Chapter Forty-Seven
Biting her lip against the pain, Aemyra buried her face in Fiorean’s shoulder.
“We do not know what will come of this,” she said. “I could end up bursting into flames, or trying to kill someone if Terrea’s consciousness fully overtakes mine. We need to be alone.”
Fiorean looked around the kitchen, at the bodies strewn across the floor, his brother assessing the damage, Marilde glaring up the corridor, threatening anyone else to come through.
“Come with me,” Fiorean said, grasping her hand.
Halfway across the flagstone floor, Aemyra’s vision blurred.
There was a thick pile of dried leaves and branches in the far corner, so dry that one spark of flame would ignite them. An entire oak tree had been split in half to provide ample kindling.
Her mate had done well.
Dragging against Terrea’s mind, Aemyra returned to her own to find Fiorean hauling her into the pantry.
“No,” she ground out as he moved to open the trapdoor. “We don’t have enough time.”
He looked beside himself as he slammed the pantry door closed. “If you burst into flame, you are risking everyone we just managed to save. We cannot stay he—”
Aemyra dug her nails into his arms as another pain took her. “Logic and reason have no place in childbirth. Women listen to their bodies and trust that they know what to do.”
“This isn’t childbirth,” Fiorean said.
“It might as well be,” Aemyra panted, consciousness swimming between her own mind and Terrea’s.
Thankfully, Fiorean began to take control of the situation.
Losing sight of the pantry, Aemyra blinked and was suddenly somewhere dark. A spacious cave or tunnel perhaps. In spite of this, it didn’t smell damp.
Fighting to stay in her own mind, she groaned as the cramps traveled down her thighs.
As though her pain was his own, Fiorean reassured her, “Just do what feels right. The Covenanter ranks have to be thinning now. It’ll be okay.”
His back was weeping blood through the bandages.
Aemyra pressed her lips together to stop from crying out.
Fiorean dropped to his knees beside her. “How long do you think this will take?” he asked.
Aemyra rolled her eyes with a low groan as another pain took her. If dragon labors were as unpredictable as humans’, they could be in for a long day.
The doorknob turned and Thear stuck his head into the pantry. “Oh, I thought the two of you decided to stop for a mid-battle snack and wondered if I could join.”
Aemyra glared at him and he physically recoiled. “On the other hand, this skirmish is fantastic fun. Perhaps I’ll leave you to…whatever this is?”
He cast a frown in Fiorean’s direction.
“Unless the queen would prefer—”
“I would prefer a large dram of òmar and to be left the fuck alone,” Aemyra snapped as her back spasmed and she arched on the floor.
A genuine look of concern passed over Thear’s face and whatever Fiorean gave as an explanation was cut off as Aemyra found herself in Terrea’s mind again.
No matter how hard she tried she could not close the Bond, and the roars of a dragon filled her ears.
Voices reached Aemyra but her vision was flickering, her husband’s strong grip the only thing anchoring her in her own body.
“No one can know,” she muttered as Fiorean gave directions she could not hear.
“Aemyra?” Thear’s voice reached her again.
“I told you to get the fuck out of here!”
A door slammed, and then Fiorean’s hands were on her once more. Aemyra had no strength left to reply as she gritted her teeth against another pain, her claws ripping through stone as she felt something move inside her.
“You can do this. You can withstand this,” Fiorean said, his touch giving her something to focus on.
Slowly losing her grip on reality, Aemyra searched for her husband through the mental link. It was as wide open as it had ever been, and she saw herself through his eyes.
She looked possessed.
“Keep everyone away from me,” Aemyra gasped. Let everyone in the caisteal think she was sick or wounded. Anything but the fact that Terrea was laying.
The future of the dragons depended on these eggs.
No one could find out about them until they were hatched, preferably Bonded to a Dùileach who could care for them, and at least half-grown. The war might be ending, but the territory would be unstable for years to come.
Weathering the pain, Aemyra knew she would kill for, and die for, this secret.
“Please tell me you have something to take the pain away,” Aemyra begged.
Her husband’s hands were warm on her cheeks. “Haven’t you coached enough women through this to know better? I am here, mo chridhe,” he muttered, his presence the only thing that was soothing her.
She wanted to be with her dragon. She needed to be with her dragon. How was she supposed to get through this without her?
“Terrea would tear you to shreds,” Fiorean replied, reading her desire through the mental link.
Hardly in control of herself, Aemyra lashed out with her teeth as if in possession of Terrea’s fangs.
“I swear on Brenna’s tits if this doesn’t end soon I will end up incinerating this entire room,” Aemyra said.
She felt Fiorean conjure a magical shield to cover the whole pantry before Aemyra’s ears were rendered deaf with Terrea’s roars.
Aemyra felt like that spot behind her heart where her Bond with Terrea lived was being ripped open as she flickered between human and dragon eyes.
“Terrea’s pulling you too far into her mind,” Fiorean muttered anxiously, in agreement with an extremely concerned Aervor.
Aemyra uttered a filthy curse and slammed her fist against the floor. The price for dragon eggs couldn’t be madness.
Fiorean’s fingers were gentle as he checked her pulse points, pulling at her eyelids, finding her pupils blown wide as she was smothered by the Bond.
Instinctively, Aemyra knew she would not be freed from Terrea’s mind until she brought her eggs forth.
Which, judging by the series of grunts and lashing tail, would be soon.
Aemyra brought her hands automatically around to cradle her stomach with a groan.
“Brigid protect them,” Fiorean muttered.
Terrea flapped her wings desperately.
Aemyra screamed, her back arching off the ground. This was worse than childbirth, surely this was worse.
Fiorean’s voice cut through the roars, and Aemyra came back to her own body once again, the stone wall cold against her back.
Her hands were wreathed in flame, her husband clutching them tightly, shielding the rest of the caisteal from her fire.
“Aemyra, I need you to breathe. Try to remain calm,” Fiorean commanded.
Flames poured off Aemyra’s body in surging waves onto the stone floor as the sound of victorious cheering came through the window from the rebels in the city. Straining her ears, Aemyra was certain she could hear the roars of a chimera.
It was all the glimpse she got before the Bond took her again. Aemyra could feel Fiorean sliding himself behind her, and she barely had time to relax into his hold before another pain rippled through her.
Her husband looped his fingers between her own, bringing them to her stomach as Fiorean muttered encouragement in her ear.
“This is not happening in your body, it is happening within the Bond you share,” he said in a calming voice. “You are safe with us, you are not in danger.”
“I need my mama,” Aemyra sobbed as another pain ripped through her, her voice cracking.
Orlagh would have known what to do. Even though Aemyra wasn’t pregnant, and this wasn’t her labor, she had always imagined Orlagh would be by her side when she brought life into this world.
Each time she was dragged into Terrea’s mind, Aemyra felt like she was being pulled farther away from her body. Gripping Fiorean’s hands as if they would keep her tethered to him, she prayed to Brigid that she would not lose herself within the Bond.
Then Terrea bore down atop her nest.
Suddenly Aemyra felt like her whole body was rippling and she cried out, a dragon’s roar tumbling out of her own throat as Terrea gave a massive push and something dropped.
Aemyra sank back against her husband’s chest as Fiorean muttered words she could not hear. Terrea shuddered again and Aemyra felt the Bond grow clearer, more stable.
Terrea gave one last, massive push. With instant relief for both dragon and Dùileach, what was left of the heavy, mucus-filled plug inside of Terrea gave way, and the mental link snapped.
Aervor and Fiorean were pushed out of her mind and the Bond with Terrea settled.
The she-dragon gave a last deafening roar before turning to sniff the steaming pile that was hardening on the ground. With an enraged roar, she opened her jaws and poured white-hot fire atop the nest, the kindling Aervor had painstakingly prepared lighting instantly.
Within the smoldering nest, and kept warm by the heat of their mother’s flames, sat two dragon eggs.
Pulling her lips back from her teeth, Terrea growled and began to claw her way out of the cave.
Evidently the experience had been so traumatizing the dragon didn’t want to spend another minute inside. Without so much as a backward glance, Terrea took flight, leaving her eggs far behind.
The Bond settled back to normal, the pain in Aemyra’s abdomen disappearing instantly.
“What happened?” Fiorean asked. “Aervor and I—our minds cannot connect to yours.”
Blinking furiously as she returned to her own body, Aemyra massaged the middle of her chest.
“I think the connection was only necessary while Terrea was nesting. To protect her,” Aemyra muttered, utterly relieved not to be sharing the consciousness of more than one other being anymore.
“How many?” Fiorean whispered into her ear.
“Two,” she replied.
Fiorean smiled as Aervor roared from high above. Utterly exhausted, Aemyra rested against her husband until her feverish skin grew cold.
A little while later, the pantry door swung open to reveal Marilde, eyeing the massacre in her kitchen. “The city is ours. It’ll take me months to get the blood out of the flagstones.”
It had indeed been cheers of victory rising from the city, Aemyra could hear them better now. Delighted celebrations echoing down the caisteal corridors to where the king and queen were huddled in a pantry.
“It’s over,” Fiorean said tiredly.
They had won the war, but at what cost?
Safe in her husband’s arms, enemies vanquished, and finally free inside the walls of her own caisteal, Aemyra’s grief rushed in. She thought about the little brother who had dreamed of an egg ceremony, and the father who had lived for the Goddesses and the age of dragons.
Draevan and Lachlann should have shared this moment with her.
Feeling grief break like a wave, Aemyra finally stopped fighting it.