Page 24 of Dragons Of Shadow and Sea

"Do I, though?" I shrug, nudging him gently with my elbow and trying to pretend that that simple contact doesn't send sparks shimmering up my arm. "From the outside, it seemed as if your entire kingdom just vanished."

He lets out a low, wry chuckle. "That was the plan. I'm glad to hear it worked so well."

"We weren't." I was only a child, and I didn't entirely understand what was going on, but I felt the grief of those around me. My parents, who had traveled the globe, were devastated. "We thought you were annihilated."

He's silent for a moment, his gaze distant. "We nearly were."

I brush my fingers against his, and he catches them in his hand.

That's been another miracle of the day. We're alone in this park at the moment, but even when he's been in public, he hasn't hesitated to show affection and initiate contact.

Despite having been in a relationship with Prince Storm of the Air Dragon Kingdom for years, and despite having been mated to Prince Rafe and Prince Jianyu, I've never been able to hold hands with a man freely before. It's a revelation. Everything about what's happening between me and Malik is complicated, but not having to hide makes it simpler, too, somehow.

Could it be this simple with my other mates? I scarcely dare to imagine it.

For now, I try to push thoughts of my other men from my mind, focusing on the one walking here beside me.

"The end of the war was brutal," he confides. "I was young, but my brothers were old enough to fight. We were being slaughtered." His throat bobs. "Too late, we realized that it was because we had been infiltrated."

Oh. My chest tightens. "Shadow Dragons."

"At every level of our leadership and our society. They sewed dissent and spilled poison." Acid leaks into his tone. "They knew our every move." He pauses in his steps, his eyes closing. When he opens them again, they're tinged with red. "They killed my father and my brothers."

"Oh my gods." My hand flies to my chest, all the air suddenly punched from my lungs.

Our bond may not be consummated yet, but it doesn't have to be. His pain is my pain, and right now, his pain is choking me alive.

The anguish hits me with force, and I can't help but think about the day my father disappeared. Or the day, not long after, when I found out my mother was gone.

"I'm so sorry," I tell him, holding onto his hand--probably too tightly, but it doesn't feel tight enough.

I knew something was off. He talked about his mother's law, but never about his father. He talked to his mother about what would happen to my other mates.

Not his father.

And I'm all for a matriarchy; leaving the dragon world to men alone has always seemed foolish at best. But this isn't about the sexist way we select our monarchs.

The Water Dragon King was the very best of our leaders. The kindest and the most thoughtful. My parents looked to him as the brightest source of hope in a broken world of dragons.

We mourned for him ten years ago. And yet here I am, mourning his loss again.

For Malik, it's clear the mourning never ended. The world lost a luminary, but he lost a parent.

Gently, trying not to push, I ask, "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Time has healed the wound," he promises, though I don't need to be his mate to know that he's exaggerating.

"Has it?"

A dim chuckle rumbles in his throat as I call him out on the way he's downplaying his pain.

"When it first happened, the loss almost broke me. But it--" He pauses, swallowing, his jaw flexing. "It did break something in my mother. To lose two children and her True Mate. She and the Witch tapped into deep, powerful magic."

A sudden, dark chill sweeps over me. "What did they do?"

"They rooted out the traitors. And drowned them in their own blood."

Jesus Christ. "That's..."

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