Chapter Thirty-One
Mia
“We’re not on Earth,” I repeated, staring down at the collection of circular towers and curved walls, sloped funnel-like roofs and oddly diamond-shaped windows. “We’re not on Earth.”
“No. You’re in the air.”
I slowly turned my head until I could stare Tor directly in his perfectly pale gray eyes. “Really?”
He smiled. The effect wasn’t quite as powerful on me as it normally was, given his face was bruised.
He had a puffy circle around his left eye that was quickly darkening, several cuts and abrasions across his cheeks, and his opposite cheek bore a long, ugly-looking gouge that trailed dried blood down to his neck.
But he was brimming with laughter, and the happiness was easy to see despite the disfigurement. And that made my heart race just a little bit faster. It definitely had nothing to do with the fact we were high in the air and the only thing stopping me from falling to my death were his arms.
“I thought it was funny,” he said. “It got you to stop going down your path of freaking out, didn’t it?”
“I wasn’t going to freak out.”
“Liar,” he accused, staring right back at me. “You were plunging down that route, and we both know it.”
“I …”
“You’re right. It would be totally justified to do so,” he said, his face softening.
“And I am so sorry it had to happen this way. I didn’t want your first real experience here to be like this.
I had hoped to fly you here on my back so that you could experience the joy of soaring high through the clouds and seeing my homeland in all its glory in a peaceful way. ”
“That would have been much nicer,” I admitted.
“But we’re here now, and if we’re technical, this wasn’t even your first time away from Earth. When I showed you my dragon, I brought you here. You’re basically an experienced realm traveler at this point.”
“Oh, yes. Like the experienced traveler who’s never left their country,” I said dryly.
“Close enough,” he joked. “All I’m saying is that you don’t need to freak out. Just stay calm. If you do freak out, I’m going to have to kiss you to stop you, and—”
I leaned in and kissed him. It could have been the adrenaline, my worry for his well-being, the fact that an hour ago, we’d been in bed together, and I wasn’t quite over that; I had no idea.
But it felt like the right thing to do, and as he growled and kissed me back, I knew my decision wasn’t one I would regret.
Whatever happened to putting up a wall between you and him? Making sure he doesn’t find a way permanently to live inside your defenses?
The spine-tingling rasp of his stubble against my soft skin brushed that thought from my mind.
I hung in mid-air, kissing a man with wings sprouting from his back, and suddenly nothing mattered.
Not the near-death kidnapping I’d just experienced, not the insanity that had been my life the past few days, nor the implications for the future, which I refused to dwell on. Nothing. Just me and him, that was it.
Eventually, he pulled away, revealing that his face was already healing as the puffiness faded. The smile that lit his face distracted from it all anyway because the sheer joy was too much to ignore.
“Come on,” he said as we swooped lower over the huge complex of buildings. “I want to show you around.”
His enthusiasm was contagious, and I found myself grinning like an idiot and whooping as we soared down the mountainside.
Storm Keep was built into the side of the mountain.
I saw no road leading up to it, though perhaps it wound through the mountain.
Several other dragons rested on perches above the castle, their postures leading me to believe they were not idling but rather watching, keeping an eye out on the skies nearby.
“Guards?” I asked, pointing.
He nodded.
“Are we in danger here? Do you come under attack often?”
“Almost never, actually. But better to be prepared in the event we are. I will double the guards, though. My sister is loose somewhere in here, and who knows what she’ll do.”
“I thought she was back on Earth?”
“No. She activated the Rift. That’s how the Vorgan was able to bring you home. Did you not see her?”
“No,” I said. “Though I was a bit concerned with trying to get free. But I don’t recall seeing anyone. The Rift-thingy, I’m pretty sure, was already up and going by the time we got there.”
He frowned unhappily. “She must have gone ahead.”
“Or she didn’t go at all and just snuck into the house to open the portal,” I pointed out as we descended toward an open space between a quintet of the tallest towers at the center of the complex.
Different flags fluttered from the tops of long poles at the apex of each cone-shaped roof, snapping wildly in the constant mountain breeze.
“But why would she do that?” he mused. “There’s nothing for her on Earth, is there? The throne is here, at Storm Keep.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t really know your sister, or dragons, well enough to speculate.”
“Oh, I know. I was just speculating out loud,” he said hurriedly, spreading his wings wide to slow us down as we landed, his legs flexing to absorb the impact. The giant blue membranes swept up tight parallel to his spine, then began to shrink, absorbing into his back.
“That is both absolutely gross and totally cool, all wrapped up in one,” I said, watching the last lumps disappear under his skin. “Hey, your back is healing!”
“I told you it would,” he said, setting me down but taking my hand. “Come on, let me show you my home.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at his enthusiasm.
It was infectious, and we all but ran toward one of the nearby towers.
It was the largest and grandest of all. Its windows were plain glass at the bottom, but as we went higher up, they changed to stained glass, full of beautiful blues and purples that reflected the light.
“So, this is the royal tower,” he said, though I’d already assumed it was probably the most important, given it was the largest, the only one with stained glass windows, and had an extra flag flying at the top compared to the others.
He dragged me inside, showing me around libraries, study rooms, training rooms, kitchens, guest quarters, and more.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen him quite so animated and absolutely never this talkative, that’s for sure.
Eventually, we found ourselves on a balcony near the top, providing us with an uninterrupted view of the rest of Storm Keep and the vista below.
“This is magnificent,” I said, staring down the side of the mountain. “I feel like I could just tilt over the edge and glide down the side until I reached the ground.”
Tor smiled. “I’ve done just that, actually. I’ll take you. When we have time.”
I wasn’t sure why, but I squeezed his hand at the wistfulness in the last statement, forcing myself not to lean in any closer to him as well.
I’d already broken my rule about not letting him get close, and I was determined that I would keep things at a distance.
No more. I couldn’t. It didn’t matter what he could do to my body in bed or with a soft touch or a mischievous look.
Those roads all led to pain eventually. After all, I knew his secret.
He was a dragon and a prince. I was just a human.
We could never be truly compatible. My wants and desires would never match his, and I knew I could never be the sort of person he wanted, let alone needed.
It wasn’t my world, and I didn’t belong in it.
“What do we do now?” I asked, looking in the distance at the giant mountain surrounded by flat land.
It was huge, the upper portion obscured by a ring of blue-gray clouds.
That was where we’d come from. I knew that much.
During the flight, I’d looked back several times at the sheer size of the land feature, absolutely awed by its grand stature.
“We go back,” Tor said, jaw tightening in determination. “Ty is still there. And if you’re right, if my sister never returned, then I have to return to Earth to deal with her. I won’t be able to spend much time here, not until that’s done.”
“When do we leave?”
“Soon,” Tor said. “Very soon.”
There was a knock at the door behind us, and someone slipped inside.
“Ah, Liz,” Tor said, hurrying to greet the newcomer, a tall, long-limbed woman with ashen hair and a steely gaze to match. “Thank you for coming.”
“Of course, my Prince.”
I came to a stop next to Tor, meeting Liz’s gaze and smiling politely. “Hi,” I said, sticking out my hand. “I’m Mia.”
Liz flicked her eyes from my head to my feet and back up. “This is her, then? You found your mate over there after all?”
“Excuse me?” I said, glancing between them as Tor grimaced unhappily. “What did you say?”
The woman looked at Tor. “You didn’t tell her? You brought her here, but you didn’t tell her?”
“Tell me what?” I pushed icily, my glare freezing Tor in place. “Tor? Care to explain?”