Chapter Fifty-Three
They say nothing in this world burns as fiercely, nor endures as endlessly, as love.
But they are mistaken.
There exists a force far more potent, far more consuming.
Hatred.
Love may build empires, but hatred razes them to ash. It festers in silence, sharpens in the dark, and when it awakens…
It does not weep.
It devours.
Tabitha Wysteria
‘So, we’re simply going along with this plan?’ Dawn demanded, her fingers curling into tight fists as Kai methodically secured his armour. She had been lounging peacefully in her chambers when the wyverian prince strolled in without so much as a knock, as though he owned the place.
The room itself was nothing short of exquisite—white drapes cascaded around the bed, soft and sheer, offering a semblance of privacy.
Dawn had imagined, more than once, twice in fact, what it might feel like to draw them closed with Kai Blackburn lying beneath, naked and waiting.
She cleared her throat, chasing the thought away with a silent curse at her own mind.
She observed the rest of the room. To one side, a seating area opened out onto a patio lush with greenery, where a delicate fountain murmured beneath trailing vines.
On the opposite side stood a towering wardrobe, its carved doors concealing what must have been dozens of gowns, each one more decadent than the last.
Kai glanced at her, a look she had come to know all too well; a vexing cocktail of annoyance, weary patience, and an almost mischievous amusement.
‘We can’t march into the Desert Kingdom to confront the king!’ she cried, flinging her arms wide in disbelief. ‘It’s just us against them. Why must you and I be the ones to get involved? This has nothing to do with us. Let’s go back to your army.’
‘What of the dragons?’ Kai countered, adjusting the twin hook swords across his back with practised precision. ‘We came here to gain their allegiance, to wield them against Hagan. If we turn away now, Alina will never lend us her aid.’
‘You put far too much faith in the notion that she’ll ever help us…’ Dawn muttered beneath her breath.
‘She will,’ Kai replied, his dark eyes sharpening like tempered steel. ‘But first, we must help her.’
Dawn rolled her eyes. ‘Fine. Then let’s make it quick.’
She lifted her hands, emerald threads of magic coiling like serpents around her fingers.
In mere heartbeats, her clothing shimmered and shifted, replaced by the sleek, black combat attire of the wyverians—ruthless, functional, deadly.
And when she lowered her hands, she caught him watching her, still and silent, something unspoken glimmering in those shadowed eyes of his.
‘Is there something on my face?’ she snapped, irritation edging her voice at the way his stare lingered.
He chuckled softly, shaking his head. ‘No. Nothing at all.’
‘Then stop looking at me like that.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re making me nervous.’ She turned her attention to the black leather straps on her arms, feigning interest in them, anything to avoid his eyes.
But her body stiffened when he closed the space between them, stepping directly in front of her.
His long, pale fingers brushed hers aside, taking over the task.
‘Like this,’ he said, tightening the straps with deft precision.
‘I can do it myself,’ she retorted, jerking away.
‘I never said you couldn’t.’
‘Stop being nice. It’s unsettling.’
‘Why?’ He tilted his head, studying her. ‘Would you rather I be unpleasant?’
‘Yes. I think I would.’
‘Liar.’ His lips curved into an amused smile.
‘And stop smiling,’ she snarled, spinning on her heel to face the mirror mounted on the wall. But her breath stuttered when he leaned in, his lips hovering perilously close to her ear.
‘I promise,’ he whispered, his voice low and velvet-smooth, ‘to be anything but nice from now on.’
‘Good.’ She swallowed hard, her gaze lifting to meet his in the mirror.
Her heart thudded as he reached up, gently tucking stray strands of her white hair behind her ear.
She froze, wondering, hoping, if he would dare to press his lips to the delicate curve of her neck.
She wanted him to. Gods, she wanted to stop pretending, to push him back onto the bed and let her body speak what her lips refused to say.
‘I think you’ll regret only keeping my bad side,’ he teased, his laugh low, dangerous.
‘I doubt it.’
‘Oh?’ He leaned in closer still, and Dawn’s breath hitched, caged in her chest. ‘Then why,’ he whispered, ‘is your heart betraying you?’
She spun on her heel, shoving him back, but he only laughed, catching her wrists with ease. His fingers curled around them, pinning her hands against the warmth of his chest, and he held them there, even when she struggled to pull free.
‘Why is it,’ he whispered, his voice roughened with something dangerously close to reverence, ‘that I can no longer stop looking into those purple eyes of yours?’ His grip on her wrists softened, loosening the moment he felt her yield.
‘They’re not so frightening anymore, commander?’ she asked, her tone sharper than she intended.
‘Oh, they’re still terrifying,’ he replied, a wry smile touching his lips. ‘They haunt me in my dreams each night. I find myself wondering…’ He leaned closer, his breath brushing her skin, ‘what it would be like to drown in them while you’re in my bed, naked, glistening and undone.’
Dawn forgot how to breathe.
‘They’re just eyes, commander,’ she said, though her voice betrayed her with its tremor.
‘Perhaps,’ he said, his lips almost grazing hers, ‘but they’ll be my damnation.’
Dawn longed to close the space between them, to surrender and let him make real whatever wicked thought had taken root behind his eyes.
Yet, with a sharp breath and a force she did not feel, she slipped free of his grasp and stepped away.
She braced for annoyance to darken his gaze, perhaps even confusion.
Instead, only amusement lingered there, and a promise, unspoken yet certain, that one day the distance between them would vanish entirely.
She followed Kai from the chambers, the cool hush of night embracing the palace.
Silence reigned but for the soft scurry of a few late-working servants hurrying to finish their tasks.
They kept to the shadows as they slipped into the streets, unseen, until the marble and sandstone gave way to endless dunes.
There, beneath the desert moon, the dragons waited, their scaled hides glimmering like burnished armour.
Alina stood ahead, flanked by Isla and Arena, already tightening their straps and fastening weapons.
Dawn averted her gaze when Alina’s brown eyes met hers, sharpened with suspicion and something colder, unreadable.
The drakonian princess was clad in phoenixian white combat leathers, as were the two Dunayans.
Their curved desert swords hung loose at their hips, silent warnings gleaming in the starlight: one wrong move, and Dawn’s throat would open like silk.
‘We travel through the night,’ Alina instructed, her voice firm but measured. ‘By day, we rest. Less chance of being seen. It will take several days to arrive. Choose your dragon.’
‘Dawn will ride with me,’ Kai said at once.
Alina’s eyes narrowed to flint. ‘Why?’
‘She…’ His hand rubbed awkwardly at the back of his neck. ‘I prefer she rides with me.’
A pause stretched, thin, sharp, and dangerous before Alina finally inclined her head. ‘Fine.’ Her gaze shifted, narrowing upon a figure approaching from beyond the dragons.
Mareena Noor swept across the shifting sands with a speed that belied her grace, crimson eyes alight with excitement, her smile wide as the desert horizon. She reached them breathless but radiant, swinging a satchel from her shoulder and crouching low to rummage through it.
From its depths she drew forth a curious object, gleaming faintly beneath the moonlight. A glove, or perhaps a gauntlet, strange in its make and kissed with a soft, golden shimmer.
Dawn frowned, tilting her head.
‘I have weapons for each of you,’ Mareena said, her voice brimming with delight. ‘In case we are attacked during our journey.’
One by one, she bestowed her treasures. To Alina, she gave a long staff crowned with a strange, glistening stone at its tip; to Isla and Arena, slender daggers, elegant yet deadly; and into Kai’s waiting hands, a single hook sword, its metal humming faintly with enchantment.
Finally, she slipped the golden glove onto her own hand, flexing her fingers until the fit was perfect.
‘Observe,’ Mareena announced, stepping a little distance from them. She raised her fist towards a far-off dune, the glove catching the starlight, then flaring with a brilliant spark. A torrent of witchfire erupted, streaking across the sands, striking the dune with a crackling explosion of power.
The group recoiled instinctively, their eyes widening.
Alina studied the staff in her hand, awe flashing in her brown eyes. She spun it effortlessly, testing its weight, before aiming the stone tip at the same dune. A surge of green magic burst forth, striking with equal force, scattering sand like shards of glass beneath a tempest’s roar.
‘What is this?’ Kai demanded, his brow furrowing like a storm gathering on the horizon. He let the golden hook sword slip from his grasp, the enchanted metal clattering against the sun-warmed stone. ‘How do you possess magic?’
‘Does it matter?’ Alina countered, her grip on the staff tightening as though it might take flight from her hands.
‘Yes, it matters,’ Kai snapped.
Alina rolled her eyes and jerked her chin towards Dawn. ‘We took a measure of her blood while she was recuperating.’
‘You did what?’ Kai’s voice cracked into a shriek, sharp enough to startle the desert silence.
‘You took my blood?’ Dawn screamed, surging forward, one hand raised as if she meant to slap sense directly into Alina’s skull.