Return to Valdora
Kieran POV
We turned to leave, but before I could take a single step, the air shifted.
The massive wyvern didn’t hiss. It didn’t growl.
Instead, it leaned its massive, wedge-shaped head forward and delivered a firm, scaly nudge to my shoulder.
The sheer weight behind the gesture nearly toppled me, but I caught my balance just as it let out a low, rumbling purr that vibrated through the soles of my boots.
With a chorus of heavy, clicking joints, the beast sank low to the granite. It tucked its massive wings tight against its sides, the thick, emerald-leather ridges forming a makeshift staircase up her flank.
“I think...” Aurora’s voice was small, still raspy from disuse, but a fragile, breathtaking smile touched her lips as she looked up at me. “I think they want to give us a lift.”
As if confirming the translation, the wyvern let out a deep, vibrating coo. Behind it, the other four adult wyverns mirrored the movement, crouching submissively before my utterly stunned sub-pack.
“A lift?” Kael squeaked, his wind-sabers hanging limply as he eyed the bronze-scaled female waiting for him. “You mean... flying? In the sky? On purpose?”
“It’s a hell of a lot faster than marching back through the rot-swamps,” I said, a rare, genuine grin breaking through my usually stoic mask.
I turned to my pack, the commanding edge of my Alpha tone snapping them out of their stupor. “Mount up. Silas, take Elara. Jax, you’re with Juno. Mara, make sure Kael doesn’t faint and fall off. Torin, take the big bronze, that one is probably the only one who can carry your weight solo.”
As my pack exchanged glances of equal parts terror and adrenaline and began awkwardly climbing the wyverns, I reached out through the mind-link, casting my mental voice out toward the perimeter guards waiting miles away at the border and the guards at the city and castle.
‘Border patrol, hold your fire. We have winged escorts incoming. Do not engage the wyverns. I repeat, hold your fire. They are under your Luna’s protection.’
The immediate wave of shock and frantic confusion that bounced back through the link was almost comical, but I shut it out. My focus was already back on the woman beside me.
She looked tiny wrapped in my heavy travel cloak, framed against the backdrop of the wyvern’s lethal, spiked wing. I stepped close, sliding my hands around her waist. I lifted her effortlessly, setting her gently into the groove just behind the wyvern’s thick neck plates.
I vaulted up right behind her, shifting forward until her back was pressed flush against my chest.
My arms wrapped around her, anchoring her securely against me.
The thick wool of the cloak was between us, but it didn’t matter, I could feel the radiant heat of her body.
More importantly, I felt the exact moment she stopped holding herself so rigidly and finally let her weight lean into me.
The Young One, too small to carry armored wolves but too loyal to be left behind, let out a sharp, high-pitched trill. It launched into the sky first, a shimmering green-and-gold streak cutting through the violet canopy.
“Hold on,” I whispered, brushing my lips against the shell of Aurora’s ear. My heart was thundering against my ribs, and for once, it had absolutely nothing to do with battle.
The Matriarch unleashed a roar that shook the mirror-glass surface of the lake. Her wings unfurled, snapping the air with the violent crack of a ship’s sail catching a gale. With a single, earth-shattering thrust of her hind legs, we launched.
My stomach dropped as the ground fell away. The ruined, ash-choked courtyard of Argentis shrank into a mosaic of moss and bone beneath us. We tore upward, punching through the humid, oppressive mist of the Forbidden Lands until we broke out into the crisp, freezing air above the tree line.
----
Aurora POV
This wasn’t my first time flying.
When you spend five years sharing a territory with a flock of giant, intelligent reptiles, you occasionally catch a ride. I knew the sharp bite of the high-altitude wind, the rhythmic, thunderous beat of leathery wings, and the dizzying drop of the earth below.
But this time was entirely different.
Normally, I had to cling to the Matriarch’s spinal ridges with my paws, fighting the wind resistance entirely on my own.
Now, I was wrapped in a heavy wool cloak, tucked safely against a chest that felt like a heated stone wall.
Kieran’s arms were banded securely around my waist, shielding me from the biting cold.
I could smell that intoxicating scent that my wolf was currently purring over.
For the first time in my life, I wasn’t just holding on; I was being held. It felt terrifyingly safe.
Below us magically overgrown lands finally gave way to the deep, emerald greens and rugged mountain ranges of Valdora.
I peeked over the edge as the Valdoran capital came into view.
It was incredible. Built into the side of a massive mountain and surrounded by ancient, towering pines, the city was a fortress of dark stone, ironwood, and glowing lanterns.
At the very top, overlooking the valley, sat the royal castle.
It wasn’t the delicate, shining white marble of Argentis; it was a stronghold, fierce and imposing, yet thrumming with undeniable life.
“Take us toward the western wing,” Kieran shouted over the roar of the wind, leaning slightly to direct the Matriarch. “The royal gardens!”
The wyvern let out a rumbling trill of understanding and banked sharply.
We descended like a green-and-bronze storm cloud.
The Matriarch backpedaled in the air, her massive wings catching the wind and sending a localized hurricane down into the pristine, manicured hedges of the royal gardens.
Rose bushes flattened, and decorative banners snapped wildly as she touched down on the paved courtyard with a heavy, earth-shaking thud.
The rest of the flock, carrying the Vanguard, landed heavily around us, turning the elegant garden into a staging ground for apex predators.
I shrank back against Kieran slightly as I looked at the perimeter.
The gardens were swarming with people. Royal guards in dark armor, groundskeepers, and palace staff were scrambling out of the way, flattening themselves against the stone walls. Their eyes were wide, their mouths hanging open in sheer, unadulterated shock.
Yet, not a single sword was drawn. Not a single crossbow was raised.
Kieran had probably warned them through the pack link, and the discipline of the Valdoran guard held firm, even in the face of five massive monsters dropping onto their lawn.
He shifted behind me, easily vaulting off the Matriarch’s back before reaching up.
I placed my hands on his shoulders, and he caught me by the waist, lifting me down to the cobblestones as gently as if I were made of spun glass.
I kept the cloak pulled tight around me, suddenly acutely aware of my bare feet, my tangled white hair, and the dirt painting my skin.
The crowd parted as a single figure stepped forward.
She was a tall, regal woman with dark hair streaked with silver, wearing an elegant gown of deep midnight blue. The resemblance was undeniable, she had the same intelligence in her eyes that I recognised in the man standing beside me.
The Queen Mother.
She ignored the giant wyvern huffing hot air just ten feet away. Her gaze bypassed her son entirely and locked onto me. She took in the heavy travel cloak, my bare, dirt-stained feet, and the mismatched azure-and-mercury eyes staring back at her from a soot-covered face.
She stopped three paces away, her hands clasping tightly in front of her. She looked at Kieran, her voice trembling slightly, shedding all its royal composure.
“Kieran...” she breathed, her eyes darting back to me. “Is she...?”
Kieran didn’t hesitate. He stepped slightly in front of me, a subtle, protective shift of his broad shoulders, and placed a warm, heavy hand on the small of my back. The possessive pride radiating from him through our bond was so bright it nearly blinded me.
“She is, Mother,” Kieran said, his voice carrying across the silent courtyard, ringing with the absolute authority of the Alpha King. “She is my Fated Mate.”
The words echoed off the stone walls of the courtyard, heavy and absolute. A shiver ran down my spine, a jarring mix of pure adrenaline and something terrifyingly vulnerable.
I was exposed. For eight years, I had survived by being invisible, a ghost in the ruins. Now, there were dozens of eyes locked onto me, wide and whispering, dissecting every inch of my ash-stained skin and tangled hair.
But the heaviest gaze of all belonged to the woman standing three paces away.
The Queen Mother looked incredibly intimidating.
Beneath her initial shock, I could see the steel of a woman who had helped hold a fractured kingdom together.
Her green eyes—so much like Kieran’s in their sharp intelligence, if not their color—swept over me, analyzing the threat level of the dirt-covered feral girl her son had just claimed as the other half of his soul.
“Your mate,” she repeated, the words escaping her as an exhale. She composed herself quickly, the royal mask slipping flawlessly back into place. She straightened her spine, her hands clasping securely in front of her. “And who, exactly, is she?”
Instinct took over. Muscle memory from a life before the fire, before the Forbidden Lands, flared to life in my limbs.
Before Kieran could answer for me, I stepped slightly out from behind the protective wall of his broad shoulders.
I grasped the edges of his heavy, mud-stained travel cloak as if it were the finest silk of a ballgown.
Tucking one bare, dirt-caked foot behind the other, I dipped into a flawless, measured curtsy.
It wasn’t a clumsy dip. It was the exact angle, the precise tilt of the chin, and the perfect duration dictated by the old continent’s court etiquette for a visiting royal greeting a Queen Mother.
“I am Aurora. It is an honor to meet you, Your Majesty,” I rasped softly.
I had barely begun to rise when Kieran’s hand clamped gently but firmly onto my elbow. He pulled me up, his golden eyes flashing with a fierce, possessive heat.
“You don’t bow,” he rumbled, his voice low but carrying a heavy resonance that made the nearby guards stiffen. He pulled me flush against his side again. “Not to anyone, Aurora. Not ever.”
The Queen Mother didn’t reprimand him for his tone. She wasn’t even looking at him. She was staring at me, her green eyes wide with a new, entirely different kind of shock.
“You know the High Court forms,” she murmured, taking a half-step closer, her caution momentarily overridden by intense curiosity.
She scanned my soot-stained face, searching for something familiar beneath the grime.
“That was an Imperial greeting. But you wear no house colors... and I know every bloodline on this continent. I do not know your face. From which noble family do you hail, child?”