Page 73 of Fae Exile

There was no laughter this time.

I whispered through my thoughts.

The dragon—fuerin—nodded her large head.

My connection to her and the truths she’d revealed, they swirled within me like a windstorm, its force pulling me toward a lethal center. But through it all, certainty was coalescing into a gurgling fountain of strength.

Whatever my future, whatever my role in illuminating the darkness, I was equipped for my destiny. I had to be. In fact, I was perhaps more perfectly suited to succeed than anyone else in all of creation.

Something changed in me then. I couldn’t identify what, but it felt like a new current charged my body even as my feet planted more firmly on the stone floor. I was more solid in this world than ever before, and also more expansive.

I funneled all that growth into my stare.

I asked on a chortle I couldn’t tell if I vocalized.

The creature tilted her head.

If I could talk to freakingdragons, I could sure as shit find a way to fulfill the kickass destiny she was laying out for me. It was terrifying, most fucking definitely. It was also the way forward I’d been begging for without realizing it. There had to be a reason for all the deceit, lies, and pain that had burdened me all my life. There had to be so much more to my existence. There had to be—or this place, this life, would make no sense. And I didn’t know if I could handle that emptiness.

Even as I told her this, I wasn’t convinced I could leave him behind. Not now that I’d seen him again, felt drawn to him as if he were the opposite side of my moon.

No one had yet to satisfactorily define amatefor me. Now, I no longer needed it.

This was what it must be. To feel him even when I couldn’t fully sense my own body.

The dragon said,

Though my stare continued to meet only hers, Rush’s hand pressed over my heart as this new power barreled toward that one point, scorching through fabric to touch his flesh, to connect us as one.

she said.

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