Page 54 of Dragons' Bride
Wait, what?
I try to shake the sudden tsunami of sensation. It doesn’t work. Quinton’s blood is moving too loudly, his heart beating like a never ending drum that hurts my ears. There is too much light in my eyes. Too much weight on my bones.
Quinton is saying something, but his words are distant, drowned out by how rutting loud everything else about him is becoming. His blood. His heart. His lungs.
A stabbing pain hits my head, as if someone is driving a hot metal rod through my ear into my skull.
My vision blurs. I fall to my knees with a muffled scream.
Lub dub. Rush. Rush. Hiss. Lub dub. Rush. Rush. Hiss.
"Kitterny."
I clamp my hands over my ears. Blood is trickling from the right one, the same way it had when Ettienne’s magic invaded my mind. It hurts, the pain echoing through my body. Has Quinton already made the killing blow? Is that what the pain is? Why am I not yet dead? My breath races. Dead. I need to be dead. All the courage drains from me, leaving only agony and terror.
“Finish it,” I beg. “For stars’ sake. Just finish it.”
“I can’t.” Quinton’s face is in front of me, filling my vision. My whole world.
Lub dub. Rush. Rush. Hiss.
“Why?” I whimper. “Please.”
“I can’t finish because I didn’t start anything.”
His words hit me like a betrayal. I fall to my side. He is lying. He has to be. He could finish it. He could end this. “Please!”
Strong hands grip my face, forcing me to meet silver eyes. Quinton is crouched beside me, his silver scales bone white shifting about as his eyes bore into me. Everything about the dragon prince vibrates with power. Power that saturates the air and then shoots into me.
“Words, human,” Quinton orders. “Use them. Now.”
“It’s too loud,” I whisper.
“What is?”
“Your heart. Your blood.” I somehow know that’s what it is. “Everything.”
Quinton’s scales freeze.
“My heart and blood. You hear them inside you? As if my body is hijacking your senses?”
“Yes, damn it.” I taste something copper and realize I’ve bitten my own tongue.
Quinton’s hand tighten on my face. “What you are describing, human, is blood magic. You have blood magic?”
I don’t care what it is. I want it gone. “It’s your rutting magic. Take it back.”
“Doesn’t work that way,” says Quinton. He is so calm that I want to wring his neck.
“Then how does it bloody work?” I yell.
“You need to focus on something that’s yours. Pick one thing. Your own heartbeat, your breath, your – ”
A whimper escapes me, along with tears of pain that stream down my face. He is asking the impossible, demanding that I hear a mouse beside a dragon’s roar.
Quinton curses but gives up issuing orders. “Alright,” he says, scooping me up off the floor. “Then let’s give you something more potent to focus on.”
Faster than I can follow, my back is pinned against the wall, Quinton’s strong fingers tangled in my hair. His mouth presses over mine. Insistent and invading and rousing. I gasp against him, heat searing through me.
