Page 82 of House of Embers
And then they were off to Ravinia Mountain and all that was waiting for them when they returned to the House of Shadows. A denouncement. A coronation. And an impending war.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Return
On the flight home, Kerrigan got a headache listening to Gelryn, Tieran, and Evien go back and forth on the logistics of how to house and feed this many dragons. At some point, Dyta and Ordrax appeared to help with the logistics as well, since they had done much of that back at the Holy Mountain.
Kerrigan hadn’t even known that the dragons who had found them after the water ritual were part of their new army. Dyta, in particular, had seemed to despise them, but she had taken the bonding news the hardest. She had been finishing testing to join one of the next tournaments. Ordrax had already been part of a tournament before Kerrigan had been born. His bonded rider hadn’t made it through the year of training, and their bond had broken. That had been sufficient for the curse apparently, but he had been disgraced by it ever since. This was his redemption.
When they’d almost made it home, another dragon moved up to command. Audria and Kerrigan had looked at each other with tears in their eyes at the sight of him. They would recognize his seafoam-green scales anywhere. Avirix was—had been—Noda’s dragon. Noda had been the fifth member of their training group—Kerrigan, Fordham,Audria, Roake, and Noda. Only Noda had dropped out, and Avirix had returned to the mountain in disgrace.
Avirix had looked to Kerrigan and simply said,“We will get her back.”
Kerrigan nodded. “We will.”
With this many dragons flying all at once, it was impossible not to be seen. Not that many settlements existed between the two mountain ranges—most of the Fae lived on the coasts—but it wasn’t zero either. Tieran had sent off a few different groups of fighters to take down the two Society dragons they’d stumbled upon.
They were dead so fast that it chilled Kerrigan. This was real. This was happening. She had done this, and there was no turning back.
The chill only thawed as they approached the mountain and Fordham came back in range. Immediately, he was there, touching her through the bond as if she were already there in person, as if he could barely contain himself from the relief of knowing she was okay.
“We’re close,” she said as the mountain came into view.
Home.
She didn’t know when she had started to think of Ravinia as home. She missed her manor home, Waisley, back in Bryonica, but there was more heartache there than ever. She still didn’t know the fate of her attendants, Benton and Bayton, who she had saved from servitude in the House of Shadows only for them to be swept up into this war with the Society. Nor did she know about the other half-Fae she had sent to her ancestral lands. For the first time, it really felt like they had a chance of righting all these wrongs.
Tieran landed in the open aerie with the rest of his commanders—Gelryn, Dyta, Ordrax, and Avirix—and the noncombatant Amita as the other dragons scattered among the nearby peaks and surrounding valleys.
Kerrigan jumped off Tieran’s back and didn’t look back as she strode across the now-crowded aerie. The door banged open, andFordham strode in, wearing full black-and-silver House of Shadows regalia with a long, embroidered cloak held up by a silver chain and a sword strapped to his waist. His dark hair was pushed off his face as if he had been running his fingers through it anxiously. Those gray eyes turned to liquid silver at the sight of her.
Between one second and the next, his hands were in the windblown threads of her curly braid and his mouth was on hers. Time stilled as everything narrowed to this one moment.Him.The connection between them sizzled to life.
“I missed you,” she groaned against his lips.
His tongue swept against hers, sparking something to life low in her belly. “I never wish to be parted from you again.”
“We have an audience.”
His hands slid down to her thighs and easily lifted her into the air, wrapping her legs around his waist and carrying her toward the open door. “Then let us find some privacy.”
She laughed as her whole body awakened with desire. “Don’t you want to hear how the mission went?”
“After I’m done with you.”
Fordham stepped through the doorway to a rumble of laughter. His next step was into shadow. Kerrigan barely had a moment to prepare herself as they slid through the nothing, and then they were in the king’s chambers.
She gasped. “I was not expecting a shadow-jump. Gods.”
He grinned and just captured her lips again as he leaned her down onto the bed. His fingers found the button of her leathers. He loosened them and then released her long enough to tug them off her toned legs. She unhooked her cloak and ripped off her top with zero patience. Then she was reaching for him, unhooking the ceremonial mantle and letting it slide unceremoniously to the ground. Next was the cravat at his throat, the buttons of his silk shirt, which she fisted out of his pants, and then those gods-damned trousers.
“Show me how much you missed me,” she pleaded as she lay back on the bed.
He crawled over her, his naked form a masterpiece of rippling muscles, his face as devious as ever. The quirk of his lips before they descended on her mouth said that he was going to do just that.
She lifted her legs to wrap around his waist as he settled between hers. His kisses turned furious as he drew out every ounce of her pleasure. There was a desperation in his movements, as if his fear that she wouldn’t come back had eaten away at him. Their time in Domara had marked both of them, and this was how it had left its mark on him—an unending fear that she would not return, that he could not save her.
“I love you,” she said, pulling back enough to look into his eyes. “I’m here and I love you.”
