Chapter 17
When she took to her long sleep, Leita didn’t often dream. She preferred this, as dreams tended to unnerve her, memories and thoughts warped by unreality.
However, this time, this dream, wasn’t so bad.
No, indeed, when her lashes fluttered open to find her head pillowed by a scaled arm, Leita sighed happily.
She didn’t bother inspecting her surroundings much—she knew herself to be laying in a facsimile of the cave she’d shared with Attalus. It was also with him she lay in a nest of blankets, warm and comfortable.
Because this was a dream, she indulged perhaps more than she might’ve with the real Attalus. If she’d truly nuzzled into his chest, inhaling deeply of his spicy scent, he’d be insufferable for hours. Here, though, she could curl up at his side and tip her head back to admire his fine features.
He truly was a beautiful male. What gold he did wear suited him, an adornment that enhanced his wrought cheekbones and pointed chin. She knew from experience that his lips were impossibly soft, and she couldn’t resist stretching up to steal a quick kiss.
He was remarkably warm for a dream, and Leita’s palm nearly burned as she ran it over his bare chest.
How strange that he slept in her dream, his face placid. Perhaps this was how she’d find him, were she to wake beside him in that cave. She liked the thought.
In her dream, and given his quiescence, she found herself comfortable enough to admit, “I’ve missed you.” More than she thought possible.
Although she couldn’t imagine what Attalus would look like here, beside her in Fallorian, she longed for him nevertheless. That was the way of mates, she supposed. It was only natural to yearn for her azai—even more so now that she’d finally found him.
Perhaps it’d been unnatural to leave him. Perhaps it’d been a mistake. In her dream, Leita could entertain such doubts, soft and warm as she was beside him.
“I’m doing all I can,” she assured him. “Although, I think I may have done something…diplomatically inconvenient.” She blushed, even in her dream, and had to push away memories of Charis’s disappointment.
Leita loathed speaking of it again, and she didn’t want to admit to being wrong about this, even in the safety of her sleep.
Instead, she pressed closer to her sleeping azai, wishing she could do so for true. Wishing there were fewer complications keeping them apart. Wishing…that something could go right, just for once.
As she held him, Leita began to warm. Beyond comfort. Her cheek burned against his skin, and even in her dream, she felt the discomfort.
She didn’t imagine his noise of distress. Sitting up, Leita took in the whole of her supine dragon—and the breath caught in her throat.
He was so hot, he nearly glowed. Sweat matted his long black hair to his skull, and his cheekbones were far too sharp, even for him. She ran her hands down his chest again, not in a caress but a desperate search. What was wrong? Why did he—?
As her right hand passed over the healed wound, Leita gasped. She could feel how hard and swollen it’d become, pulsing beneath her fingers.
“Attalus,” she whimpered, “Attalus, what’s wrong?”
Clutching at his outstretched arm, where her head had lain just a moment ago, she followed the length of it to see his open hand convulsing in spasms. Not far away, an empty water skein lay, along with half-eaten fish and a few other carcasses.
A desperate sound escaped her lips, and Leita renewed her search, pushing back his damp hair from his face, tracing his neck to feel a fluttering pulse, and lifting his upper lip to find his gums pale.
The pain below her heart clutched at her tight, throbbing as she looked upon him in growing horror.
“Attalus!”
The pain—their bond—it drew tight, the threadbare strands ready to snap.
But that could only mean—that only could happen if—
No.
Absolutely not.
“Attalus!” she cried, framing his face in her hands. “Tell me what’s wrong!”
His brows flinched as though to frown, and his lips moved infinitesimally.
“What?” She threw herself down, pressing her ear to his mouth.
“Venom,” he murmured, barely more than a breath.
Leita’s heart dropped from her chest. “No.” No. He’d said it was gone. That it wasn’t anything to worry over.
Had he lied to her? It hadn’t occurred to Leita that he would. Fae couldn’t lie. He wasn’t fae, but he was her mate.
Her devastation and anger seethed inside her, a horrible mixture that burned the back of her throat.
Clutching his hair in her fists, Leita rested her forehead on his. Her skin burned where they touched.
This was merely a dream, right? The musings of her overwrought patience and frustrated mind. That’s all this was. He was feverishly warm, yes, but better warm than cold. He was alive, just as she dreamed him to be, surely.
He bared his teeth in a grimace of pain, and Leita felt their bond weaken by another strand.
She called his name, but no sound came. For a horrible moment, all Leita saw or felt was nothing.
She woke suddenly with a start, tangled up in her blanket. Leita sat up straight, her heart thundering in her ears. What…did this mean?
Leita had never been so affected by a dream, her skin left clammy and her hands trembling.
What if it wasn’t…?
Her heart jumped to her throat. No, no, she couldn’t bear to think it.
Leita sat up, her stomach threatening to rebel as the pain in her chest throbbed. It was only as she began to struggle out of the blanket that she realized Ondra stood at her bedside.
Ondra looked just as startled to see Leita awake, but she quickly regained her composure and helped Leita to her feet.
The early morning air was cool, and so Leita drew her blanket around her before beginning to pace. Her worries wouldn’t let her stand still.
“I just came to check on you, my Queen,” Ondra was saying, her voice sounding far away. “Are you all right?”
Leita didn’t have an answer, not one that would satisfy her attendant anyway, and so didn’t bother. She worried that if she opened her mouth, far more than sick would spew forth. All she could do was pace back and forth, trying to stay a step ahead of her roiling stomach and aching heart.
Fuck, that dream had been too real. Were her worries manifesting to torment her in sleep, too, or worse, was there another explanation?
She knew bonded mates could communicate with each other; fae azai could even speak telepathically once the bond grew strong enough.
From speaking with Allarion and Molly, she knew they sensed the other’s state and wellbeing, and their shared bond with Bellarand allowed them to speak in their minds, too.
But what about a dragon?
Loquacious as Attalus was, he’d never said anything about Savrakae forming such a connection. Their bond was so new, it could hardly be capable of affecting her so when such distance separated them. Right?
That pain in her chest would disagree. The aching in her joints and mild fever below her skin, too.
What if she wasn’t sick? What if all of these were echoes of Attalus’s own symptoms as he fought the venom in his blood?
“Damn him,” she muttered under her breath. Why would he lie about such a thing? And why hadn’t her magic cleared it from his blood when she’d healed him?
Leita’s legs almost gave out from under her to think that her own magic had failed not only her, but her azai. Her true mate, the only one she’d ever find. The one she’d been waiting centuries for.
The one she’d left behind in a cave to suffer alone.
The ground rushed up to meet her, and Leita just barely caught herself on her hands and knees. It was a rough landing, jarring her palms and kneecaps, but she could hardly feel the blunt pain over her own trembling fear.
“My Queen…?” Ondra called.
“What have I done?”
The question echoed dully off the stone tiles and into her ears, where it rattled round in her skull.
Her breathing came in quick, shallow bursts, black spots appearing at the edge of her vision. She didn’t hear the door open, nor Carenza rush to her side. She barely felt her attendant’s worried touch as Carenza tried to gather her off the floor.
“My Queen, what’s happened?” she asked Leita. To Ondra she cried, “Fetch Chancellor Charis!”
Leita clutched blindly, desperately at the hands reaching for her. Her despair threatened to pull her under, down into the sucking whirlpool of her own making.
I can’t lose him.
“Who, my Queen?”
She hadn’t realized she spoke aloud.
Grasping Carenza by the shoulders, Leita cried, “I can’t lose him!”
To her credit, Carenza didn’t shudder away despite how disturbed she seemed by Leita’s outburst. Instead, she held Leita close and stroked her hair, rocking them as they waited for Charis and Ondra.
“It’s all right, my lady. It’ll be all right. Whoever it is, you won’t lose him. You can do anything.”
Leita wanted to believe that. She wished she could do all that was asked of her.
What’d she done instead? Turned away from the one thing she said she wanted.
Something had gone her way, but rather than accept him for the gift he was, she’d kept him at arm’s length.
She could tell herself it was for both their safety and that of the faelands.
She could console herself that anyone with her circumstances would struggle at first with an azai so sudden and different.
All this could be true, but it was also true that Leita had run away.
Just like the scared little girl who’d run from the faelands, she’d turned her back and run.
Leita had never been more scared in her life. Not even running as she did into the unknown, without her mother and sister.
For this time, Leita knew exactly what awaited her if she lost Attalus. She would only be blessed with one azai. If she lost him, if he succumbed, she wouldn’t get another.