Chapter 21
ROLAND
Had I felt any better, I’d have been horrified at the whole scene.
I’d vomited at Aderyn’s feet. Sick caked at the corner of my mouth and splashed across his beautiful scales.
When I finally managed to crawl on his back, I laid flat with my belly to his spine and wrapped arms and legs both around his neck and clung on as tight as I could.
The men on the ship’s deck shouted against the gale from Aderyn’s wings as he spread them wide. His legs bunched, and he sprang up, sending the ship splashing.
We were in the air, and I swear, my stomach was about to fall out of my ass as he rose swiftly.
Dizziness gripped me, and I could hardly make sense of the bolt that whizzed past my leg. They were shooting at him!
I wanted to scream at the Destovians to stop, that if they scratched so much a single scale on Aderyn, I’d wipe their whole empire off the map.
Problem was, I was afraid if I opened my mouth, I’d end up heaving.
Instead, I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the wind on my cheek and the warmth of Aderyn’s neck beneath me.
He’d come for me.
Not Tristram or Bet, who always had and always would, but Aderyn himself. Wherever he’d fled after he found out how I’d betrayed him, he’d rushed to my side when I needed him.
Just that fact alone meant I wasn’t half so lost and pathetic as I’d feared. If Aderyn would still come for me, I had to earn his faith.
I didn’t know how long we flew. Though I couldn’t rest, I kept my eyes shut. Each flap of his wings was enough of a jostle that my stomach clenched.
Beneath the fresh scent of air so high above the ground, the cold sting of misty clouds on my skin, there was another smell I couldn’t place, and I feared I knew what it was when that buzzing, pulsing ache returned to my head.
That was just another reason to keep my eyes closed, to hold on tight, to try not to think too hard about anything.
The sky was purpling with sunset when I felt the first lurch that sent my head snapping up.
I could see the coastline beneath us, much closer than I’d imagined.
Aderyn must’ve been listing downward for a while, and I hadn’t much noticed beyond a pop of my ears or another lurch in my stomach that had all seemed irrelevant until the sand was rushing up to meet us.
It was too fast, the flap of Aderyn’s wings too jumpy, as if the simple pressure of the wind trapped beneath the thin membrane of his wings caused him pain.
He was trying to slow our descent.
Failing.
I clung tight in time for us to hit the ground. A spray of sand flew into the air so high it might’ve been magic, if not for the impact of a full-grown dragon.
The power of that impact tossed me back, and I fell over his arm and into the sand too. The wind had been knocked out of me, but as I lay there gasping for breath, I was whole.
Whole as I could ever be, anyway.
There was still that blasted buzzing need.
And I sat up to see Aderyn shiver, to push himself up on four legs just for them to buckle again. His wings twitched and—
And there, a shimmer of gold in the sunset.
Aderyn was bleeding.
It sprayed across the inside of his emerald wing, like the air had caught the drip and thrown it back at him. Now that we were on the ground, it gushed with his thundering heart, dripping down the smooth, delicate scales that made up the only vulnerable part of a dragon.
Aderyn was injured. The bastards had shot him with arrows, and at first, horrifyingly, my mouth watered.
But this was Aderyn, my Aderyn, and it only took a second for me to shake myself. Perhaps I wanted dragon blood, but I didn’t want his.
I pushed to my feet, sore from clinging onto him for so long, and put my hand on his neck. With a huff of breath, he set his jaw flat on the dunes.
“Relax,” I said, stroking his scales. Each one was the size of my hand, and so damned beautiful. “We can rest here. There’s no rush to get back.”
Aderyn grunted, and—well, I couldn’t blame him for getting quiet. Another hangup from his terrible childhood, that when things were bad or he felt unsafe, he clammed up.
I hated it and understood and wished I could hear his voice saying that he was all right and that he forgave me and that we would be fine.
Instead, I reached for the clasp of my cloak. “Can you shift back?”
It took a fair amount of shivering before he did, shrinking there on the sand until he was trembling and naked and I had to kneel to wrap my cloak around him.
When he looked up at me, bright green eyes pink with exhaustion, I touched his cheek. “I should clean up,” I said, nodding down to my clothes. “Will you be all right to sit here for a moment?”
He nodded.
On the way down to the waves lapping the shoreline, I stripped my tunic off. This wasn’t the ideal place to wash, but I’d take a garment stiff with saltwater over one stiff and smelly with sick.
I cleaned what I could and laid my clothing out on a stone. I didn’t know how well they’d dry overnight, but we’d make do.
I shuffled my way back to Aderyn’s side in my small clothes and dropped down beside him with absolutely no grace whatsoever.
The sea stretched out beyond us, and I leaned back on my hands. I didn’t know what we were going to do for food or water. Right then, it didn’t matter. The world was spinning and I was finished with it.
Aderyn was staring at me, blinking slow, and I didn’t know what to say.
“I’m sorry you were hurt,” I said, throat tight because the need told me that I shouldn’t be sorry, that I should revel in his wound, and it made me sick.
Never.
“I’m fine,” Aderyn whispered back, hardly louder than a breath.
I shook my head. He wasn’t fine; he was simply too used to being hurt.
I wasn’t going to add a single ounce more pain to all he’d already endured.
I also wasn’t going to tell him how ridiculous it was that he’d try and assure me of anything when we’d all but crashed to earth.
“You can put your head in my lap,” I said, and even that much felt like an imposition that made me blush.
I simply wanted him close, wanted to offer him comfort, but I couldn’t even meet his eye.
He didn’t hesitate for a second, and I took a slow, deep breath and let it out heavily.
“We’ll rest here tonight,” I said, letting my fingertip trace around the shell of his ear. “See about finding someone to help us in the morning.”
“Mmhmm,” Aderyn hummed. He shut his eyes.
We needed to talk, but I was too exhausted and lost to make any sense or say a single thing of value. I could only imagine he was even more spent.
Still, he was close, and that was more than I’d have hoped. Even if he left me here come dawn to stagger back to Atheldinas on my own, he was here tonight, and I meant to enjoy every second with him.
The ground beneath me was steadying, and never in my life had I felt something so satisfying as the weight of Aderyn’s head in my lap, the silkiness of his hair as I combed it between my fingers.
We were stuck, and I should’ve been horrified, but this was—
Something about this felt right, that we ought to be out here on our own, just the two of us against the world. So long as I had him, I didn’t need the rest of it.
At least for a while, I could ignore the world.
He twitched, and I didn’t know if he was asleep and it was a nightmare that plagued him or the pains he’d endured in my rescue, but he didn’t open his eyes.
“It’ll be all right,” I whispered as I stroked his flaxen hair.
No matter what I had to do or what I had to give up, I’d make the world all right for him. Whatever it took.