Page 54 of Dance with the Dragon Duke

Laughter carried to him from the meadow outside. He went to the window but couldn’t see anything, just grass and flowers and an expansive pasture that stirred in a wind that wasn’t actually a wind. It was his breath, magically shared with his sacred place.

Bebe rose from the meadow, flying low. Apparently, they were playing some sort of hide-and-seek game. Dark left the tower and joined the fairy’s pursuit.

He stirred Brisket and Polly from the flowers they were hiding behind. They wore matching outfits made of daffodil petals.

Bebe went charging after them. “Bebebebebebebe!”

The girls flew off in a blur of wings.

“Tomorrow?” Dark called.

Laughter greeted him, but it sounded like it came from everywhere at once, echoing across the meadow. He trotted through taller grass.

Tomorrow appeared, Ruby just behind her. She sprinted past him in a whirl of white linen and ashen hair. Ruby’s wings buzzed with effort. They disappeared again, nothing but shifting greenery giving their position away. The other fairies took to the air, shooting from their hiding places to pursue her.

“What are you doing?” He raced after them, but she was so fast, he couldn’t keep up.

Tomorrow threw her hands into the air like she could take off and fly with them.

“I’m a witch!” she shouted moments before she tripped and fell and disappeared below the high grass. Laughter bellowed out from the place where she’d vanished. Fairies hovered over her, chittering.

Dark’s feet caught in the undergrowth, staggering to a halt. Had he heard her correctly?

Tomorrow leapt up and ran some more. She spun on her heels, and dozens of fairies came with her in a wave, their collective wings humming.

Dark blinked at her, arms inert at his sides. “What’d you just say?”

When she reached him, she threw herself at him, alighting like a bird landing on a perch, latching on to his body with a vigor he’d never seen in her before. She glowed. Her cheeks were a healthy pink, her freckles sun-bronzed.

“What’s this?” Dark said, a chortle knocked from him. He hoisted her higher in his arms.

She wrapped her legs around his hips and smiled at him. She didn’t just glow, she radiated brightness from the inside out, exuding her inner star fire.

“Rower bibka,” Ruby jabbered, coming to land on his shoulder.

The scent of fairy blood magic, like overly ripe fruit, filled his nostrils. Tomorrow was covered in it.

“I’m a witch, Dark,” she said again. “Ruby saved me with her immunity.”

Grasping at hope, Dark’s arms tightened around her, a reflex. His mind had slowed down, processing the information in bits and pieces.

Finally, it sunk in, and his heart swelled behind the cage of his ribs, two sizes too big. Large enough to leave a pleasant ache there. The emotion filling his chest was so all-consuming, his body felt too small to contain it. He nearly burst into his dragon form. His arms shivered, resisting the urge to elongate and break out in plated scales.

Tomorrow detached herself from him, dropping to her feet. “I feel good again, Dark,” she said. “Strong and fast. My feet still get tangled, but I feel like I could run for ages. Like I could even pickyouup, as big as you are, and lift you over my head!”

Tomorrow encircled his middle with her slender arms to demonstrate. Her grip formed a vice, and she strained under him.

Dark laughed at her effort, joy making him feel so light he was surprised she couldn’t move him at all.

“Holy gods, you’re still heavier than a full-grown tiger. All right. Maybe I can’t lift you over my head,” she said, relenting. “But I feelgood. I feel alive. Even if I’m not strong enough to move you.”

“You’re strong enough to laugh when you fall and strong enough to get back up again. That’s what truly makes you fierce, my little cabbage.” Dark held her face in his hands, staring into her copper eyes, afraid the moment would flee too quickly.

The silly name made her giggle. He lowered his horns, brushing them over the top of her crown, sharing the overflow of love and deference that pumped blissfully through him.

“There’s something I need to do,” he told her, voice low.

“What’s that?” she whispered.

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