Page 51 of Dreams and Dragon Wings
A small smile crinkles the corners of his eyes for a brief moment, revealing lines that weren’t there the last time we saw one another. “And you listened. But of course you would,Na’therya.” Closing his eyes, he breathes out a quiet sigh through his nose and whispers reverently, as if in prayer,“Thavae, Na’Eruv.”
Na’therya.There is that word again.
I know this word. I have heard it somewhere before, though I cannot remember where. The memory lingers just on the edge of my thoughts, eluding me.
Like something from a dream.
“What does that mean, Bene?” I ask, needing to know.
His eyes flash back open. His gaze fixates on my mouth again. My cheek. Absentmindedly, he answers, “I said, ‘Thank you, my God.’”
In the pause that follows, he draws forth strands of Earth and Fire and weaves them about his shoulder, around the arrow Ionly now notice protruding from his flesh. I do not even have time to worry over the fact that he is wounded before the arrow tumbles free and clatters to the floor. In the next moment, it turns to ash, leaving only the head behind.
I blink. “No. When you said ‘Na’therya.’ What does that mean?”
Without meeting my gaze, without answering my question, Bene briskly apologizes, “I have ignored your own wounds too long. Please forgive me.”
Before I can protest his sudden evasive mien, he finishes closing the distance between us and tilts his face toward mine. As if he intends to capture my mouth in a heartrending kiss.
But I know better. Bene would never. He is too much of a gentleman.
Nor does he long for me the way I long for him.
Warm breath unfurls against my lips instead, bringing with it threads of Earth and the heated prickle of Bene’s healing magic as my skin knits itself back together. As my pain subsides. Leaving me well once more.
Save for the dull pain that still throbs in my stomach where Friedemar kicked me, but I would rather suffer in silence than draw Bene’s attention to that.
Footsteps thunder down the corridor beyond our hiding place, accompanied by the shout of voices, muffled, frantic. They are looking for us.
Finally, I wrench my attention away from the beautiful man before me—my bestfriend, I sternly remind myself—and take stock of the room we crashed into. It is a sitting room. That is easy enough to glean from the stylishly upholstered sofas and chairs I spy by the light of my own glow.
But there are only two exits. Out the shattered window behind us. Or the door leading to what sounds like a small army of soldiers before us.
Fear claws at my heart again. We can’t possibly fight our way out through an entire army. And what about my mother? Lord Reginald?
I turn back to Bene, primed to ask him what we’re going to do now. But when I look up into my dragon king’s gaze, those words die in my throat, snuffed out by my terror.
Red. That is the color of the eyes staring back at me. Red like dragonfire. Like rubies.
Like blood.
“Bene?” I gasp, stumbling backward.
He doesn’t answer me. But neither does he pursue. Only his gaze follows—hungry, feral. Quivering from head to toe, my dragon king stands rooted in place.
His hands clench. His jaw tightens.
Pain. It radiates off of him in sharp swells, seeking to drown me beneath the weight of it. I stagger toward the nearest chair and brace myself against the back of it. Only the grip of my hand on that piece of furniture can keep me upright now.
“Bene, what is happening?”
“It’s… complicated,”he growls directly into my thoughts. A bittersweet longing accompanies the words, slicing through his pain. His rage.“But I will never hurt you. I will never let anyone hurt you again.”
Warmth floods me in response to his words despite the inherent danger of our situation. Despite the undeniable wrongness crackling off my dragon king. I try to tamp it down, to snuff it out. Now is not the time for me to entertainfeelingsfor a man I can never have.
Cheeks growing hot, I can only pray Bene can’t sense my every emotion just as easily as I can seemingly now sense his.
When next he blinks, his eyes are once again the sapphire blue I know. Relief rushes through me, soothing my fears. But an oddsense of anxiety remains. As if we are both waiting for something to happen.
