His flame snips off, and he shoves into the sky, bits of rock raining from where his claws were pierced into the crater’s lip. He tills his massive wings, stirring the crater into a billowing gale, forcing us all to shield our faces from the whip of sand.
He circles higher … higher … until he’s far enough away that the clan’s folk grow comfortable enough to unbundle themselves.
My mouth dries as Kaan stalks toward the crater’s center, to where Hock has resumed his pacing, again wielding the same spiked mace he used to defeat Zaran. A spiked mace I picture swinging through the air with untraceable speed, colliding with the side of Kaan’s face.
Shattering his skull.
I flinch, my body reviving its terrible tremble, more blood leaking down my temple. The antivenom is working hard to smooth the wobbly crinkles from my equilibrium, but not fast enough.
Not fast enough.
Even so, I force myself to my feet. Saiza leaps up to help me rise, acting as my post to lean against. The other female dabs at the wound on my head again, slathering it in something thick and potent while the males circle each other in prowling strides that trample through my chest.
Finally, they charge—clashing in a bludgeoning bash of fiery rage, again and again, each meaty, growling collision ricocheting through my bones so hard I jolt.
Skin splits.
Blood sprays.
Weapons turn wet and red.
There is no rhythm to their rippling motions that remind me of cracking earth and shattering stones. Of quakes that rattle the world hard enough to knock you off your feet. They’re a chaotic dance of bulging muscle and feral regard I don’t want to see, don’t want to hear, my chest crushing a little more with each new scar slashed across Kaan’s beautiful skin.
But despite the crippling sensation, I can’t bring myself to look away.
Saiza leans close. “You should sit, Kholu. Your legs are shaking, and that cut on your head is losing a lot of blood.”
Kaan fails to parry another swinging attack that lacerates the air, hacking shreds of skin from his abdomen.
A strangled scream slips up my throat, and his bloodshot stare latches onto me as something painful grubs through my chest like a flesh-eating worm.
My knees give way.
Saiza lowers me to the rug while Hock rains upon the King in a flourish of deadly strikes. As I cling to Kaan’s málmr like the motion alone could hold his body together and protect him from the advancing blows that
don’t
stop
coming.
Snarling, Kaan reaches into the swinging mass of lethal force, eating a spiked blow to the chest in order to snatch Hock’s arm, and I think another sharp sound wrestles up my throat.
I think it might be his name.
I think I might’ve ordered him to live.
Hissing blood through clenched teeth, Kaan drags his toothy weapon through Hock’s inner bicep, severing the bulge of muscle with a splash of red.
The mace drops to the sand.
Hock roars.
Kaan roars louder, stepping around the monstrous male and fisting his hair, ripping his head back far enough to bare Hock’s throat in my direction.
My heart stops, the rest of the world smudging into oblivion.
Holding my stare, he lifts his toothy, bloody weapon to the stretch of flesh and saws.
A breath shudders into me.
Hock’s screams start fierce and frantic before tapering into a gurgled groan as his throat is severed in messy, bone-grinding increments, plumes of blood ribboning down his jerking chest like a ruddy aurora.
His body drops. Head stays.
Something warm slips from my eyes. Drips down my cheeks.
Kaan steps over Hock’s motionless mass and stalks toward me, chewing up the space between us. Still fisting Hock’s hair as the world begins to split and sway.
Split and sway.
Kaan reaches me, teeth bared, his ravaged chest leaking blood. He lumps Hock’s head on the ground before my low dais, and I feel that same weight thump within me, a choked sound wriggling past my trembling lips.
I drop my stare, taking in the rough, weeping sever of flesh around Hock’s neck, his wide-open eyes. His mouth caught in a perpetual scream I’m certain I’ll never stop hearing. The very reason I snip their breath.
Kaan drops into my line of sight like a crouching dragon, having just proved he’s every bit capable of being the monster I thought he was. But right now, I feel only cold, plunging relief.
I cast a noose around the delicate, vulnerable feeling. Hang it from one of my ribs where I can look at its rotting corpse whenever I feel my heart doing the fluttering thing it’s doing right now. Because that’s what happens when I get attached in any way at all.
Death.
I look into Kaan’s devastating eyes, a darkness toiling within the fiery depths that’s so unhinged it brings me a strange sense of calm. Makes me feel a little less alone in this fucked-up world.
I lift his málmr and drag the leather loop over my head, settling the heavy carving between my breasts.
That darkness deepens.
Boldens.
A rumbling sound boils in his chest, planting a seed of ease in me even as my world sways with so much violence my entire body flops with the motion.
He catches me, lifts me.
Tucks me close to his chest.
Then his steps are thumping, thumping …
Or perhaps that’s Rygun’s wings.
I become quietly aware of the shadow. The wind. Of the fierce, feral roar that tears at the air, and the fact that we’re likely leaving.
I settle my hand on Kaan’s chest, finding comfort in the heavy pound of his heart, my eyes prying open just in time to see a silver smudge clawing up the crater’s side.
Leaving.
Something else I decide not to assess too closely, certain that line of thought can only lead to more pain.
Suffering.
Loss.
“Moonbeam.”
“Hmm …”
“Please don’t scare me like that again.”
Scare?
What a nice thing to say.
“You shouldn’t spend such lovely words on me, Sire,” I murmur groggily, wishing I didn’t find such comfort in his scent. In the feel of his arms wrapped around me.
In him.
“You should save them for somebody special.”
His guttural growl is the last thing I hear before darkness consumes me.
Slátra flew across the Boltanic Plains while I was strapped to the saddle of a Moltenmaw, begging for one of the blue beads to summon a cloud of moisture and shelter her from the sun’s singeing rays. The rider ignored every word.
Every plea.
Every fucking scream.
She followed me all the way to Dhomm, her silver flesh bubbling and bursting. Flying until her wings had too many holes to maintain her soar.
She plummeted, and I felt what was left of my heart rip from my chest and plummet with her, hopeless and powerless as she crawled across the burning dunes, making keening sounds I’ll never be able to unhear. Nor will I be able to unsee the milky sheen of her eyes from staring at the sun while she screeched—over and over again.
I doubt a healer will be able to help her regain her vision, nor do I expect her to trust anyone to get close enough to try.
I certainly wouldn’t, nor would I have blamed her if she never let me cuddle her again.
But she did.
The moment she balled up in the safety of a hutch near the Imperial Stronghold, she tucked me so close to her chest that I could feel the fluttering thump of her heart—barely clinging on. For me. Of that, I’m certain.
She didn’t want to leave me here alone.
I almost begged her to solidify around me and take our pain away.
King Ostern agreed to let me sleep in the hutch with her, so long as its entrance is heavily guarded.
Don’t know why he bothers. We both know I’d never leave this place without Slátra. Since I donned the Aether Stone, I can no longer summon a cloud for long enough to escort her back across the plains. Meaning I’m stuck here in this hot, humid place while my kingdom is run by a vile male I did not choose for myself. A horror that pales in comparison to the pain I feel whenever I look at my beautiful, broken Moonplume …
I’ll never forgive myself for climbing upon her back all those phases ago. For riding her until she listened to me.
Trusted me.
I’ll never forgive myself for taking her from her home. I’d do anything to go back to mine again.