Page 41 of A Bond of Fire and Roses

My hands shake as I carry Freyren over the remains of the broken dragon egg, and step into the blue shimmering water before the waterfall. The warm water itself glows where I walk and the dragon’s smoke from above almost makes me choke as I keep walking, knowing they are watching me from above. One breath of fire, one bite and I’m gone. I can’t stop shaking as I sink deeper into the water, and I only look back when I hear Erax shout.

The dragon riders, all of Erax’s friends, fill the cave, but Erax holds a fist up, stopping them at his side. His eyes do not leave me. He is supporting me, even in this. I turn, looking up at the waterfall I’m coming up to, water spitting all over my body the closer I get. I don’t want to soak this poor little dragon as it brushes its head under my chin from my crossed arms. I frown, looking down at the heavy falling water, right before Freyren jumps out of my arms. She dives into the water as the current pushes me through the waterfall. Heavy water blasts down on my body and when I come out the other side, I wipe my eyes, hardly believing what I’m seeing.

There’s no longer a small baby dragon but standing in the middle of ten cluster nests of faded eggs is a fully grown, massive ice blue dragon. My dragon. Freyren. She has silver horns now, curling around her head, and a chest of blue fur, but she looks the same. Only bigger. Much bigger. She lowers her head, blowing cold air out of her mouth and an icy breeze makes me shiver more than fear.

Freyren walks around me and settles down in the water, stretching out her magnificent, almost see-through blue wings. It’s hard to look away from her, but when I do look back, all I feel is sadness at the eggs sitting out here alone. They’re different from the others. None of them glow like Freyren’s did and they’re not radiating with pulsing magic. It’s like they’re… dead. Or dying. Is this what Erax wanted to show me? Did my parents have something to do with this?

Freyren spreads her wing further, blocking the fall of the waterfall with one wing, and I see Erax talking with Noble on the other side. Both of them swiftly turned to look at me.

“You need to come out,” Erax shouts.

“I know, but...” I look back at the eggs, feeling wrong about leaving them.

I can’t just leave them here. The same feeling that prompted me to pick up Freyren’s egg prompts me to swim back to them. I drift to the nearest clusters of eggs and only then I feel hot air on the back of my neck. An animalistic growl echoes in the air, and I glance up, seeing a dragon I don’t know above me on a ledge, watching my every move. This one clearly feels threatened by me. There are so many dragons here, all of them hiding in the caves, their eyes always watching. I should leave, but I can’t seem to bring myself away.

In the nest at my feet are twelve eggs. Two of them are still coloured. Red and green, but the others are dull grey. The glowing eggs are not mine to touch but the grey ones… my hands itch to touch them just once. Going by pure instinct, I run my hands across one of the eggs. The first shell burns a deep red, the grey slowly fading the longer I keep my palm there, as if I’m breathing life back into it.

I touch the others, and one by one each egg returns to its vibrant colour. The dragons growling and hissing above me instantly stop, and silence fills the cavern while I touch the eggs. I move from nest to nest, working my way through the many grey eggs, until the glow from all the brightly coloured shells make it look like a rainbow has burst through the darkness.

The final egg bleeds into a brilliant gold, a different colour to all the others, and something tells me this one is special.

Out of nowhere, I gasp, nearly falling over as sharp pain lances through my stomach. Freyren swings her head towards me and roars loud enough to shake the very ground at my feet. I don’t hear the shouting to begin with as I crawl through the water to my dragon. To my home now. We belong together and I never once thought there would be a chance I’d find my home in this world ever again. Everything has just changed.

“You need to ride!” Erax roars, with nothing short of desperate panic in his voice. I let myself imagine for a second it is worry about me lurking in his tone. “Get into the sky! NOW!”

I can’t ride a dragon alone! I can’t make the words come out of my mouth while the pain is this bad. If I wasn’t used to pain, I don’t know how I would make my legs move. Erax is already in the water, running to me when a red dragon lands in his path, blocking him. His shout echoes through the cavern. “Get on the fucking dragon before the bond kills you for not completing it! I nearly died at this moment you’re in and the longer you don’t fly, the longer chance the bond will stop your heart!”

With every bit of strength and determination not to die that I have left—I get to my dragon’s side. She is in pain, too. She lowers herself down for me and I grab any scales, crawling myself to my feet even when my body screams for me to give up. To listen to the pain and just give up. Somehow, I climb up my dragon and onto her back, sitting wobbly in a smooth gap in the thorns on its back. It roars, but it doesn’t move. “Fly!” I scream but with horror lancing through my heart, I realise she doesn’t understand me, and I don’t speak her language. “Fuck. Fly, fly, fly. Please!”

“Not in that language!” Erax barrels through the air. “NIVAROSS!”

I barely know how to pronounce it like he did, but I try, anyway. “Please, nivaross. Please.”

How did Erax do this on his own for the first time? How did the king not die?

My king, my husband, is brave and I hate myself for loving that about him.

Freyren’s clear eyes turn back and land on me. There is a sharpness in her gaze, a strength I’ve only ever seen in my own eyes in the mirror. We are both the last of our people, and we will not give up. We will rise together and this world. It can be shattered into ice and remade after fire.

She slams through the waterfall, lashing me with water so strong that I nearly fall off. The air feels tight in my lungs as she flies up and up. I hold on tight to the scales in front of me, scales that feel like warm leather. The pain fades away as she flies straight up through the cavern and by the time we kiss the skies, it’s gone. The air is frosty up here and immediately my fear of heights makes me scream. Freyren is gentle, letting me get used to her as we fly higher until we are going through the clouds. My stomach feels like it’s made of jelly, but I lift my head, forcing myself to look like my ears ring and pop.

I can see the entire kingdom.

I’m left feeling stronger than ever as we glide into the open skies, nothing but sunlight and clouds for miles.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

ERAX

My queen is a dragon rider.

Fuck, if I didn’t desire her above all else before today, watching her claim and ride a dragon of her own has sealed it for me.

She is my end, wrapped in soft curves and rose gold hair.

With the others, we run outside to watch as my queen flies over the kingdom in her new dragon. Noble whistles. “A fucking ice blue dragon? None of the ice dragon eggs hatched before.”

I grin. “Isn’t she amazing?”

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