Page 69 of Caress of Fire
“But if he’s feral, he can’t live in the castle, can he?” The very idea was chilling.
“Not without incinerating everyone first.” Fedryc shook his head and that was all she needed to truly grasp the threat of the feral dragon. “He cannot be reasoned with. Ferals are not well understood, for obvious reasons. Anyone trying to study them ended up dead. The only thing I know for sure is that he won’t surrender his mate.”
Silence descended on them both as Marielle took in the implications of this latest threat. They were truly lost if Nyra didn’t come back. If she shunned her Draekon bond for her mating bond. The Knat-Kanassis would invade and kill everyone, including those she cared about the most.
But something else didn’t sit well with her. Something that had everything to do with the soft secret she felt deep in her belly. That secret she caressed in her mind like a warm glow.
“I still don’t understand.” Marielle shook her head. “If dragons don’t form mating bonds, then how did you come to live with your father? Your mother was not a Draekon, and your father’s dragon was a male, wasn’t he?”
Fedryc nodded at her incomprehension. The world of Draekons was secretive, misunderstood by most humans and Delradons alike. How they came to be linked with their dragons was a secret they were keen to keep.
“Dragons are not like us on many levels. Females and males are equal in both strength and in their society.” Fedryc spoke slowly, like he knew he was divulging a secret kept on a close leash for thousands of years. “Thus, the task of raising the young doesn’t fall on the male or female, but on the Draekon whose woman gives birth. The egg goes with the dragon who is bonded to the woman. The other dragon feels no obligation towards its progeny. The obvious exception is when they are true dragon mates, then nothing can take the dragonet from them.”
“So if I was to give birth, our child would be linked to this feral dragon? But he wouldn’t understand the link between our child and his.”
This was a prospect even scarier than having a feral dragon rampaging through the hallways of the castle. Her tiny newborn in the grasp of a feral beast was a nightmare.
“Yes. The feral could as surely kill the Draekon child as he would have killed me.” Fedryc said the words that instilled panic in her mind. “This is something that has never happened in the history of Draekons’ link to their dragons. There is no roadmap here, no one to turn to for advice. We’re on our own.”
The warm glow Marielle had felt turned to a cold stone in the pit of her stomach. Her hands cradled that soft, warm secret nestled inside her and she feared anew.
Chapter 23
The sun was going down on another day in Aalstad and Marielle looked into the distance, at the orange and pink sky. Fedryc hadn’t returned from his meeting with Henron, and the worries had wormed their way back into her belly.
She’d spent her entire day with Devan. The relief still lingered inside her after Dr. Ylco’s news that the nanites had finally gotten both the blood infections under control. Devan should be able to come off the sedation in a day or two, after Dr. Ylco had sealed the wounded flesh. He was going to live.
She would be floating with relief if it wasn’t for Fedryc’s long absence. He had left before she ate her breakfast and hadn’t yet returned. Now that he was gone, she felt alone and alien in this castle, followed by four guards at all times as she went from one room to the other.
When Fedryc was not there, she was nothing but a stranger within these walls. An uninvited nuisance.
Only when she was alone in the private apartments she shared with Fedryc did she feel at ease, and even that peace was fragile. Her conscience weighed heavily on her mind.
I should have told him. Even with all that happened, I should have told him.
Marielle hugged herself, cold despite the warm desert breeze. Then her eyes were attracted to a tiny speck, moving in the air above the mountains in the distance. She held her breath until her lungs burned as she watched. The speck grew larger until she could make out the outline of wings flapping, tiny like a bug’s, in the distance.
Nyra.
Marielle watched as the lonely figure grew in the sunset, then it was like an electric current running inside her skin. Her hands closed around her stomach and a deep joy rose from the recesses of her mind. A smile crept up on her lips. Nyra was coming back!
Following blind instinct, Marielle turned and ran for the door, shoving it open—to the guards’ considerable dismay. They shouted from behind her as she ran, leaving them far behind. She knew the castle well enough to find her way, the guards on her tail but unable to keep up with her nimble, swift form as she ran through the hallways then climbed the stairs two at a time to the landing platform. All that counted was that Nyra was back. The strange joy bloomed further as the wind blew over her face, alien and with a mind of its own. It was like some part of her was starving, hungry for Nyra’s contact, Nyra’s presence. And with the dragoness back, Fedryc would regain his old strength, shed his sadness like a snake’s skin.
Finally, Marielle emerged on the platform, blinded for a moment by the glorious sunset.
“Lady Marielle!” one guard called, fear in his voice as the flapping of wings became louder. “Please, come back! We’ve already sent for Lord Fedryc.”
Marielle took a few steps away from the door, heading further out on the landing platform, knowing that the guards wouldn’t follow, not with Nyra to protect her. Not when Nyra was liable to incinerate them on sight. Her gown flapped around her ankles as she shielded her eyes with her hand, squinting to see the large form almost above the landing platform. But when she looked up, she didn’t see blazing red scales or sapphire blue eyes.
Massive brown wings blocked out the setting sun, and a beast filled with wrath landed in front of her.
Marielle froze, her breathing suddenly fast and shallow as she understood the magnitude of her mistake. On the platform just a hundred feet in front of her was Nyra’s mate, a male dragon so large he took up almost all the available space. The brown feral roared loud enough to make her ears ring. Eyes the color of scorched earth settled on her with palpable fury as rough scales puffed out on his neck. His talons scraped the floor, digging into the stone like it was butter as he paced, his spine rippling with unshed aggression.
Marielle took a step back, her hand clasped over her stomach, protecting that tiny bundle of life inside her that had taken on so much importance in such a short time.
The brown dragon hissed, his ash-smelling breath, hot and dry, reaching all the way to her face. Marielle froze, knowing instinctively that moving would trigger the hunting instinct of the beast, and that she would be dead before she even reached the doorway, even if it was only barely twenty feet away.
The feral paced back and forth along the platform, his dark, almost black eyes never leaving her, like pools of death in his terrible face. He took a sudden step forward and it took all of Marielle’s courage to keep still. The brown dragon inched closer, then his large nostrils widened as he inhaled deeply, taking as much of her scent inside his nose as he could. Her feet felt like they were set in concrete and her arms in stone, even her breathing had lessened to the imperceptible wheezing of a dying woman.
