Chapter 26 Jesper #2
“Worthy,” he announced to her, flying. He circled her once before he paused and hissed, looking right at me. “Unworthy.”
His wings beat once in an offended yet judgmental way as he slid back under her skin into the mark.
Rune giggled. “He means well. He’s just grumpy.”
“Isn’t he always?” I muttered.
“A little bit.” Her eyelids fluttered as she sighed. “Fine, mister agent. I’ll ride you. I’d just rather ride you a different way.”
Heat shot down my spine so fast I nearly choked.
“Right,” I coughed. “Dragon form it is.”
She laughed and stepped back to give me room, but I felt the desire through our matebond on her end. I was tempted to give into it, but I think we needed to get away for a while first.
I let the shift take me, magic rolling over my skin in a humming static.
Bones popped and grew, muscles expanded, and green scales rippled into existence over my body.
The world dropped into sharper focus as my dragon senses went into overdrive.
The air currents, heartbeats, and the throbbing red tendril linking my soul to Rune’s became visible.
When the transformation settled, I planted my talons in the cliff-side and lowered my massive head toward her.
My green scales caught the winter light, each one edged in a faint iridescent sheen that I had always been proud of.
My mom always told me how pretty they were, and I always loved that she thought that.
I hoped Rune liked them.
“Okay,” she muttered, eyeing me carefully. “I have never climbed on a dragon before.”
She grabbed a ridge between my shoulders and hauled herself up easily. Her legs tightened along a section of my neck, her hands hooking into the natural grooves between my scales. “Wow. Your scales are so pretty.”
I huffed a laugh before I launched us into the sky.
The wind at this height wasn’t just chilly. Instead, it was freezing, slicing past us in clean, sharp currents.
Rune tucked closer to me, her body heat a small, fierce brand against my spine.
The capital dropped away beneath us in a wash of rooftops and cobblestone before the world opened up into white-tipped peaks and dark forests.
The Blood Hollow Mountain Range stretched like a wall of shadows and snow, jagged and ancient.
The Earth Kingdom had taken pride in creating it to really embody the four different seasons we experienced.
Frost slicked the dead branches of trees clinging to the slopes, each one coated in a glitter of ice that made the entirety of it look like a cluster of crystal blades as we crossed it.
Rune’s fingers dug into my scales when we hit a new altitude, but the matebond hummed with something fierce and excited, like awe threaded with stubborn discomfort.
I glided us to the left, along a ridge where the wind smoothed out.
Ahead, the ruins of a basilisk statue rose from a plateau.
It was a massive green stone serpent, half-submerged in rock, its fanged mouth open as if in mid-hiss.
Vines had grown through its eye sockets, but faint enchantments still pulsed weakly along its sides.
The Ruins in the Apex Capital were a monument dedicated to the basilisk who had helped end Kalista’s First War. I felt Rune’s focus sharpen as we passed over it, a sense of grief brushing the bond like a whisper.
That same basilisk who had been remembered had been Rune and Sabine’s ancestor.
Beyond that, the terrain dipped, and rock rose from the ground, arching into a wide, yawning opening that was the entrance to Essence Mines. Pale crystals studded the stone around it like embedded stars, glowing softly even in daylight.
I angled my wings and dropped toward it, landing in a rush of snow-crunch and displaced air.
Rune scrambled off my back so fast she nearly tumbled.
I shifted back mid-turn, catching her on instinct. “I’ve got you.”
She crashed into my chest, fingers digging into my shirt. “Holy Fates,” she wheezed. “I don’t want to do that again. The ground is so much better. No longer jealous of my brother for being able to fly.”
I laughed, the sound bouncing off the surrounding stone. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you dislike anything.”
She sighed and glanced at the cave mouth behind me. “So, are we going for a cave walk?”
“Mine walk,” I corrected lightly. “But yes.”
“Let’s go.” She slid her hand into mine and tugged me toward the entrance.
Essence Mines had been abandoned for decades, or maybe longer. Sometimes crystologists came to study the remaining veins or archaeologists came to fuss over fossils, but most days, it was empty. Today, the only heartbeats I felt belonged to us and a handful of small creatures deeper inside.
We stepped into the mines, and the air cooled even further, dropping from the winter bite to a subterranean chill. It was times like these that being an icedrake or a firedrake would’ve been a positive.
The sound of the outside world faded, replaced by the slow drip of water and the soft crunch of gravel beneath our boots. Stalagmites rose from the ground, and stalactites hung overhead in jagged clusters.
As we walked deeper, the crystals embedded in the walls glowed brighter.
Some pulsed in soft blues and greens, others in faint pink or gold.
They were dubbed essence stones, but they were simply called crystals by others.
Each one held a whisper of magical essence.
Some amplified; some shielded; some simply stored past spells like faint afterthoughts.
Crystals were incredibly interesting, but it took more time than I had to truly understand them.
Rune brushed her fingers over a cluster as we passed, and her magical essence bloomed bright through her veins from simply touching them. “These are gorgeous,” she murmured.
“Some amplify healing,” I said. “Some memory. Some are good for spell anchoring. We used to come here for training in House of Fortitude.”
“Pops does enjoy his crystals,” she mused.
We walked in silence for a few more steps before I finally found the nerve to mention Darian and asked, “How do you feel?”
She snorted. “After killing your cousin?”
The word cousin landed heavily, but I nodded.
“I feel like justice was served,” I said. “But I also know that’s not the same as feeling…good about it.”
She was quiet for a long moment.
Our footsteps echoed, soft and hollow, filling the space around us.
“I had a nightmare last night,” she said finally.
Her hand drifted up to her throat, fingers pressing at the skin as if she could feel something around it.
“It was so vivid.” She stared past me at the crystal walls. “I hadn’t lied to him. I just got distracted. I told him I’d be at a shop in the market, but I went to eat at a restaurant across the street afterwards. He stormed in as if I’d betrayed him, dragged me out into the alley, and choked me.”
“You didn't let him get away with choking you, though. Did you?” I asked, looking at her. Anger and protective instinct flared deep inside my soul.
She shook her head. "No. I punched him in the throat, and he let go. Then he cried and apologized and said he was just worried. I believed that meant he cared, like a dumbass.”
“You were not and are not dumb, Rune.” I stopped us in a small chamber where the crystals burned brighter, casting fractured pale blue light over her face. “You believed the good he pretended to have. I did too. We all did.”
Her voice shook now, and disgust flooded the bond. “I should have dumped him the first time. I hate that I let so much slide because it was easier than admitting he wasn’t who I wanted him to be.”
I stepped in closer and wrapped my arms around her, pulling her against my chest. “Experience teaches us where our line is,” I mumbled. “You have that experience now.”
She huffed a mix between a cry and a laugh against my shirt. “You say that like I don’t have six protective and amazing mates that would never let me experience that again.”
“Even better, really,” I replied.
She snorted. “I guess so.”
I kissed the top of her head, breathing in her midnight orchid scent.
A strange shiver moved through her muscles before a sharp pain shot through the bond from her.
“Ow,” she hissed.
I pulled back. “What happened?”
She looked down just as something thin and patterned uncoiled from her ankle. A viper had latched onto the bare skin above her boot. It was a narrow desert breed, and its fangs were sunk deep.
She kicked out on instinct. The snake flew and hit the stone wall.
I brought my boot down on its head with enough force to end it in a single breath.
Rune staggered back, catching herself on the cave wall.
“Shit,” she breathed, blinking rapidly. “That’s…new.”
The bond flooded with something like euphoria and heat. Her pupils blew wide, the golden irises shrinking to thin rings.
“I don’t know any vipers that carry an aphrodisiac,” I murmured slowly.
“Apparently you do now,” she whispered, her sweet voice gone breathless and ragged. Her hands fumbled for the hem of her sweater before she yanked it over her head, nearly getting stuck in the sleeves. Her tank top came midway up it, baring her skin and the bottoms of her breasts.
Her desire flared through the bond, rolling over my senses like heat from a drake’s flame.
My self-control always snapped around my mate.
“Rune,” I croaked. “We should—”
Her gaze snapped to mine, cheeks flushed.
“I know that look,” she murmured. “You’re overthinking, but I need you, Jesper.”
The bond hummed with consent, want, and sharp need wrapped in the absolute certainty that she wanted me, no, needed me. Now.
I swallowed hard, the mine suddenly pressing in on all sides. “You’re sure?”
“Yes,” she said, stepping closer, palms sliding up my chest. “And before you ask again, yes. I’m more than sure, Jesper.”
She rose on her toes and kissed me.
The crystals, the mines, and the echo of dripping water all blurred into distant static. All I knew was the press of her mouth against mine, and the way her fingers hooked into my shirt.