Page 89 of The Princesses of Ruin
The knife is still poised to plunge into her gut. “You will get the opportunity to court her—”
The blue boy hisses. “She will neverchooseme.”
Alyse is patient. “You will get the opportunity to court her. If she is your mate—the one that your kind cannot be apart from—she will sense it, will she not?”
The dragon is quiet.
“Elder?” Alyse asks, looking to the green.
His throat vibrates with a thoughtful hum. “If it is true—”
“It is true,” the blue spits.
The green chuffs. “Then perhaps. She is not a dragon, and she may not feel the same sensations of a life-bond. But she will be drawn to you.”
Is this the will of the gods? A cruel fate? My child will be bound to a beast of the air?
Alyse’s gaze meets mine, then darts up to the dragon caging me. The dragon’s talon slides away from my throat.
She sniffles and blinks away fresh tears. “When she comes of age at twenty, we will host a ball. Suitors will be brought before her. You may choose when you will be presented to her.”
“This is all you offer me?” the blue demands. “A paltry chance?”
“I don’t see dragon-kind coming down from the mountains,” she roars, the blade poking into the fabric of her thin shirt. The muscles in her jaw flex and she exhales hard through her nose. “We ask only for a scale.”
The blue dragon looks back at the green. He clicks and moans deep in his chest, a rhythmic cadence that could very well be communication emerging.
“Will you please release my mate?” Alyse asks with fear in her voice.
“Put down the blade,” the green dragon says.
She throws the dagger aside, out of my reach and hers.
The bars of my cage drop away and I scramble to my feet. Despite the pain searing my face and numbness affecting my left arm, I run to her. She sobs into my chest and I cradle her there.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, my voice as broken as my heart.
Her words are halting and full of tears. “I tried. I tried s-so many times. I’m…so sorry. Zephrom said…”
Zephrom. That meddlesome fucking cunt.
I grab a fistful of her hair and pull her head back, locking my gaze with hers. “You do not hide these things from me. Ever. This was a breach of my trust.”
“I know,” she whimpers. “Never again.”
The tight band constricting my stomach loosens for the first time in hours.
“Please, let me in,” she says, her tear-stained lips quivering. “It’s too loud without you.”
I release her hair and grab the edge of my mask where I can deactivate the runic binding. I pull and agony blooms through my face. The air is punched from my lungs as I try again, only to be met with even sharper hurt.
“Kaz, stop,” she cries, putting her hands to my mask.
Panic splices my thoughts. Trapped. I’m trapped forever without her.
I pull again.
Harder.
