Page 18 of Dreams and Dragon Wings
I leapt to my feet and bobbed a hasty curtsy before remembering I was supposed to be ill. Clutching my dreadful needlework to my chest, I doubled over again and shuffled out of the sitting room.
The moment I reached the corridor, though, I broke into a decidedly undignified sprint and raced up the stairs to my room to retrieve the present I had already prepared for Bene that was hiding beneath my bed. It was nothing special—merely a collection of handkerchiefs I had embroidered with his initials.
But hopefully, he would love it all the same.
Hopefully, he would be able to follow the terrible directions I gave him in my last letter and find the finishing school.
Hopefully, he would even just… come.
I didn’t realize I had dozed off until I jerked awake some time later. For the span of a few heartbeats, I lay there on the hard infirmary cot, blinking in confusion as my eyes adjusted to the darkness.
And then I bolted upright.
What time was it? Had I slept straight through Bene’s visit?
Stomach clenching, I flung off my blanket and hurried to the window. Before I even reached it, though, something brushed through my thoughts like a summer breeze—a tentative whisper.
The very sound that must have awakened me in the first place.
“Aurelia?”
I stopped in my tracks as warmth flooded every inch of me. He was here.
Smiling like a lunatic, I ran back to the cot, retrieved his present, and then hurried to pull back the curtain and throw open the window.
And there he was, all pearlescent scales and golden eyes, gleaming like a beacon in the night. Before I could hail him, his large head swung toward me. His nostrils flared. His molten eyes fixated on me.
“Bene,” I whispered, my heart skipping a beat. He was so big now. So strong.
I tried to ignore the way the muscles beneath his scales flexed when he banked to the right and edged as close to the window as his wingspan would allow.
Fear welled up inside me when I realized I would have to jump the rest of the way.
As if sensing my fear, Bene spoke directly into my mind again.
“Trust me,”he whispered.“I will never let you fall.”
Of course. Trust.
Drawing in a deep breath, I leapt out into the humid night air before I had a chance to change my mind. My stomach turned a full flip. I bit back a scream, horrified at the prospect of being spotted through a window by one of the other girls now.
I was in free fall for only a split second at most, though, before Bene surged upward, catching me as promised.
I slammed atop himhard, jarring me to my bones. “I’m so sorry!” I apologized, beyond certain he would now have a bruise squarely on his upper back when he shifted back into his human form.
But he merely snorted and shot off into the darkness.“You cannot hurt me, you know.”After a brief pause, he quietly amended,“Not like that, at any rate.”
The world fell away, rapidly becoming little more than a blur of dark fields and starlight. No more finishing school. No more Headmistress Whitcombe and her disapproving stares. No more Selina Danbury.
Just Bene, me, and the open sky.
My heart swelled until it threatened to burst free from my chest. For a short time at least, I was free.
“You learned to weave Mind magic!” I exclaimed over the whip of the wind. Flinging my free arm around his neck, I gave him a squeeze.
He rumbled in a way I now knew meant he was speaking in Draconic. If only I knew what he was saying.One day, I promised myself. One day, I would learn his native tongue.
Ifhecould learn an entirely new type of magic simply to speak to me,Icould certainly learn a new language to speak to him.
