Page 229 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

I feel a twist in my stomach. “I didn’t realize his kingdom was that huge,” I whisper, more to myself, but with her acute hearing, of course Blair heard me. I instantly regret it, because she lets out a cruel laugh.

“What did you think it was? A Fortress in the middle of the desert, a tiny desert town, and nothing else? That’s just where helives. A tactical move, obviously. The desert, roamed by demons, is impossibly hard to cross if you don’t have wings. Not to mention all those creatures that haunt it.”

Obviously.Creatures like a sand worm.

Blair is right, Ishouldknow. But still, her words cut deep, and I’m not prepared. I’m still so naïve, thinking the glimpse I got of the fae world over the last two months is all there is.

But it has just been a tiny shard. I only saw what Caryanwantedme to see.

The dragon banks hard to the right, and Blair lets out a sharp hiss, as if she’s burned herself.

“What is it?”

“Can’t you feel it? It’s his wall. Caryan’s warded the kingdom and sealed it with spells. We have to fly north to the end of his shields.” She bares her silver canines against the invisible force.

I frown as I, too, feel a slight brimming in the air, brushing up against me as the dragon veers sharp to the left so that we’re now flying parallel to the coast, keeping the city at our back, before he suddenly descends.

“Caryan indeed warded his kingdom. You will have to break through, little one.A temporary hole will be enough.”

I flinch, not because of the rapid descent that makes my stomach shoot up, but because of the voice that suddenly soundedinmy head. A deep, foreign voice.What the fuck?

I get a rumble under me as an answer. My mind tries to catch up as the realization hits me. The dragon, demon, whatever just… talked to me.In my thoughts.

“I did, indeed. Now hold on,”he warns.

I obey out of sheer reflex as he spreads his massive wings wide to slow our rapid drop before his colossal claws dig into the soil under us, his weight making the whole ground shake.

“Why can you talk to me? And I to you?”I ask back in my mind, following the direction his voice came from. At its end, there is a connection, like a bridge, or a thread. Something dark blue, shimmering like his scales. Something I can reach out to just as I once reached out to Caryan’s bond.

“Yes, this is me. Or us, if you will. We have a bondnow,” he explains patiently.

Riven once explained that fae have bonds.

“You are a fae too,”the dragon chimes in, cutting off my train of thought, as if he could hear it. “I can.”

“That’s… weird.”

“Lock me out if you don’t like it,”he grumbles back. “Or I can read every one of your thoughts.It can become rather tiresome.”

“Lock you out how?”

“By focusing on pushing me out and then sealing that bond with walls or the like. But for now, get off and break through his ward, littleone. Time is of the essence. My former master will not be stalled for much longer.”

He bends one leg so I can slip off his back easily. My knees buckle slightly, though, my whole body stiff from the long flight, the cold, and exhaustion.

I jump as his huge snout, with very impressive teeth, nudge me towards the edge of the cliff, to where the desert meets the ocean. Hells, one of his beautiful, curled horns is almost as long as my leg, not to mention those teeth.

“I won’t hurt you,”he says after a scoff that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.

“Wait—you’re the one who tried to eat me a couple of hours ago, right?”

“The very one,”he says without a shred of remorse.“But I won’t try that again, I promise.”

Until you change your mind,I think. Nothing has prepared me for the bone-shaking growl that comes from him. I stare at him, wide-eyed.

“A bond is a sacred thing. You think I accept that easily, or broke my old one, for that matter?”Before I can answer he continues,“Besides—you can hardly blame me for trying to snatch you out of the air if you looked like a perfect midnight snack with your glowing wings.”

“Then it’s a good thing that they’are gone.”

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