Page 9 of A Bond of Fire and Roses

“Really, Mist?”

I narrow my eyes. “That is not my name, Dragon King!”

“Erax,” he reminds me, pulling his gaze away. “Or your darling, handsome king, if you’re incapable of those three syllables.”

Fuck. You.

My uncle steps forward from the side of the passageway, his face unusually pale. He doesn’t pay the king any attention as he tries to approach me.

“Princess Maelena?—”

Erax holds out an arm to stop him. “Even if you are her uncle, she is not to be addressed as that. Anyone who speaks to her will use the title Her Majesty or Her Grace. As for her real name, it is reserved for me now.”

I glare at him, my rage for him boiling to an even deeper level. “You can’t?—”

“I’m the king,” he says, turning to me with a smirk. “I can do whatever I want.”

I step right up into his face. “One day I will find a way to stab you and make sure you bleed forever.”

He glares back, and I shiver when his words roll over me.

“Keep making sweet promises like that, Mist, and I just might let you.” He walks off like he expects me to follow, and when I don’t, he waves me to him as though I’m his fucking dog. I look pleadingly at my uncle. He only nods his head after him, suggesting I get a move on with it, and a piece of me dies inside.

How is it possible to love someone so much and yet hate them for not helping you?

Without looking back at him, I follow in the king’s wake. We soon enter the front courtyard, where his massive dragon awaits. The beast is just as impressive and terrifying as I remember as a child, only bigger. So much bigger.

“This is Cyrsí,” Erax says, looking up at the beast. “The last of her line.”

Like me, I think bitterly, as I follow him over. Thanks to you.

Cyrsí looks down and stares at me for several moments with her huge, unblinking gold eyes. I can’t help but get the impression she is deciding if she wants to eat me or not. To my relief, she looks away, and I let out a long breath I wasn’t aware I was holding on to. She lowers herself down for Erax and her saddle is the same colour as his eyes. Green. Except it’s decorated with his royal crest—a crest I’ve seen before all over the monastery. Two dragons devouring each other, one of them breathing fire and the other roses. The irony never fails to make my stomach churn. Erax is the fire and I’m the roses, burnt to nothing. That’s how it will always be between us.

As we near the saddle, he moves to my side and places a hand on my shoulder. “You’ll need help to get on.”

“Don’t you touch me,” I growl, yanking my arm from him. “I don’t need your help.”

“Because you’ve mounted dragons before?” he scoffs, crossing his arms. He steps back from me, though. “Go ahead then. I think I’m going to enjoy watching this.”

That smirk that seems to permanently grace his face returns again, and I clench my jaw, refusing to give in to him. This is my chance to show him I’m not that weak little girl he met all those years ago. I’m a woman with revenge in her heart and blood on her lips. I decide to climb the side of the dragon by using her scales as steps. It’s surely the only logical way to mount a dragon. Unfortunately, the dress doesn’t help make things any easier, and I hate that the king might be right as I slip and repeatedly. But I don’t give up. I keep on climbing, feeling her heart beating beneath her scales. They’re as firm as steel and yet so warm beneath my palm. I always thought dragon scales would feel as cold as ice.

After many attempts, I finally reach the top of her and carefully lower myself down onto her saddle. Erax effortlessly climbs up in a fraction of the time it took me. However, he says nothing as he slides behind me and grabs the reins, pulling them tight. My heart races as I hold on to the front of the saddle, our bodies pressed too close together. Dangerously close.

“Nivaross.” Erax’s deep voice caresses the back of my neck.

I turn to meet his eyes, which are already fixed on me. “What does that mean?”

He leans into my space until we’re a breath away. “It means fly.”

Then the dragon takes off, jumping into the clear blue sky, and all I can do is scream.

CHAPTER FOUR

As a child I often wondered what it would be like to ride a dragon of my own. A dragon who would be my defender and make sure no one would ever see me as a small little girl ever again.

I would drift off during one of the royal tutors’ mind-numbing classes and I’d fantasise about being far away from them, on the back of a dragon, with nothing but the wind in my hair and sunlight on my skin. I never thought I’d get to experience that with the king of The Hallowed Kingdom and The Drifting Kingdom’s arms wrapped around me. Even with the wind whistling through my ears, I still hear his strong heartbeat thundering against my back.

It’s all I can focus on.

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