Page 60 of The Forbidden Dragon King
Someone is calling my name, desperate and panicked.
They’re stroking the hair on my forehead.
Sorry, I’m sorry, so bloody sorry…
I can’t rise back into my body yet, however, I’m too sunk in the bond, which is settling into my soul and winding between Daire and me.
I can sense Daire’s emotions: An agonizing grief and loneliness beneath the charming rogue, and a pain so all-encompassing that I shake.
His sacrifice and sorrow is too great to bear. Tears chase down my cheeks.
I didn’t know.I didn’t fucking knowthat anyone could feel like this for years and still exist.
Still fight on.
Feathers, blood, and ash rain from the night sky. The moonis veiled by smoke. The devils have ambushed the only family that I have, my brothers and sisters in the army. My kingdom is falling…
I choke on the smoke. Sob as I watch the death of my devoted followers. Am flooded with despair, as I am slammed to my knees in the dirt before my enemies.
Before Aurelius.
“They’re memories.” It’s Daire. He is still burning his arm to massage my temples. His swollen eyes gleam with tears. “The bond allows you to feel the echoes of my strongest emotions. I’ll try to settle my mind and control it. I’m sorry, love. I’ve been battling alone for over a decade. On the sacred ash, I didn’t believe that I could have discovered my soulmate. Not now. The Shadow Gods are laughing at us idiots.”
When I look down, I see a delicate silver snowflake appear on the wrist that isn’t scarred.
A bond mark, a Shadow Fae one.
I watch in even greater shock as a matching bond mark rises on Daire’s wrist.
There’s no hiding this.
I’m King Daire’s Omega.
I blink the tears out of my eyes and struggle to piece my fragmented mind together, working out where I start and Daire stops.
The devastating memories of the battle in Rune Forest are fading, and Daire’s grief is a muted pain now.
Slowly, he helps me to kneel back up. His wrists are still sizzling where they touch the iron. He doesn’t flinch.
“Please,” I shove him back, “stop hurting yourself for my sake.”
“I bloody deserve it,” Daire mutters but he pulls his arms back through the bars. He rubs his thumb over the snowflake on his skin with a longing expression. “My beautiful soulmate. I guess that I was looking for you in all the wrong places. All those parties and festivals, and believe me, I tested a lot of fae, and all I needed was to be defeated, lose everything, and be caged as a pet, then…here you are.”
“Here I am,” I reply in a daze. “Was I worth an entire kingdom?”
He looks away.
“You’re worth every realm, love. Don’t doubt that. But me…?” He gestures around the cage. “I didn’t mean to force a bond. I’m bloody sorry. When I look this gorgeous, it may be hard to believe, but you’re not seeing me at my best. I can hardly think through the screams in my head.”
“I know,” I say because I’ve seen only a glimpse inside his mind, and it was agony.
I don’t know how Daire is managing to look so calm.
Practice?
But what the fuck has he been through that he can act as cool as this, despite the hell raging inside?
I raise my wrist, touching the pretty snowflake. “What does this mean?”
