Page 117 of Empowering the Wolf's Heart

“Shhh, little one. I have you,” Shen said softly, smoothing my hair back from my forehead and placing a gentle kiss there as sobs rose from my chest and tears cooled the heat behind my eyes.

Shen was there through it all, holding me, purring, and gently soothing my broken spirit.

I fell asleep on his chest.

Shen

I kissed her hair,gently cradling her. Her breathing had evened out, although she still hiccupped from the force of the tears.

Years of emotion had been pent up inside her little body. I was honored to be the one to hold her through it. I had seen beyond her walls. She had trusted me to watch her break. And that was the single most precious item in this world besides her heart that I would forever hold dear.

She had set me free. And now it was time I did the same for her, even if it took years.

I would support her, uplift her, and be there for her until she could lay down her armor and be just a girl without the strength. Oh, she needed her strength. I respected it and loved it about her. She was a warrior through and through. But beneath thearmor, she also needed to be human, to be vulnerable, to be seen as a capable, independent woman who also sometimes needed to justbe.

To not be seen as a fixer. To not be seen as a healer. To not be seen as matriarch.

To just be… her.

It would take time. She had been meeting needs for so long, it was hard for her to accept her needs being tended to. I had seen the guilt in her eyes when she had left the village. I had taken in the concern in her father’s eyes as he had nodded to me and mouthed for me to take care of his little girl. I had watched how hard it was for her to show the brokenness on the outside when she had already shattered inside.

I would help her pick up the pieces. And then I would allow her to be however she wanted to be. Even more so, how sheneededto be.

I wanted to be the person who knew her needs and met them.

CHAPTER 41

Dragon Rider

ALIA

When I woke, I was still cradled in Shen’s arms, but something large was blocking out the sun. I squinted up to see a white wing lined with gently rippling feathers and followed it down to white scales on a long, muscular body.

I noticed each scale shimmered like opal gemstones. Her body was lithe and feminine. She had two wings and four legs, and her long tail was curled up around me and Shen like our own personal wall of protection. I followed her neck up to her face to see her gentle brown eyes staring at me. It was still odd to see them in this form. She was so different, and yet the mischief mixed with love in her eyes was the exact same.

“I’m still gonna miss the unicorn form,” I said with a tiny smile.

She huffed out a breath that was her form of a laugh, and smoke curled from her nostrils.I will not miss the cloven hooves and wingless body, thanks,she said, moving her front legs and staring down at the individual claws that were quite similar to a person’s hand, just much larger and with sharp white tips instead of fingernails. Her foot—paw?—was as large as my head thrice over.

“Why… how…”

I was cursed by a witch to wear a wingless form until I learned the true meaning of love. I was forbidden to speak of it and spent many a long year in the woods until those pricks caught me. And then you came along.

I smiled up at her as she brought her nose before me, smelling of roasted pine needles. I raised a hand and set it on her cheek, kissing her nose just as I had when she was a unicorn. “And then I set you free from those who’d caught you. But you didn’t have to bond me then.”

She breathed out.No. But it was the best thing I ever did.

I smiled and laid my head on her nose. Then I was hoisted upright by two powerful arms. I squeaked like a frog losing air. Shen set me on Ran’s back.

“Every dragon-bonded must learn to fly,” Shen said, gently patting Ran’s neck.

She turned and hissed at him. He patted her nose and she blinked, as if unsure how to take his blasé reaction to her threat. “Fly, Little Red, and don’t come back until you have left all your troubles in the sky.”

Ran turned to look at me, and I leaned against her warm neck, hooking my feet beneath her wings. Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes as I smelled her. Her scent of freedom and wild abandon mixed with pine. I squeezed my arms around her neck. She felt like chain mail armor but was as soft and malleable as sheepskin leather.

“Let’s fly,” I said. This time, I wouldn’t be dangled beneath her like some prized catch. Excitement and anxiety bubbled in my stomach.

She released a loud bellow, which was a mix between an eagle’s screech and a lion’s roar. Her muscles bunched beneath me and her wings beat against the air, sending a gust of wind out which sent Shen rolling. Ran laughed in my mind. She leapt. The force nearly sent me tumbling from her back, but I stuck it onlybecause it suspiciously resembled when she used to race through the woods and then come to a screeching halt before a cold body of water.

---