Chapter 30
FELL
I WONDERED IF I WAS STILL DREAMING, CAUGHT UP IN THAT hazy in-between. The in-between of life and death. The in-between of human and dragon. The in-between of reality and … not.
Had my existence twisted once again and taken on a new form? A new shape full of tastes and textures and colors. The primal, dizzying bliss of sinking my body into hers. The delicious push and pull of two bodies—of Tamsyn. Was any of this even real?
Had I further unraveled? Was I still buried? Still trapped in a box? Still deep beneath the ground, lost in misery?
The void was never so kind as this. Never joyful. Never as sweet as Tamsyn in my arms beneath a fading purple sky. There was never this hope I felt with her hand humming in mine, striding through the Crags, seeking shelter for the night.
It was that—the sweetness, the heady pleasure, the absolute fucking joy of it.
That was the thing that told me this was no dream; this was all real.
We found refuge in a cave, guided there by the faint sulfur smell of a warm spring tucked deep inside the mountain.
And perhaps it was instinct, too, that guided us. Our dragons responding to our inherent bid for survival.
We followed a tunnel that bottomed out into a shallow cave. The spring was almost the entire width of it, offering a small shelf of mossy bank for us to sit on.
Tamsyn did not bother with sitting, however.
She slid within the balmy waters with a sigh and leaned her head back against the edge, the dark water lapping seductively at her shoulders and the top swells of her breasts.
Tendrils of steam lifted from the water’s surface like smoke, weaving in front of her face.
Her amber-gold eyes locked on me. “Aren’t you joining me?
” She held out a hand. “The water will soothe your body.” Her gaze flicked to my torso and the skin that was still not quite right yet, not fully healed.
It was less charred now, to be sure, but a bright waxy red stretched from my shoulder to my upper chest, the skin knitting back anew.
Guilt flashed in her eyes when it should not. She’d burned me to save herself, to stop me from destroying her. I didn’t blame her. More than that … her proven strength filled me with a deep sense of pride—a hot, primal thrill. She was strong and beautiful and powerful. And mine.
“I will, but if I get in that water right now, I won’t do those other things that we discussed.”
She angled her head. “You’re leaving me?” There was no mistaking the slight wobble in her voice. She was strong and powerful, but not invulnerable. Not without fear.
I got down on my knees at the edge of the pool. Leaning toward her, I pressed a firm kiss to her lips. “I will be back. Don’t worry about that. I’m not going to lose you now that I’ve just found you again.”
A cloud passed over her features. “I need to tell you something. No time feels right to say the words, but I can’t let you go back out into the world”—she stopped for a fresh breath—“unaware of what’s out there, how things have changed.
Especially in Penterra. You need to prepare yourself. It’s not as we left it.”
I sat back on my heels. Of course, things would have changed. Especially in Penterra. Still, I braced myself. “What has become of it?”
What has become of my home? My people?
She released the words in a breathy exhale: “Stig is not dead.”
It took me a moment to digest this. I thought of that bastard as I’d seen him last, bleeding from what certainly had seemed a mortal wound.
She went on. “He has been appointed your replacement. He is the Lord of the Borderlands.”
I sucked in a sharp breath and lifted to my feet.
He was given my lands? My people were subject to him?
My hands clenched into fists at my sides, my talons reacting, pushing to come out.
Tamsyn shook her head, her voice thick, clogged with emotion as she looked up at me with eyes that glimmered wetly with tears. “It’s very bad there, Fell.”
I staggered back a step, as though I could distance myself and escape from this wretched truth and all it signified.
She swallowed, working her throat. “They call him the Terror of the Borderlands. I saw him, Fell. He’s … different. Obsessed with dragons. With me. He’s determined that everyone know what I am.”
“No,” I snapped. “He was always that.” Always the Terror. She just never realized it before.
She nodded slowly. “He married Alise, my sister—”
“And gave himself a path to the crown,” I said grimly. The fucking Terror of the Borderlands. Married to a royal princess. No. No way would that stand. I would end him.
She nodded, her gaze searching my face.
“I am still Lord of the Borderlands.”
“Fell.” She stretched a hand for me.
I moved back several paces from the edge of the pool—from her—and she frowned. I could not be touched right now. Not with the rage that blazed through me.
“I will kill him. And take back my lands. This time you won’t stop me.”
She flinched, and I knew I’d wounded her, knew she felt that I blamed her. I could not stop to comfort her, though. The anger spiraling through me was too much. I needed to direct it elsewhere.
“I will be back,” I growled.
Turning away, I left her, ignoring her when she called out after me, trying not to feel as though I was leaving a part of myself behind … a part of myself I had only just recovered.
I ran, my fury carrying me, my legs working hard as I launched myself from the mouth of the cave, legs and arms pinwheeling.
My human body dove into the sky, and I transformed as I fell through the air.
I lifted up, caught on the wind and cool mist. Turning, I tore through the night sky, my wings beating fast, urgency fueling me with renewed purpose.
I had my home to reclaim … to wrest from the clutches of my enemy.
Bloodlust pumped swiftly through me turned my vision red.
I was not gone half an hour before I realized there was actual physical pain in leaving Tamsyn.
It was too soon. The X at the center of my palm popped and fizzled, stung like a fresh wound, longing for the relief it had found reuniting with her.
It tugged me back in the direction I had come. I resisted the pull. Pushed on.
I should have brought her with me, I grudgingly acknowledged.
I could not change it now, however. I hurried, speeding and twisting through the vaporous sky until I returned to the spot where I was unearthed.
I touched down. The bodies of the dead were still there, rotting in the snow. Soon their corpses would be buried, covered in pristine white, and there would be no evidence of the massacre I’d wrought.
It was all a blur now. Flashes of memory. Screams and blood and the sound of breaking bodies. Because of me.
I felt conflicted about that. It was a brutal thing I had done, but necessary.
Tamsyn’s life had depended upon it. And they were soldiers from Veturland.
I had fought them many times in my old life.
Countless had died beneath my sword before.
What difference did it make if they died beneath my talons now?
Either way they were enemies. Enemies in my old life and in this one.
Their horses had wandered off, likely returning to the familiarity of their homes in the north, but several of the satchels that had attached to their saddles had broken free in the melee and were discarded on the ground.
I took anything and everything that could be of use. Clothing, weapons, food, and other random supplies. But mostly clothing. We couldn’t walk about naked.
Clutching the straps of the satchels, I launched into the night sky, eager to see her again—to put eyes on her and know that she was safe. Safe and with me.
The darkness presented no difficulty. Although my vision was sharper when I was like this, I could have found my way back to her blindfolded, guided by instinct alone if necessary.
The pulsing mark in my hand burned hotter, beat faster, buzzing with an almost electric energy.
It was like lightning in my hand the closer I got to her.
By the time I returned to the cave, I was already afire, overcome, shaking with need, with hunger—my body aching, punishing itself for daring to leave her—my mate.
Mine.
You would think I was the fire-breather the way I burned for her instead of a creature that generated cooling mist.
She was still soaking in the spring when I arrived. My chest lifted on ragged breaths, and I very much felt like the animal that I had been moments ago—that I always would be.
I was winded and breathless in a way that had nothing to do with exertion and everything to do with need, with my urgency to see her again, to feel her, to touch her, to taste her … to sink myself into her.
Never had I been this before. A thing of want and need.
Be it man or dragon, I had never felt this kind of hunger or desperation for anything.
For anyone. It went beyond duty or affection or lust. It was something far deeper.
Something that existed in the pulsing marrow of me.
A scar in the bone. When I was gone from this earth, flesh no more, this would remain. Forever.
I dropped everything I’d retrieved as I devoured the sight of her.
Relief lit her face, but I could still see the worry in her eyes. Worry that I was still enraged at learning my old life was lost to Stig. She would be right about that. The rage had not fled from me on that point. It still simmered and seethed within me, but it had merged with my hunger for her.
“You’re back.” It was one of those unnecessary things people said, but I still was so very gratified to hear her say it, to see her eyes sparkle at the sight of me, gratified to know she craved me as much as I craved her. Had anyone ever looked at me the way she was looking at me now?
She pushed back from the rock wall and glided forward, her gaze skimming over me, missing nothing, especially not my cock. Her amber-gold eyes went wide and then turned molten as I grew even larger beneath her avid gaze.