Forty
Rohan
“We have two games left,” I tell my council. “Spiked Descent and Holmgang.”
We’re gathered in my tent while Alara goes with Tofa and the stable boy to clean pots in the stream. I know they aren’t far, but I itch with the need to have my eyes on Alara at all times.
“And we aren’t any closer to a plan for making it out of here,” Adora says. She sounds exhausted and there are dark circles beneath her eyes. She’s been spending all her time with Olaf in the healer’s tent, Kaldar making sure they’re both okay.
“There has to be something,” Calian mutters. “The only way we could ever win this is by having the dragons tear Halen apart.”
“They’re caged in, and even if they weren’t, there’s the dome to contend with.” I sigh.
“We need to create a hole in it somehow,” Kaldar mutters, brows furrowing.
I shake my head. “Maybe multiple dragons could, with a focused attack on it, but again, they would be wiped out with Nighturn before they even got close.”
“Do they have enough Nighturn? With what Alara has told us, he’s running out,” Adora says.
“I don’t know,” I reply. “Do we risk that he doesn’t have enough?”
Silence ensues.
“What have the other Dragonbonds said?” Adora asks.
“Nothing much. They want the king dead too, but I’m certain one of them is a traitor. I haven’t been forthcoming with that knowledge, apart from with Sigrid.”
Adora nods. “She’s trustworthy.”
“I hope so.”
“I have nothing new to report,” Dorkin says, his brows pinched together. “Nothing is coming back to me regarding how he has an extinct dragon, but there were murmurs of carts disappearing into a cave on the outskirts of the city.”
“The cave in the cavern that Alara spoke of?”
He nods. “That would be the most reasonable explanation.”
“That means something can get in,” I muse.
“And out,” Kaldar says.
The tent flaps open, and our heads turn as Alara enters.
“Hey,” she says, looking around the tent. “I’m not intruding, am I?”
I rush over to her. “No, of course not. What is it, are you okay?” I ask, my gaze scanning her for injuries.
“I’m okay,” she says, cheeks turning red.
My chest loosens. “Good,” I say, leading her over to the others. “We’re just trying to come up with a plan.”
“Nothing so far?”
I shake my head. “Nothing. We have to do something that will not only distract or shock him, but have us be able to attack.”
She frowns. “We don’t have a lot of time left, do we?”
“We don’t,” Adora says softly.
“Do you think he will call for me again? I don’t want to be down there, or put another harness on the dragons—”
“Harness?” Calian asks. “What do you mean?”
“I forgot to tell you,” I say. “The king has been trying to get the dragons in harnesses so he can ride one to take us all out. Alara has been helping so the guards don’t hurt them.”
“The dragons would never allow those assholes to ride them,” Calian says. “So no one would be able to take us all out.”
I nod, agreeing, but then I look at Alara, and…
“But what if we did it first?” I say, standing taller.
“Did what first?” Kaldar asks.
“Ride dragons.”
His brows furrow. “You already ride Drogonah. The others have their bonded, too.”
I shake my head. “Not me. Not the Dragonbonds. You.” I look around the room, a plan forming. “All of you.”
It takes them a moment to understand what I’m saying.
“That’s not how it works,” Dorkin says slowly.
“Others have tried that, it didn’t go well,” Adora says. “You know that. Some were even killed when they tried to climb onto a dragon’s back without a bond.”
“I know.” My gaze goes back to Alara. “But they didn’t have her.”
Alara blinks up at me as silence wraps around us.
“Me?” she asks, and I nod, a plan forming.
“Think about it. You can speak to our dragons, see what they think and then maybe they will accept some of the clan onto their backs.”
“But there is no bond,” Kaldar says.
“Is there not?” I ask when his nose scrunches.
“Hedoric,” Alara says quietly as she realizes what I’m thinking, and I grin.
“Exactly.”
“Hedoric,” Kaldar mutters to himself.
Calian, Kaldar, Dorkin and Adora, eye each other until Calian speaks.
“What have we got to lose?” He shrugs. “We’ve all seen her with the dragons, it may be possible.”
I look back at Alara. “Will you help us?”
“I don’t know if it will work,” she says slowly, “but let’s find out.”
We’re standing before my dragons, with the guards watching us from above. I’m not sure just how much they can see with how high up they are, we have to be careful.
“If this works, have a campfire made down here with a cooking pot,” I tell Kaldar. “We have to have a reason to be here.”
“Good idea,” he replies.
Alara goes to the first cage, Agnar’s.
“Hi,” she whispers, and when he rolls over onto his back, she scratches under his chin.
My chest fills with warmth.
She is an ember, indeed.
“She’s good with them,” Calian remarks. “I’ve been taking care of the dragons for years, and I’ve never been able to have them act like that around me.”
“She softens them,” I reply.
“That’s not always a good thing.”
“I’ve come to realize that we all need some softness in our harsh lives, even dragons.”
He hums, but says nothing.
“How do we do this?” Adora asks, watching Alara.
“I think,” Alara begins as she turns back to us, looking at Kaldar. “I think Kaldar should go first.”
The man in question startles. “Me?”
“Yes,” she says, then moves along the cages, greeting all of my dragons, stopping at Alter’s empty cage for a moment before moving on.
I don’t need to be able to feel her emotions to know it’s grief, I feel it too.
The old dragon had been with me for a long time.
She continues for a moment, then halts next to me.
“What if it doesn’t work?” she asks, eyes on Hedoric.
“Then it doesn’t work, but at least we tried.”
“And what if it doesn’t work because I do it wrong?” She looks up at me, eyes trusting, yet wary.
I brush her hair behind her ear.
“You have a voice, Alara, and though for years it’s been forced to be quiet, silent even, never here, and never with me. With us.” I stroke the tip of her ear and she shivers. “Use that fire inside of you.”
She frowns. “I’m not a leader.”
I smile, shaking my head. “Do you not know that you command one? That with just a look, I would do anything that you ask? You don’t have to be a leader when you already have one at your back, Little Whisperer.”
She sucks in a sharp breath. “That seems like a lot of power.”
“And it’s power you control.”
She smiles softly up at me, and my eyes drop to her mouth.
“Fuck.”
“What?”
“Don’t look at me like that unless you want me to throw you over my shoulder and carry you back to the tent.”
She bites her lip.
“Alara,” I warn.
She giggles and my nostrils flare.
“You think this is funny?” I ask her, cock straining uncomfortably against my pants.
She holds up her fingers, pinching them together. “A little,” she whispers.
This little…
She turns and walks over to the others, guiding them through the cages while I close my eyes and will my cock to go down.
“Do you need a minute, Rohan?” Calian taunts.
“Fuck off, old man.”
He throws his head back and laughs at my expense.
Damn woman with her innocent eyes and soft smiles.
Thinking I won’t react to them, that it won’t make me have to hold myself back from taking her there and then. First pouting and now this? How am I supposed to navigate all of that?
I adjust myself. Pathetic. That’s what I am. Completely and utterly pathetic.
I don’t even care.
I follow them toward Hedoric, stopping in front of his cage.
“I’ll record any findings,” Dorkin says, paper in hand.
“I’m not sure we should do that here.”
He shrugs. “You never know.”
The Luxem dragon chuffs at our arrival, Kaldar going to him and tapping his snout.
“Do you remember when we first met?” Alara asks him, and he turns sharply to her.
“Yes, though I can’t say I was at my best at that moment.”
“You were protective and trying to scare me,” she acknowledges.
“I was,” he agrees while I fold my arms, hating the reminder of when she first was with us. How we treated her.
“I remember sitting around the campfire and you asked Hedoric to light it.”
His brows knit together. “Yeah, he’s good like that.”
“He did it without hesitation and because of that, I think you already have a connection.”
He shakes his head. “I’m no Dragonbond,” he says, looking at me sharply. “We haven’t got that type of connection.”
“But you have something,” Alara insists.
“I agree,” I say, and nod toward the dragon.
He’s enjoying the tapping that Kaldar’s doing on his snout through the muzzle, never once pulling away.
I would say I can’t see a bond there, but, it’s Hedoric that gives it away.
Yellow eyes on Kaldar, ears low and relaxed, and a subtle glow to his chest, dim enough that it could go unnoticed.
I tilt my head, studying them.
“You came to him straight away and never broke physical contact, the same way he won’t look away from you if he can help it,” Alara says softly as Kaldar and the dragon stare at each other. “He’s happy, content.”
“You can feel that?” he asks her, and she nods.
“There is worry, in all of them, as well as anger and grief.” She glances at Alter’s empty cage. “But they love the clan, ferociously. I feel their need to protect, to get rid of the danger, much like their Dragonbond.”
Drogonah gives a low growl, and I echo it without thought.
All eyes come to me, but I keep them on Hedoric.
I’ve suspected Alara can sense my emotions within me, but never had confirmation until now.
I shouldn’t like it, should feel vulnerable and exposed that she can read me, a weakness that can be used against me, but I have nothing to hide from her.
“You really think there could be a bond other than the Dragonbond?” Kaldar asks, almost like he doesn’t dare to voice it, and I understand.
Being a Dragonbond proves your strength as a Dragorie, proves you are worthy enough to lead because you can protect.
To have another who can bond, or even ride a dragon without that bond serves as a threat.
But it’s no threat to me.
“I think you already know the answer to that,” I tell him, and his eyes flick to mine.
“You won’t mind?”
“If dragons can be ridden without a bond?” He nods. “No. I am not threatened by it, in fact,” I say, moving to Hedoric and stroking his side. “I think any member of my clan being able to ride one of our dragons is something I would take great pride in.”
Hedoric rumbles, eyes locking with mine for a moment before they go back to Kaldar.
Alara grins at them, her face soft and happy, and I can’t help but smile at her.
“Now, my Little Dragon Whisperer, how do we get him on dragonback?”
She bites her lip. “I think it would help if you went through how you sit on Drogonah, how to ride Drogonah, though we don’t have extra saddles and reins here.”
I look at Hedoric. “He can still be ridden.” I look at Drogonah. “Adora?”
“Yeah?” she says, coming closer.
“Go to the guards and get the key to his cage, and Drogonah’s. He can help with calming them too.”
Drogonah huffs.
“Wait,” Alara says. “Not just his key.”
“Then who else?”
She looks at Adora and Calian, a small smile on her face.
“Blaise and Doren too.”
I smile.
“Alright, let’s begin.”