Page 74 of Devoted to the Dragon

Chapter 34

Randi

Iwake up in the tent, Knox’s arm snaked around me, fingers brushing through my hair. My muscles freeze, reality slamming down with blinding clarity.

His rattling purr deepens, trying to soothe the cloying mint that chokes the air. “It’s all right. You’re safe.”

I’m up, blanket around me, fumbling on the raft in search of my clothes. “This didn’t mean anything,” I hiss.

“I know,” he says softly, voice laced with the bitterness of regret.

“I still don’t trust you.”

“I know,” he says again.

Where the fuck is my dress? I’m exposed, the hairs on my body standing on end, my scales rippling across my skin.

I riffle through the nest bedding, destroying the mounds in search of my clothes. I can’t find my dress, but that isn’t what makes me keep going. I rage with uncertainty and unfairness. I tear at the blankets and pillows as if that will give me back what I’ve lost—what he has taken from me.

There is cramping in my stomach. A ripped and bleeding space in my heart. It matches the scream that pierces throughthe dark night. My claws shred. The raft shakes with my rage. Water seeps in at the edges.

I tear it down. All of it. Because he’s making good on his promise to steal my heart.

I don’t stop until the nest is bare. Until it looks like my insides feel. Jagged and broken wide open. My screams are shrill, angry warnings. Spikes ripple along my back. My throat burns with fire.

When I open my mouth, a sob spills out instead. Knox curls around my back and holds me through the violent sadness of grief. His deep voice soothes me, but I can’t understand the words. They’re lost to the pit beneath all that fiery rage. The pit of loss feels like a dark, bottomless canyon that will swallow me whole.

Why Knox? Why did a serpent come to steal my heart when they have already taken every dragon's but mine? And why is he being so good to me now? So understanding?

“I know it hurts. Let it out. It’s all right,” he murmurs.

His strength cages me in and becomes a harbor for my violent storm as he rocks us through the worst. I cry until I’m wrung out and limp, sitting in a ball of wet bedding and feathers, the tent singed and falling.

I try closing my eyes, but I see his memories. Opening my eyes is no better.He’s everywhere.He’s there in the old, shredded quilts and mismatched pillows spilling their stuffing into the smokey air. His thoughtfulness is in every wooden plank of this once-beautiful nest.And I destroyed it.

My voice is distorted, wobbly, and trapped behind a cotton barrier in my ears. “Why were you in the forest?” I don’t know why that’s my first question, but it falls out, landing among the rubble.

“That night?” he asks. His voice is raw too, but I’m afraid to turn around and see his face.

“No. That night you were there to capture me.” It’s a fact, stripped of its emotions.

I hear him take a deep breath. “I was. I can’t change that. I’m sorry.”

Do I accept his apologies? Had I already accepted them?

I don’t know, but I do know he means it. “I mean in the memory stones. Why were you in the forest?” I need to know. I have to know.

“You.” His arms tighten around me.

I stare at the black, scrawling serpent winding up his arm. It's a crest of some kind—probably his family’s. But the black gleaming serpent is chasing a half moon, and is in a different style than the other rune tattoos that cover his upper half.

“Bullshit.” I twist in his arms, finally facing him.

He’s a beautiful mess. Hair askew. Tear tracks on his cheeks leaking down past a red scar.

His throat bobs. “No bullshit. I just didn’t know it was you. Not then. Not until our night in the forest.” I open my mouth to protest, but he covers my mouth with his hand, shaking his head. “It’s my turn.”

My teeth nip his fingertips, and he chuckles. The sound dies out and loses all its playfulness as he looks at the mess around us.

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