Page 64 of Monsters of Air

Philit’s lips turned into a thin line. “Have you ever cared about your chances, Rayna? I warned you repeatedly what would happen if you kept getting close to us. Yet you still kept cuddling up to Zilon each night and pushing us.” He shook his head, a different kind of pain flaring over my chest from him. It took me a second to register it for what it was, jealousy.

“Philit, I–”

“It doesn’t matter. Let’s just get to the academy. Maybe the King can figure a way out of this or something. Perhaps he can break the bond.”

“If you hate this bond that bad, why not just leave me here?” I didn’t need his anger to feel stabbed in the heart. “Let the mountain finish me off. Then you’ll be rid of me.”

He sighed, his lips pressing together as he stared straight ahead.

“I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. My dragon won’t let me.” Philit’s words sliced into me as he walked away leaving me staring at the gleaming blue of his wings against the freshly fallen snow.

He didn’t have to say it for me to know what he was truly feeling. His dragon wouldn't let him, but he had certainly thought about it.

Forget being stabbed, I had just been trampled by a herd of elk.

He didn’t want me, and that rejection hurt worse than anything. Leaving home. Da’s death. Maybe it was because the connection was deeper, his bond right up against my soul. I had wanted to be a rider, but all I had gained from it was loss.

There was part of me though, that hoped he was right about the King and that he could break the bond. I didn’t want to be bonded to someone who hated me. Who would?

Stealing my resolve, I straightened my spine and took off into the cold, choosing instead to get lost in what used to fuel my days—my daydreams. Except now they were reality, or at least in part.

The whole living happily ever after with my dragon thing was moot, but I had been in the air, even if I was terrified. I had seen the world from the sky, seen all the beauty stretched out before me. I knew the feeling of riding a dragon, the ecstasy that rattled my bones when a dragon breathed fire.

It was funny. I was a rider, just like the characters I used to read about. Yet, somehow, I felt further away from those stories than I did before I awoke with silver hair.

If we were in a normal situation, how would all of this had played out? Would I be closer to the dragons? Would there be less resistance from them to what I feel for them? Instead, I disappointed not just one person, but three of them, and I didn’t know how to deal with that.

Someone yanked me back hard and I landed on my ass in the snow.

“Damn it, Rayna!” Philit growled into my ear. Despite his obvious anger, my body still responded to him, heating up, tingling where we touched. “Watch where you’re walking.”

I looked ahead of me and realized I nearly walked off a small snowy ledge, mud and brambles tangled together on the bottom.

“Don’t talk to her like that,” Zilon snapped at Philit, rushing over to stand between us.

“Are you fucking serious?” Philit growled at Zilon. He wrapped his arm around me, holding me against him and as far away from Zilon as he could. I turned to look at him, trying to read more than his conflicting emotions. He was angry, but he was also relieved and worried. And as confused as I was apparently.

Finally, Philit released me and jumped back two feet, leaving me there to gape at him.

“Thanks?” How exactly do you respond to a dragon who hates you when they stop you from faceplanting down a snow bank into some mud?

He glanced back at me, his irritation flaring.

“I’m only doing what is expected of me.” He turned and walked away.

I climbed to my feet, dusting off the snow that was soaking through my too thin pants. I missed my skirts already. By the time I got moving, Landers and Zilon were walking away, too. I sighed, and continued trudging through snow.

Exhaustion pulled at me, my feet ached, and I felt like a walking popsicle. Everything sucked. Really, really sucked.

Maybe I would just wake up Xrotte, in that big warm bed and all of this would be a dream.

“What do you mean you don’t know which way to go?” Landers half shrieked, pulling me out of my dreams of big warm beds. “I thought you knew these mountains.”

“I know the lower hills, no one but riders are allowed up here. So, if you would like to try finding the next marker, please do.” Philit snarled, rounding on him. “Would you like to lead us out of here?”

Landers' eyes turned into slits, the red glowing bright as the air crackled with the energy I usually felt before he shifted.

“If I did that, we’d just leave her ass and fly there like we should have done at the beginning. I should have known you wouldn’t keep your word. Women never do.” He turned to me on that last part, like it was all my fault.

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