Chapter Twelve
RONAN
Panic seized my heart and squeezed.
“NO! NO!” The word ripped out of me before thought, before air, before anything except panic.
I’d found the child in the arms of a strange draken. Veskor. It had to be him. Because how many other random fucking drakens were just zooming around?
He stepped backward through the thin seam in the wards, the girl clutched protectively to his chest. The little girl whimpered.
Something snapped inside me, something I didn’t recognize, something primal and vicious and older than language.
I lunged at him.
He dodged, taking flight and flying straight up.
I followed, only for the wards to slam into me like iron fists. Pain burst across my chest. My wings spasmed. I hit the rock hard enough to crack scales.
What the fuck? Why were they trying to keep me in and letting them pass?
“Please—PLEASE—”
I pushed and shoved and screamed, using my leg muscles to push off the volcano as high as I could, my leg muscles screaming into protest. The wards shattered and let me through. The child’s frightened cry echoed down the cliffs, muffled by distance but still sharp enough to carve through my ribs.
I didn’t think. I didn’t breathe. I chased.
The wind punched my face. The ocean roared beneath me, black and jagged. I snapped my wings wide and shot toward the sound, every instinct in my body screaming.
“VESKOOOOOR!”
My voice tore the air open, but he didn’t answer.
The only sound was the wind, my own jagged breathing, and the beating of distant wings slicing through fog.
I angled down the coastline, pushing my body harder than I’d ever pushed it in my life. My heart slammed against my ribs. My muscles shook with every stroke.
I didn’t care.
I had to reach her. I couldn’t fail her, or her parents, or Benedict, or Wren, or—
I must not fail.
I banked around a jut of rock and caught sight of him again.
He was a dark shape streaking through the mist, low above the waves in an effort to avoid being seen.
It was a smart play since the seawitches were on land, at the party, and unable to snatch him from the water.
His wings were massive, powerful, beating a rhythm I couldn’t match.
His body was angled forward in a predator’s dive.
And the child—gods—the child was pressed against him, tiny arms wrapped around his neck, her cries weak but audible through the wind.
Fear lanced through me.
Not fear of Veskor, but fear of failing Perri, Benedict, Wren, and our unborn child.
“LET HER GO!” My roar cracked in my throat.
Veskor didn’t slow, turn, or even look back.
I dove after them, straining my wings to catch up. Salt spray stung my eyes, but I couldn’t see anyway as the world blurred around me.
The horizon loomed ahead, the black ridges of Dorea rising to greet us. Veskor skimmed the waterline, Perri clutched tightly to his chest. He rose sharply and cut toward the mountains, heading north.
I flattened my wings, slicing through the air, pushing with everything I had.
The gap closed between us, slowly and painfully, impossible inches at a time.
He finally turned over his shoulder to glance at me, eyes narrowing in thought.
He dipped lower, almost brushing the surface of the ocean.
I tried to follow, but a rogue wave surged upward.
I tucked my wing and tried to tilt to avoid it, but he didn’t slow at all, riding the spray like he’d been born in storms. The water clipped my wing and nearly sent me spiraling into the water. I flailed and slowed, forced to stop.
Veskor flew off, gaining distance by the second.
“COME BACK!” I roared at his retreating figure.
I couldn’t give up. I needed to prove myself to Benedict, Wren, and everyone else. I was more than a bookworm. I was worthy of Wren and my mateship.
I beat my wings harder, forcing myself forward. My muscles screamed and my lungs burned.
Perri shrieked once, but it wasn’t a distress cry at all—she was laughing! That little witchling was enjoying this!
I had to get her back. Everything else vanished, and only her voice mattered.
I pushed through the agony and angled upward, slowly gaining on him. I approached from above, hoping to dive down and force him to the ground when suddenly Veskor veered sharply toward the narrow spit of rock jutting out into the open ocean.
Another wave reared up and smacked me down. I crashed into the water, and he kept flying, laughing at me.
“NO!” My throat shredded on the word as I spit out salt water, stuck now until I could crawl to land like a defeated, drowned rat.
The wind screamed around me. My stomach lurched. My wings folded tight against my sides as I struggled in the water.
“GIVE! HER! BACK!” My voice echoed off the waves.
Veskor didn’t even look at me. He disappeared over land, Perri’s cries fading along with their forms, drifting beyond reach and safety.
You failed. You proved Benedict right.
I sputtered and coughed, forcing myself to swim to land. Another wave slammed into me. Light exploded behind my eyes. My wings snapped outward in instinctive self-preservation as I ricocheted backward, spinning through the water until I surfaced and stole a breath above the waves.
Pain lanced down my spine.
Worthless.
No! I hurled myself forward again, punching the wards with my fists, my claws, my shoulder, my whole damn body.
Finally I broke through the surface as the waves calmed, sucking down air.
“Easy draken, we have you.” An unfamiliar seawitch grabbed my arm, holding me up and hauling me to shore. I couldn’t even thank her, too busy just trying to breathe.
Fog rolled around me as the world narrowed to her cool hands on my arms and my own ragged breathing.
“Please,” I whispered. “Please … he took her.”
“Easy, draken. Benedict said there might be trouble.”
I pressed my forehead to the ground as she dragged me onto the sand.
She eyed me warily. “Do I need to send word, or—”
“No! Don’t! I mean–” I shook my head, trying not to appear like a crazed lunatic. “I will get her. Just tell him that.”
Before she could answer, I was already shaking my wings off and jumping back into the air. I searched desperately, finally catching one last glimpse of a dark silhouette disappearing into the night, due north.
“Thank you!” I called out, and she rolled her eyes and dove back into the ocean.
I’d never catch them now.
I had to keep going.
I had failed.
Not yet. Keep going.
Perri was gone. Veskor had her. And I did not have him.
Go back and tell the others. Ask for help.
The thought made my stomach flip with nausea. I couldn’t ask for help. Benedict had tasked me with this. Me. If I admitted defeat, he’d never trust me again. I’d be the pity mate who read books and didn’t do much else.
I landed in a tall tree and sat for a moment, my claws wrapped around the thick bark. My wings hung low, trembling from exhaustion. My hands shook, my breaths still coming in ragged, gasping pants.
I felt sick. Not physically, but soul-deep.
I’d failed her, and everyone else.
Everyone had trusted me only hours ago. And I had promised myself, silently, stubbornly, stupidly—
I would never fail her again. And yet here I was, empty-handed. I ran my claws down the bark, leaving deep gouges in the tree. It felt good.
“I can’t go back without her,” I whispered to no one. My whisper came out hoarse, small and pathetic.
My wings drooped, trembling from the violent rebound of my earlier attempt to force my way through. I tasted blood where I’d bitten my tongue on impact.
Going back meant watching Perri’s parents’ faces break.
Going back meant facing Benedict’s disappointment—cold and sharp enough to hollow me out.
Going back meant seeing Kieran’s restrained fury, the kind that coats every word with disappointment.
Going back meant Wren—already at the end of her strength carrying the child—feeling every loss like it was her own.
“I can’t—” My voice cracked. “I can’t walk back and tell them I failed again.”
The wind whipped around me, cold and merciless. The leaves rustled as the tree swayed slightly in the breeze.
Veskor.
A mystery draken shaped by solitude and desperation. I knew what old drakens were like when they went too long without finding community. They were crazy. Unstable. And now he had a child who didn’t belong to him.
My stomach churned.
“No,” I breathed. “Not this time. Not again.”
I stood upright, wings stiffening with purpose.
Cold air slammed into my face as I pushed off from the tree. The wind grew colder and sharper the further from the ocean I went.
“I’m coming,” I whispered, “for you.”
A savage wind ripped through my wings as I angled south, chasing a shadow across the fog-veiled sea.
I didn’t look back.
I didn’t slow down.
I didn’t think of the platform, or the feast, or the music likely still drifting faintly from the island.
I thought only of the terrified little girl reaching for help, and of the moment Veskor caught her instead of letting her fall.
I beat my wings harder.
“Hold on,” I whispered into the wind. “I’ll get you back.”
I flew north into the fog, chasing a monster and the child who made him hesitate.
I wouldn’t return without her.