I whirled around and stared at him.
Why aren’t you in my head? I pushed my thought at him and couldn’t help the tone of accusation that leaked with it. Usually, when the Drae was conscious, I could feel little spikes of his emotion, and usually, he spoke to me several times even when I didn’t want him in there. What had changed?
He lifted his head and met my gaze. His face was lined with exhaustion that made my heart ache.
“It’s an invasion of your privacy for me to be in your head without your permission, and I shouldn’t have done it before now. Not without asking you if that was okay,” Tyrrik said; his sad smile touched the deep recesses of my heart. “I’m sorry, Ryn,” he said in a weary voice. “I want to say I never meant to take advantage of you, but that would be a lie because I wanted to establish a presence inside you. I forced my way in when you were vulnerable in the castle. I gave over to my mating instincts when I should have tapered them. But I . . . don’t want that to be how we start, how we might go on. Not anymore. You were right. We’re not in the castle. I’m not under a blood oath. I need to stop acting that way.” He released a shaking breath.
I blinked. Trying to make sense of why his reasonable statement and thoughtful apology made me so unreasonably angry while simultaneously breaking my heart.
I faced forward and asked Dyter’s back, “Did you tell him that’s how I felt?”
“No,” they chorused.
I turned back to Tyrrik.
He watched me, inky eyes pools of darkness that seemed to mirror his soul’s secrets.
I located the source of my anger as I stared into his eyes, and it wasn’t what I’d expected. I was oddly thankful Tyrrik had forced his way in, against my better judgment, because how would I have ever opened that door between us? Now I’d experienced that mental connection, I could appreciate all the comfort having Tyrrik in my head had to offer. If the choice had been mine to speak in Tyrrik’s head first? I probably would have resisted it with everything I had. Even saying that, I knew on some level I’d clearly accepted our telepathy or I’d be fighting it still. Was that what I was doing with the mating bond? Was I resisting it just for the sake of resisting? Maybe Tyrrik’s behavior since being released from the blood oath wasn’t meant to be manipulative. Maybe he was just wary of giving his trust, too.
I opened my mouth to say something, but rational thought fled when I smelled them. My body flooded with terror, and I whispered, “Druman.”
Tyrrik’s face blanched and his eyes widened as he inhaled me, my fear. His face hardened, his black eyes gaining a wild edge as he reacted to the terror seeping out of my pores.
I blinked, and in less than a heartbeat Tyrrik was Drae.
He roared, a sound of defiance and challenge. Thrashing his tail, he twisted his neck and stomped as he tried to gain his footing on the mountain side. Talons clutching the boulders, he leapt into the air, whipped in a circle, and exhaled a stream of scalding fire into the trees behind us. Druman’s screams filled the air. Tyrrik bellowed his hatred into the sky, neck outstretched. Roaring flames devoured the trees, and Dyter’s loud gasp echoed in my ears
Tyrrik roared again, vibrant fire poured from between his deadly fangs, but there was something off about his roar. Then the world tilted, and as I fell back, already my mind told me the feeling of disorientation wasn’t originating from me. The air around his Drae form shimmered, and a full minute later, far too long I knew, Tyrrik’s human form lay in the dirt. Agony squeezed my chest, wringing my heart until I saw him lift his head.
Go, Tyrrik mouthed, his face white and sweating. The emperor will come. The effort of shifting to kill the Druman had completely drained him.
I grabbed Dyter. “Can you point me to Gemond?”
I didn’t wait for him to answer. I shifted, the change rippling over me in the time it took me to exhale. I scooped Dyter into one foreclaw and Tyrrik into the other, leaping into the air using my hind legs as soon as I had them secure.
I screamed my rage across the mountain peaks, wishing I could exact revenge on the dead Druman all over again for taking what little energy Tyrrik had. But Tyrrik’s and Dyter’s safety took precedence over everything right now. I had to get them to safety.
Something pinched me, and I heard Dyter’s muffled voice yell, “Too tight.”
I loosened my grip on the two males in my claws and pushed higher into the air. As soon as I’d cleared the mountaintops, I realized I didn’t need Dyter to tell me the way to Gemond. I could see the kingdom from here.
The minutes as I bolted across the skies felt like hours. Each second, I imagined the emperor’s flames licking the back of my neck, but my initial panic about Tyrrik diminished as I studied his state through our touch. He was unconscious but still breathing. There was no gold Phaetyn poison in his pitch-black Drae; he was literally depleted.
My fear had set him off. He hadn’t been able to resist shifting after he inhaled and my terror hit him. He’d pushed himself for me, all this time, again and again. He . . . truly couldn’t control his reaction to me. I hadn’t believed him until now.
Yet Tyrrik was trying to control his reaction, against his very instincts, because I had been unable to understand why he couldn’t act as human males would, as Arnik might have done, even as Kamoi would have. What did it say that Tyrrik was doing that, something which I could now see was near impossible for a Drae, all for me?
The setting sun bathed the valley of Gemond in warm golden light as I soared down the final mountainside to the valley below. The realm was surrounded by majestic peaks, and like in Verald, the castle was nestled in the center of the vale. I pushed my emotions into the recesses of my mind, locking them away to deal with later. Later, when we were safe. Later, when we weren’t being chased by Druman. Later, when the King of Gemond hopefully didn’t eat us. Later, when . . . There would never be a perfect time to discuss what Tyrrik and I needed to, so I settled on the next best thing. Later, when Tyrrik was conscious again.
I landed outside the granite gates and bellowed my arrival before setting Tyrrik and Dyter down on the ground. Being afraid of landing with them hadn’t occurred to me which showed how stupid a thing fear was.
I would conquer my reaction to the presence of Druman if it was the last thing I did.