Page 117 of Dragon Fight

Golden-haired where Raina was dark, she was still a girl in Zafira’s memory, though I had no idea if she would be now. She swirled around in a circle with all the innocence of a child, a smile on her face, her gown flaring out as she went. It seemed a perfect moment, a young dragon just as bright as the sun at her feet. And the girl swept the dragon up to spin her as well, the two of them caught up in the feeling of it. They both liked the exhilaration of being off kilter, and for Zafira it was the closest thing to flying in a way that both of them could share.

This was Zafira’s true bondmate.

If the dragon had been left to give her heart as she’d willed, this would’ve been our next queen—the one who should have married to our king—not Raina. And I realised that the Harlstonian would do literally anything to keep power in their own hands.

And I had gained that knowledge from Zafira.

Our minds were connected. And Raina had not even realised. She was too caught up with Draven, Beatrice and my men all raging at each other, fighting, fighting as Darkspire hovered overhead, as all dragonkind watched and waited.

When I had first metthem, the riders had tried to explain how their dragons helped them to enforce the law. But when I’d come to the capital, I’d seen how arbitrarily this was applied and I realised that this was Raina’s doing. But it seemed the dragons had been keeping score all the while. Their humming song rose in pitch, and Zafira seemed to hear it for the first time. Her head shot up, and her neck craned around to take in whatever they were communicating, before she turned back to us. Her golden eyes seemed to see us for the first time. They were a much softer gold now, that of the sun and her true bond mate’s hair, not the harsh beaten metal of the setting that held Raina’s stone.

Mother…

A wash of love came in answer to that, filling me and Glimmer up, as the dam that had been holding back everything that Zafira felt finally broke. Glimmer might die, but she would do so in love, in my love, in her mother’s.

Mother, I agreed, and it was like the return of the last moment I remembered of my mother cradling me into her arms, that wonderful certainty of her love filling every crack that had formed since. I was ready to take my punishment, if it meant getting this. Zafira’s head reared up, ready to strike, the sound of the dragons’ song becoming harsh, discordant, when all we could feel was peace.

Perhaps we will be queens in another life, I told Glimmer, holding her close, burying my face in the coppery blood-scented scales of her stomach and just letting my breath out.

When Zafira struck, I felt the whistle of wind, the cries from everyone around me, but no more than that. Because when her jaws crushed together, it was Raina who met her end between them, not me.

The queen was dead. Long live the queen.

67

“There you are.”

My eyes fluttered open to find a very pale Draven standing over me. I was lying on a bed in what appeared to be the ward in the keep, but when my hands flapped wildly around me, he grabbed them and placed them on Glimmer’s side. I could only stare for a moment, feeling the warmth in her body, the slow rise and fall of her flanks.

“She’s fine. You both are. You’re in the palace. As soon as Zafira killed Mother, Darkspire swept the us all up and brought us here. The healer was waiting with the correct antidote on the steps, his skin white as a ghost. My dragon had made clear what would happen to him if his mate didn’t survive.”

“His… mate?”

I croaked the words out and Draven grabbed a glass of water, holding it to my lips needlessly, but not willing to relinquish it until I took a good couple of mouthfuls. The cup hovered after I was done and so did Draven.

“Pippin, you have always been my queen, as Glimmer is ‘Spire’s. All the bullshit games…” He let out a sigh, setting the cup down and surging forward to take me in his arms, his forehead pressed against mine as he spoke. “It all ends now. You are mine just as I am utterly yours.” He let out a choked little laugh at that. “You have no idea how good it is to finally say that.” He paused for a second. “To you. You are everything I’ve ever wanted or needed in a woman, but you are so much more than that. You held a knife to my mother’s fucking throat. You went to your death at Zafira’s jaws.”

“What happened…” I snorted at that. “To Zafira, to everyone?”

“Zafira left the moment she ate my mother. None of the dragons could get her to stay and ‘Spire said… She has a true bondmate out there?”

“I don’t know who,” I said. “She could be a woodcutter’s daughter who is about to get an awful surprise when a massive queen dragon lands at her door.” I paused for a moment, feeling that second-hand longing. “Zafira never stopped wanting to be with her.”

“And, instead, my mother coerced her into becoming breeding stock for my father’s dragon.” His mouth became a thin line as he shook his head. “Both are dead now.”

“Your father…?”

“Whatever my mother was doing, as soon as she stopped, so did he. They found him in his rooms, blood streaming out of his nose. It’s being ruled a stroke.”

“So you…?”

I’d come to the palace as a potential queen-in-waiting and had felt a sense of complete unreality as we’d walked down the halls, and that same feeling rose as I stared at him. He smiled though, all that wickedness and cocky self-assurance still there, not one hint of the grieving son. But I guess he’d been grieving the loss of his parents or the loss of what should have been a parental relationship, since he was just a little child, never really having the opportunity with either of them.

“I am to become king,” he said. “I’ll be holding meetings with all of the dukes forthwith, making clear that all of the previous in-fighting is to come to a stop immediately. Beatrice will be sent back to my uncle, because I have my queen.”

I shook my head just slightly, not enough to alert him, because right now Draven wasn’t seeing me, but the dream he’d obviously held close to his heart, nurturing it even as his world had been going to hell.

“You were always mine, Pippin, and now the whole world will know that, as my queen.”

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