s scales as he and his dragon communicate.
I scan the black mountains surrounding us, misty clouds hovering close to their peaks.
I haven’t been able to visit Sunis in a week, and the thought that my father could be trying to capture her mother is an incessant alarm in my mind.
“Lan has a lot of concerned energy today,” Navin shouts over his shoulder. “He keeps pushing it through the bond.”
I lean in closer so he can hear me over the wind. “Any idea why?”
“No.”
I look past Navin to Lan’s head, watching as he tilts it to the side as if he’s trying to get a better look at something.
A different set of wingbeats cleaves the air to our left, just as a low rumble vibrates down Lan’s body.
My stomach hollows and sharp pain shoots through my back when we bank right, Lan tucking his wings in with a leathery snap.
Then we’re in a freefall, diving through the mist as air stings my eyes.
Fighting against the force of the fall, I crouch low over Navin’s back, gripping tightly to the leather strap holding me in place.
As abruptly as the dive began, it ends when Lan flares his wings out, catching his weight as he moves into a glide.
“There was another dragon,” Navin says after a long bout of silence, both of us needing a moment to catch our breath.
“Any idea who would be this far out?” It isn’t unusual to have smaller units of King’s Riders patrolling near Khargis. But I hadn’t known them to travel this far. At least, I hadn’t assumed it from my father’s meetings that I had snuck into.
“No idea, but whoever it was, Lan didn’t seem familiar with them. His energy bordered on nervousness, and that’s only the case if he’s around a bigger dragon or one that he doesn’t know.”
Interesting. While it would be foolish to assume all bonded dragons know each other, Lan had grown up on the dragon fields, much like Sunis, before choosing my brother as his rider.
Most of the bonded chose to stay on or near the fields because its landscape makes finding livestock easy.
Yes, wild game is plentiful too, but out in the mountains is where the unbonded dragons roam.
While fights between dragons are rare, hunger can make even the most docile among them irate.
Was it an unbonded that Lan had sensed? Or simply a larger black dragon that had flown too close?
“We’re almost there,” Navin shouts, jerking his head forward where I can already see the ocean through the Spell.
It only takes a few minutes for us to reach the magical border, the tingling sensation of passing through drawing goosebumps over my skin.
Lan circles the beach as he prepares to land, and I turn my gaze out to the shore, where I catch a glimpse of dark skin and ruby-red hair. “Aria’s here.”
“I, too, have eyes.”
“I bet you do,” he says with a laugh.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing at all, Dear Sister.” Lan hits the sand a little harder than usual, and the impact forms stars behind my lids as I growl out in pain. “Shit, are you okay?”
“Fine,” I grit out, grabbing a tunic for the siren from a pack attached to Lan’s back.
Undoing the straps that secure me, I carefully hoist myself up.
But there is no such thing as careful when your back is a ravaged, fiery pit of still-healing jagged lashes.
Traversing along his bumpy ridges, I climb down Lan’s front leg, leaning against it when I slip and land in the sand in a crouch.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I breathe through the lancing pain.
While my enhanced healing has stitched the skin back together, it’s what is damaged beneath that still radiates with excruciating tenderness.
By the time I stand again, Navin has dismounted and is making his way to the edge of the water.
“It’s nice to see you, Navin,” she says to him as she waves, her eyes bright with excitement.
Wait…
“How do you know his name?”
She jumps at the bark in my voice, her eyes flitting to my brother with a familiarity that I don’t like.
“I may have spent some time with her last week when I came to tell her you wouldn’t be coming.”
“You saw her last week?”
“I did. And we spent some time training together.”
I’m going to kill him.
He takes one look at my face and rolls his eyes. “Oh, come on, Myla. It would have been rude to leave Aria waiting.” He gestures to the siren, who at least has the intelligence to take a step back towards the ocean.
“Unbelievable,” I snap, tossing Aria the tunic. Something insidious rises as I turn to face Navin fully. “And when did you take the time to visit her?”
His expression softens, a hand reaching out to my shoulder before I jerk away. “Myla—”
“Just go.” I brush past him towards the cavern, tension rippling from my temples to my jaw.
Once beneath the dome shape of the stone jutting out from the mountain, I run a hand down my face, wiping the sweat dotting my brow.
Distant wingbeats let me know that Navin has left, and I’m annoyed to realize that behind my anger—and something that feels a lot like jealousy—guilt settles like a stone.
The siren makes her way inside beneath an arched break in the stone, the white tunic hitting her mid-thigh. Her hazel eyes assess me, running over my body in quick sweeps before she adjusts her stance and folds her arms over her chest. “Where were you last week?”
I let my fingers drum against the dagger strapped to my thigh, Aria’s attention dropping to watch the movement. “Navin didn’t tell you when you had your little practice session?”
Her brow furrows as she looks up at me. “No. All he said was that you were preoccupied.”
“Preoccupied,” I repeat. “What else did he say about me?” I watch her throat work as she clasps her hands behind her.
“Nothing of importance.”
I tilt my head to the side as I step into her space, her scent—salt and something warm and sweet—trickles in the closer I get. “You’re a terrible liar.”. I study the way she watches me, her pulse fluttering at her neck while her full lips pinch together.
“I’m not lying. You can ask Navin yourself.
” My brother’s name coming out of her mouth sends a jolt of awareness through me.
I had never wanted this siren involved in my life more than what was needed to fulfill the life debt.
But Navin couldn’t help himself, sticking his nose into places it didn’t belong.
And this siren… I growl as I step back and make my way to the platform where we train, climbing the large rocks quickly and ignoring the gripping pain at my back as I do.
I had left Opal Brothel, left Karina, because they had started to feel too familiar with me, and yet somehow, a fucking siren now knew more about me than she had any right to.
Aria climbs up behind me, taking the bag crossed over her body off and laying it down on the ground.
Our gazes meet over the length of the platform, and she inhales deeply before opening her mouth to speak.
“Start with your warm-ups,” I tell her, watching as her expression falters into something mirroring disappointment before she steps into the center of the cavern and begins.
Two sets of exercises later, she pauses to wipe a light sheen of sweat from her brow, and I feel her eyes on me where I lean against the cavern wall. “Why aren’t you doing the moves with me?”
Disregarding her question, I instruct her to go on the attack.
She waits for me to join her, a sparring partner required to truly practice, but my aggravation with Navin—with myself and the siren—keeps my feet rooted in place.
When it’s clear I’m not going to move, she sighs, her hands coming to her hips.
“It’s awkward doing this by myself.” Those alluring eyes narrow on me. “Are you sick?”
“Keep punching. Balance your weight better on the balls of your feet.”
She scoffs, tucking her curls behind her ears before obeying. Or at least, she tries too. While she moves through the combos I—and apparently Navin—have taught her, she favors the foot with the jagged scar across it more than the other.
“You keep a lot of secrets,” she says between breaths.
“Only from those who don’t deserve to know.”
Aria frowns but returns to her jabs silently.
“Lift your right arm and step back a little farther with your left foot,” I instruct.
She steps back, but her foot angles too far in, causing her to wobble and throw her arms out for balance.
“Flatten that back foot—”
“Can you just come and help me?” she snaps, her talons pushing from the tips over her fingers. I draw a brow up at the outburst, a taunting rebuttal pressing at my lips before the abrupt urge to move and help her overwhelms me. The oath. Fuck, the magic is demanding that submit to her plea.
Her eyes flare wide as I uncross my arms and walk towards her, biting back a wince.
“Draw your heel out wider,” I say, gently tapping the side of her foot with the tip of my boot.
“Until your strength increases, you need to be more aware of how each part of your body is moving. If I would have attempted to hit you while you took up that positioning, you would have fallen flat on your ass.”
“My foot— I can’t press it flat. The muscles won’t work.”.