Chapter 21 #3
Finally, he landed on a skull that seemed all too familiar. One that wasn’t shaped quite so snakelike but more like that of a dragon, similar to his. While he didn’t recognize who it was, he felt a connection all the same.
Rising from the depths of the gash, he placed the drenched skull along the edge of the water flow and slumped in thought.
Griselda stood a few feet away, slightly damper than he’d last seen but now missing the red smears along her body.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered, her peachy lower lip quivering.
Her arms were crossed and she heavily avoided his gaze.
“This isn’t your fault. I don’t blame you.” He reached a hand out toward her, claws limp in a gentle beckon.
She hesitantly placed her cold fingers in the middle of his palm before spreading them wide and grasping what she could.
“There’s a guilt because of what I know now. Being made from a portion of one of the dragons. And of some unknown woman who chose to love that disgusting being.” A shadow crossed her brow as she tilted her face downward.
Notching a knuckle under her jaw and forcing her glistening eyes to look up at him, Thrasik nuzzled his snout against the side of her cheek.
His heart ached. This wasn’t at all the situation he expected to discover coming to Silyre.
To find a graveyard of his people that had been building for who truly knows how long sent an ever descending dread through him.
To know that all his people who had been sent from the time of him being nothing but a hatchling until his exile had only met their demise instead of the promise of a wondrous new experience — he had no words for the betrayal.
“We are both just bystanders in this. How were we to know such a plan was in place when it was in motion before we were even born?” His tongue flicked out and gently licked along her jawline.
“That it was in motion because we were born, Thrasik.” Griselda tried to tuck her fringed hair behind her ear, just for it to fall back into framing her face. “I was created to purposely meet you. I was supposed to bring you here all along.”
Her expression sank into a frustrated and pitiful state.
“But you didn’t know that until he told you, right?
That means everything you did was without intent for his plan.
For this disaster. Did you know Silyre was a burial site?
That it had become the ultimate despair instead of being this glorious holy ground everyone touted it to be?
” Thrasik pulled back from her and motioned around them before locking back onto her face and bringing his inches from hers.
“No. You didn’t. Just as I didn’t know there was someone out there with my scale thinking it was a protection symbol. Would you blame me for finding you?”
“No. That was pure coincidence.” She shied her cheek toward her shoulder, still seeming to dodge his attempts at affection.
It was beginning to irk him. They just went through the most hellish experience they’d ever known, and here she was avoiding his motions to try and soothe her as though he was going to betray her and walk away on his own.
Dropping her hand, he grabbed both her shoulders and shoved his forehead against hers. She was burning hot in comparison to the ice from her fingers. He stared deep into her eyes. They flickered back and forth between his, searching for something that he didn’t quite understand.
“Even if you had known that you were leading me into a trap, I need you to understand that I would have graciously accepted the dagger you were to stab firmly into my heart. I would have bled out on that altar so long as it meant I’d be able to have you in my sight until my dying breath leaves me.
” His voice was firm as his claws tightened into her shoulders.
Griselda’s mouth gaped, closing and opening as though she were searching for the right words.
“You are mine. Do you understand that?”
The slightest nod shook from her.
“I am yours. Yes?”
Another nod.
“That’s all that matters. I’m not going to leave you. No matter if we were predestined or made to come together at some point, I love you on purpose. I don’t love you because some withered old skeleton told me to.” Thrasik’s lips curled into a snarl at the mention of Lazarus.
He’d meant every word. He just needed her to see and understand that. It seemed she was in a state of shock and disbelief. But he wouldn’t let that turn her on herself and rethink who she had to be.
The sun had begun to set, casting flickering flames of reflection off the waters onto them.
He much preferred this version of light compared to how he saw her when they walked into the cathedral.
Her snowy hair danced in the light sea wind with hints of blue and purple as the sun reflected through each strand.
The freckles along her cheeks begged to be licked as her eyes crinkled into a sad smile.
“I’m still sorry for all of this, but I don’t regret anything we’ve done together.
I meant it when I said I wanted a life with you and I was worried after all this you’d think I’d be nothing but trouble and disaster.
” She wiped her damp eyes on the back of her wrists, sniffling as she took a few deep breaths.
“My precious starlight, if you were trouble and disaster then I’d lavish in the adventures we’d ruin with our perils.” A snarky smirk peeled across his maw as he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close.
She reached up and planted a kiss on the end of his snout. A simple act that sent warmth radiating through his body.
He needed more of those.
Needed more of her.
Swiveling his head around, he spotted a hut sitting askew on a hill near the horizon. Grabbing around her waist and pulling her up into a hug, he guided her legs around his hips and began to make way toward the hut.
Griselda didn’t protest. Instead, she gripped tight to him and buried her face into his spines and breathed him in.
It sent a pride through him. One that caused his chest to swell that his mate wanted to take in his scent to calm herself.
A muffled sigh seeped from the snuggled form against his body.
“I love you on purpose too, you know.”
Lightning twinkled through his scales as her words processed. He felt lighter than air and envisioned this ethereal woman as the weight tying him to this world.