Page 57 of Storm of Blood and Shadow

“I failed,” he says hoarsely. “I did not provide adequately for us. Fuck!”

He dashes his tail violently against the floor, every spike on his back and neck bristling.

“You did the best you could,” I say.

“No, I did not. There was a deer I could have taken, and I let another dragon have it. I was soft-hearted and foolish.”

“Yes, you were,” I say. “But not about that. Varex, why am I here? I told you what I did.”

He veers around, his amber eyes narrowed. “You asked Serylla to kill my beloved brother. My last living relative.”

“Yes.” I swallow hard. “Did you bring me here to kill me?”

“Now why would I do that?” His voice is a malevolent purr, and his neck snakes down so he can meet my gaze on my level. “Why would I waste a perfectly good pussy during mating season?”

My heartbeat stutters, fear spiking in my chest.

Varex sighs and tosses his horned head. “If you think that’s why I claimed you, you don’t know me at all, darling. I told you that I love you. My love is not a frail, weak thing. It is immortal. You cannot slay it, even with such a betrayal. I love you, and I will protect you, no matter what evil you may wish on me and my blood.”

Incredulous gratitude wells up in my heart.

“Serylla won’t do it,” I say. “I saw it in her eyes. She cares for your brother. She won’t murder him.”

“No, I don’t believe she will,” Varex replies. “But she believes thatyouplan to murder me when I’m in human form. Should I fear you, darling? Should I remain watchful when I’m in my vulnerable shape, in my soft human skin? Are you going to slit my throat while I sleep?”

“No,” I say faintly.

“So you say, and yet you could be lying to me. It does not matter. If you kill me, you can eat my flesh to survive, and so I will continue to protect you and be part of you.”

My throat tightens with a joy so terrible and confusing that I almost can’t bear it. “That’s so fucking morbid,” I whisper. “And it’s also absurdly romantic.”

“Is it?” His eyes brighten, and his jaws part in something remarkably like a dragonish grin.

Thunder rattles the world outside, and my pride crumbles in its wake, washing away with the torrents of rain that descend upon the island.

“I should never have given Serylla a weapon or wished for your brother’s death.” The words spill out of me like the stones of an avalanche, each one a weight rolling away from my soul. “After everything you’ve endured, after what you’ve vowed to me—it was unforgivable. I don’t deserve your mercy or comfort… but I crave both. And I swear, no matter what disagreements we may have about the future, that Kyreagan’s death will never be a part of my plans. Nor will yours.”

Varex’s eyes shine warm in the gloom. He’s about to reply, but at that moment a cataclysmic crack resounds through the sky, and the entire mountain range trembles. The sound was loud enough to be a whole cliff splitting in two. Instinctively I cringe against the rear wall of the cave. Lightning shatters the night, starkly brilliant, and even after it’s over I can see it every time I blink.

“This is terrifying,” I murmur.

Varex is staring at the mouth of his cave, his spiked ears swiveled in the direction of the pouring rain. “Did you hear them?”

I frown. “What?”

He takes a step away from me, toward the cave entrance. “Voices in the rain. Words on the wind.” His voice is hollow, distant.

“The wind sounds like someone wailing or screaming, but there are no words in the sound.”

Varex remains tense, listening, his wings peaked and his tail lying motionless on the floor.

A strange dread tugs at my soul, and I move toward him. “Varex. Look at me.”

He turns, and I gasp.

His eyes are filled with lightning—not purple this time, but pure white lightning, flickering across the eyeballs—not a sign of his vertical pupils to be seen. The lightning flickers and crackles between his jaws, too, and within the shells of his large nostrils.

He has been so kind to me, so refined, so gentle, that I almost forgot what he is—a warrior, a dragon of void and darkness. Something in him shares a kinship with this storm, and it’s summoning him, calling to him. He’s trembling, muscles taut, torn between listening to me and listening to the storm.

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