Page 47 of Redeeming the Dragon

“Lorna,” he said. “I am sorry. While I am sorry you were drawn into this, I am not sorry I met you. I never will be. Still, I am sorry you were taken from your home in this manner.”

“Stop,” I demanded. “You took me from my home. You brought me here. It was not a whim of fate, it was you.”

His hands did not release me, but he lowered his head in shame.

“I needed you,” he said humbly. “To break the curse.”

I could have been angry. I had a right to be angry. I knew that. I also knew everything had changed when I’d kissed him. Whatever he’d hoped to accomplish by bringing me here, I’d undone it by disregarding his warnings.

Rather than choose anger, I leaned into the feelings the first glimpse of his face had evoked. I leaned into the feeling of his hands on my arms, his flesh on my flesh, and I stepped closer to him, daring to place my palms on his chest, concealing the stain of candle wax—the mark of my disobedience.

“Tell me of this curse, Kidron,” I implored. “Perhaps there is yet a way to break it.”

Without raising his head, he slid his hands from my upper arms down to my wrists. I could not tell if he meant to hold me in place, to comfort me, or to comfort himself.

“It is finished,” he replied. “The terms of the curse have been broken. Soon, I will have to go.”

“No!” The word flew from my mouth, shocking me. “No, you cannot go,” I insisted, my fingers squeezing the front of his shirt, wrinkling it. “Tell me.”

He did. His hands began absentmindedly rubbing up and down my forearms, evoking sparks and light beneath my skin. My breathshortened, hitching in my chest, but my attention was fixed on the solemnity of his tale as it unfolded.

“My father is the Highest of our tribe. As his eldest child, I am his heir. I had a dragon, Nightflame,” he went on, “to whom I’d been bonded since he was a hatchling.”

I nodded, encouraging him to continue.

“My father needed help to overcome a rival clan,” he said. His face lifted, his gaze going to the opposite wall, which he stared at fiercely, as though the rock bore the secrets to his misery. “He went to a Scraggen.”

“A witch-woman,” I supplied. “Some are exceedingly powerful.”

“Aye,” he agreed, almost glaring at the wall. “My father went to the most powerful Scraggen he could find. I was there, as his heir, when they met. She agreed to help him—for a price. Me.”

“You?” I heard my own gasp, felt my fingers tighten in his shirt. “The Scraggen wanted you? For what?”

“Her daughter,” he chuckled roughly. “She wanted me for her daughter.”

“And your father…agreed to those awful terms?” I faltered, even as the strangeness of the parallels between his story and mine struck me.

Both of us, demanded by a creature of magic. He, by a Scraggen, for her daughter. Me, by a dragon. Him. His father, surrendering to the demands. My father, doing likewise.

“He believed he had no choice,” Kidron answered.

Just as my father had believed there was no choice.

“There is more to it than that,” I said. “Clearly. Else we would not be here, speaking.”

Kidron’s hands slowed, but his thumbs continued to gently stroke my forearms as if he thought better while touching me. Or, perhaps, found this difficult story easier to tell while stroking my skin.

“I had no wish to be given to a Scraggen’s daughter,” he said. “I was young and impetuous and wild. Also, I considered my father’s problems to be his.

“That is the difference between you and me,” he said, catching my attention with a sad smile. “You went with me willingly to save your father, your family, your island. I was determined to free myself from the trap my father had set. And flee I did. On my dragon. I did not know where or why. I suppose I hoped the matter would resolve itself or blow over.”

I studied his face in the dim light. The close-cropped beard. The tattoos. The fathomless gold of his eyes.

“How old were you?” I asked. He did not appear much older than me, yet he spoke of being a youth. He’d acted as a youth. One would think a king’s son would be raised with more dedication to his father, throne, and kingdom. His actions were those of a child, not a mature man. Not to mention the recklessness of the deed. There had been little foresight or planning in his method of escape. His answer confirmed it when he replied,

“I was fourteen. The Scraggen wished me to wed her daughter on my eighteenth birthday. I fled, thinking my dragon and I would fly to the farthest reaches of the realm and make our own way. After a time, the Scraggen would forget her claim on me, I would return home with Nightflame, resume my rightful role as my father’s heir, and all would be forgotten.”

Aye. That sounded like the impetuosity of youth. I’d had no dealings with the Scraggens, yet even I knew one did not lightly anger a witch-woman.

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