Divine Will
SOUNDTRACK: Heartbeat Against Mine by Silk & Shadows
~ VOSKI ~
I’d been so furious, so distracted by catching Grace and searching her for weapons, I’d broken my own rules and ignored my surroundings. The only warning was a prickling at the back of my neck, before I was ripped away.
There was barely a second to register the feral dragon’s snaking neck and fangs hooking my belt and leathers—thank God for dragonhide—before I was tossed into the air, so high my legs scraped the upper branches of the old trees.
Then, I plummeted straight back to earth as the dragon growled and pinned its ears, then lunged after me.
The landing was awkward, but I could thank seven years of training with Kham, and early falls from his back, for the instinct to roll and distribute the impact.
I made it straight to my feet and whirled to face the dragonfury, but I was helpless. Winded, and spine screaming as I lifted my hands and dropped my chin in submission.
To my surprise, Grace’s frantic voice rose first. “Wait. No. You can’t—”
‘Don’t move!’ Kham snapped in my head as he shattered the evening quiet with a roar that would have made the herd Primarch proud, and dropped to the earth so close, his tail almost took my head off.
The earth shook, and I staggered, but took the first full breath since I’d been ripped away from Grace.
It took less than a blink to see that the danger had not passed.
Kham planted himself in front of me, wings high and mouth open, baring his fangs, his scales glowing as he prepared his flame.
Facing him, a massive, feral red dragon whose scales were so richly hued, they looked near-black in the shadows, growled so deeply the air vibrated. Warning smoke rose from its nostrils.
Grace yelped and scrambled back.
I instinctively shouted at my dragon. “Kham! Watch out for the girl—”
But, both dragonfuries went preternaturally still.
I’d frozen, waiting, assessing, measuring the distance to Grace and whether I could ease past the dragons if they fought—only to see my dragon’s ears prick forward and his wings vibrate… in excitement?
‘Kham, what’s going on? Do you know this dragon?’ I shoved the words at him in the link, stunned by the feral dragon’s sudden shift.
I caught Grace turning toward me in my peripheral vision and raised a hand to stop her.
“Don’t… move…” I said as quietly as I could and be sure she still heard me. “Just—”
‘Mate?’ Kham’s voice in my head was an impossible tangle of fear, and stunned delight.
‘What?!’ I gaped at my dragon. He couldn’t mean—?
The only warning was a low, hungry, half-whine, half-growl in my dragon’s chest. Then the feral dragon tossed her head high and bugled to the clouds, flapping her great wings and throwing herself aside as Kham lunged.
But she was huge and the trees were thick here. One of the tall pines took the full brunt of her shoulder as she whipped around to lead my dragon—her mate?!—on a flirtatious chase.
The earth shuddered again, and Kham crowed as the pine cracked, splintering, branches shaking.
‘Mate. Mine.’
A burgeoning bond, two massive dragons, not enough space. And Grace standing, frozen in fear as the female’s tail lashed out in a twenty-foot circumference to balance her swift turn, and slammed into the tree just feet above Grace’s head.
There wasn’t time to think.
The female whistled and tore into the forest, trees creaking and branches snapping with the force of her passage.
With a wordless cry of warning, I sprinted toward Grace whose eyes were wide with awe, hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her to me, throwing us both behind the trunk of the massive tree where I’d pinned her just moments ago as leaves, twigs, and branches rained down, and the trunk of the tree the female had hit with her shoulder began to creak and groan.
Grace grunted with the impact of my weight as we hit the ground. My back sang with pain. But there was no time. I couldn’t assess which tree would fall, or how many branches were being torn from their trunks.
I pulled Grace to my chest and curled myself around her, arms over her head and snarled at her to tuck as tightly as she could, praying I’d gotten us positioned under the thickest of the ancient tree’s branches for shelter, as a massive snap echoed somewhere overhead.
Grace startled and her head rose instinctively.
“Keep your head down and pray!” I growled, and to her credit, she did, tucking her face into her knees and keeping herself in a ball, while I cupped a palm over her head, the other around her arms.
The nearby forest was a chaos of dragon calls and roars, the snap and creak of broken trees, and the vibration of the earth under us with each dragon’s footfall—and the shocking impact of trees falling.
But moments later, the sounds grew more distant, and though an unidentified tree nearby continued to groan and creak, only leaves fell, drifting through the air to settle on us, and the forest floor.
Cautiously, I raised my head, my chest heaving, and stared, stunned, at the face of a huge branch that must have been torn loose by the female’s tail as she fled.
Only strips of bark kept its thick end propped against the tree over our heads.
The rest had fallen and now spread over us like a lean-to.
The smell of sap and wet wood was sharp in the air. The leaves on the branch still shivered.
I swallowed hard at the near miss, my heart pounding in my chest so hard that Grace must feel it against her back.
“We’re going to stand up—slowly,” I whispered to her.
“You stay at my back until I’m sure they’re at a safe distance.
But don’t relax. They’ll circle back, and they’ll be reckless,” I said, my stomach tingling and equally sick at the thought.
“They may hurt us by accident. Kham’s bond will draw him back to me.
He’ll chase her to me. But then he won’t want us close, and he’ll fight his own instincts. It will get messy.”
Mouth dry and my skin humming with something I couldn’t identify, I pushed to my feet and took her hand, helping her upright, then pulled her with me as I crept out from under that branch, keeping a close eye on anything that might have been damaged above us and waiting for the smallest excuse to fall.
To my relief, Grace didn’t argue. She gripped my hand as tightly as I gripped hers and followed me.
We could hear the dragon’s thundering path through the trees—more trunks creaking and snapping, the rush and thunder of trees felled by a passing dragon’s weight. But even though they were still distant, I knew it wouldn’t be for long.
And something was wrong.
Had I been injured? I felt no pain. Yet, my hands shook and my head rang. My body felt hot.
“There’s shelter,” I rasped, pulling her with me.
“I left Kham near here. Water. A cave.” I knew my words didn’t make sense, but something had twisted my guts.
My skin burned so that I wanted to strip my clothes off.
Thoughts of the creek that my squad-brother Gil and I had found when we left the dragons here made me swallow, desperate to wet my mouth, and yet, hungry.
What the hell was happening to me?
I stumbled through the forest, reaching for Kham in his thoughts, begging him to remain far enough away to be safe. But with no response, I didn’t know if heard me.
He was gripped in the thrall of a matebond. Chasing his female. Dominating her.
That hunger in my belly twisted tight and my next breath hissed between my teeth as my hands tightened and the urge to stop and pull Grace to me, panic that she might be hurt, rage that she might run from me, roared through me like fire on my blood.
Just Kham’s bond taking. I’m reflecting his emotions. That’s all.
It took mere minutes to make it to the slope of the foothill, where a creek fed a large pool between the trees, a cave squatted under a rocky outcropping, and the last of the sunlight glowed on patchy grass in the gap between tree lines.
I staggered to a halt, panting like I’d run for hours, which made no sense. My body hummed with a strange, crackling energy, and when I turned to look at Grace, to attempt to reassure her—the cave would be safe, the dragons couldn’t fit into the width of its mouth—the words died in my throat.
She clung to my hand, her chest rising and falling rapidly, eyes bright, but bloodshot. When our eyes met, hers widened, and a jolt of electric need crackled behind my ribs.
‘Mate… matematemate—’
I sucked in a breath and shoved Kham out of my head, but it was too late. The word echoed through me, made my blood boil, and my bones buzz.
“What… what just happened?” Grace stammered, her cheeks flushed. Her breathing didn’t slow.
Neither did mine.
“The… that dragon is my dragon’s mate. They’re… bonding. It’s consuming. They’ll be… they’re going to—”
Grace’s head snapped back and her eyes went round. “She says that your dragon, Kham, belongs to her?!” Her voice was high and thin.
The bolt of understanding, the sheer weight of what she’d just revealed, threatened to press me to my knees.
“You can hear her? She speaks to you?”
Grace’s eyes hooded as she nodded, her lower lip going slack and her breathing went shallow. “Yes, she’s… she was protecting me… but now—”
“She Chose you.” It wasn’t a question. The truth settled in my guts like a brick, even as my mind reeled.
She’d been Chosen. By a dragon. She was Flameborne. And if she trained and passed the tests, she’d become a fully fledged Furyknight. Like me.
But she was a spy! And that dragon was feral—did she even have a herd? Who would teach Grace how to ride her?
The Fyrehold Furyknights, I supposed. Except, that thought inexplicably sent a shrieking pang from my chest to my toes. I gasped, and flinched.
Grace’s eyes glazed and she swayed closer. “Vane, I… what is… I feel—”
Oh shit. I’d forgotten that was the name Bren gave her when we were introduced. But if I told her, she’d learn we had lied, and that Bren was much more than a simple companion to Donavyn. And that I was no guard.
She took one halting step closer, still panting and my eyes fell straight to the inch of cleavage visible between the V of her stable boy’s shirt, and the clasp of her cloak.
My being grew hot as I imagined reaching for that clasp, pinching it free so the cloak slid to the dirt behind her. Pulling her to me, one hand working the buttons of that shirt, the other clawed into her ass that was hugged tightly by those trousers—
Oh shit. Oh fuck, no.
No, no, no, no—
My dragon screamed in the distance and a spear of need cleaved me in two. Even with my mind closed to him, Kham’s feelings were so deep, so strong, so ecstatic, that our bond resonated with them.
Mate. He claimed his mate. His soulbond.
My dragon was bonded to the dragon who’d Chosen her.
“Vane… I want… I need… something,” Grace whispered, her lips full and pink, eyes shining, even as they glazed.
She leaned into me, her little, elegant hands sliding up my chest, to my neck, and that inch of cleavage became two because her elbows pressed her breasts together, plumping them under the very thin cotton barely shielding them from my sight.
With a groan that came from my balls, I plunged a hand into her hair with every intention of pulling her head back, away, of turning her and… and…
And her big, round eyes pleaded with me.
And my body sang because the warmth of her pierced my ribs.
And suddenly, the thought of pushing her away was ice to my heart.
The dragons’ calls rose, echoing in the mountains above us as I gave a tormented groan, pulled Grace to me, and devoured the sweet velvet of her mouth.