Page 46 of Redeeming the Dragon

No other man had touched me so intimately. My breath hitched in my chest. I could not tear my gaze from his. I could have drowned in the tenderness of his stare.

“Lorna of the Jeweled Isles.” He spoke my name in his distinct Warkin accent, and my name on his tongue might as well have been a verbal caress. “That is because you are my mate. Fate, or the Powers of Good, or my people’s guardians, have determined you should be mine and I should be yours. I felt that connection through your father’s bloodline, the night I saved him from the sea. I knew you were the one. The only one.”

“You claim I’m your mate, but I don’t even know your name,” I said, reaching up to cover his hand on my cheek with my own. “You must have a name besides Dragon. What am I to call you?”

“I’d hoped that you would call me husband,” he replied, a teasing glint in his eye.

I stepped back, aghast, forcing his hand to fall away. “Husband? Are you mad?”

“Perhaps,” he answered, a little sadly. “But you are my mate. I’d hoped to make you my wife. And I’d hoped that you would be the one to save me.”

I stood there, stunned by the weight of his words. The cavern’s soft, early-morning glow cast the bold planes of his face and the tattoos across his neck into deep conflicts of midnight blue and white.

“I am Kidron,” he said quietly. “Son of the Warkin Highest. And I am cursed, Lorna. I hoped you would break that curse. Alas, now it can never be.”

Chapter 28

Kidron. Son of the Highest. Cursed. Never be.

The words rang in my head as a sort of jumbled litany. Confused, I wetted my lips with the tip of my tongue and ran my hands over my hair, fighting to make sense of this.

“Kidron,” I repeated. “Kidron. Son of the Highest. What is a Highest? Is that a—a lord? A king?”

“One might call my father a king,” he replied. “That is the language of the rest of the realm.”

I am mated to the son of a Warkin king. I am mated to a Dragonkind prince. How can this be?

I hardly knew what to do. I wanted to pace. That seemed inappropriate before a prince. A prince! And yet…and yet he had shared my bed, uninvited, for how many nights? Did I care about propriety?

“How can a Warkin pr-prince…” I stumbled over the word. “…be mated to a Sanlyn from the Jeweled Isles? It makes no sense!”

The depth of his stare haunted me. It was piercing, adoring, sad.

“That, I do not know,” he replied. “When I was cursed, I was forced to fly over the length and breadth of Aerisia, seeking my mate. She had to have magic. That was all I knew. Only her magic, and her love, could break my curse. I flew and I flew. I soared over the city and palace of Laytrii. I circled ‘round Cleyton, Braisley’s vale…”

“Who is Braisley?” I cut in.

“The head of all fairies,” he answered grimly. “The guardians. Those who protect the land. One of Aerisia’s most powerful beings. She sensed my need. She met with me. She told me of this cave and sent me on. From there, I flew near the Simathe stronghold in the Unpassed Mountains. I met with their First, and he told me I must seek a woman born with magic.”

I had no magic. I knew I did not. Yet I dared not disrupt his story.

Kidron concluded the tale by saying, “I met with the Mothers, and they sent me across the sea. By this point, I’d flown across Aerisia’s mainland and sensed nothing. I took to the sea. I bypassed ships and islands, sea creatures and mermaids. Still, I sensed nothing, Lorna. No matter how many lives I saw or creatures I met, I sensed no connection. No kinship. No sense of belonging.”

“No spark of magic?”

“There was plenty of that,” he chuckled grimly, folding his arms, drawing my attention to the breadth of his chest and the stain of candle wax on his shirt. “I passed many beings of magic. But no magic sang to me.”

“Until you sensed me. Through my father.”

He nodded, his keen eyes fixed on my face.

“You saved him from drowning. And my blood…”

“Sang to me,” he repeated, “drawing me to your island. There was no mistaking it, Lorna. Here we are.”

“Here we are,” I agreed. “Caught in this web of madness.”

At this, his craggy features softened. His arms fell away from themselves and he took a step closer, gently grasping my upper arms.

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