“Oh, I know it’s not my fault,” she says darkly.
Someone snuck into her nursery when she was a baby. The King walked in, in time to hear the curse spoken over Aurora’s crib before the culprit fled.
Let love’s first prick sow despair in its bloom.
The princess looks at me for the first time since she confessed her sins and scans my features with interest. “You’re different too.”
My throat tightens even as I nod. “I am.”
“Is it true? That your skin...burns?”
A wry smile briefly pulls at my lips. Then I dip my hand into the cool water. Steam rises off the creek where I touch it.
“My leathers are special, but most things burn if I touch them. Mainly organic materials. I have to be careful not to touch certain things, like plastics and some fabrics.” It’s the reason I often traverse the Fae Realms. Here, the fae favor stone and metal. Their fabrics are also often resistant to my heat.
“If you touched me, would you burn me?” The shimmering air around her intensifies, and her beauty both sharpens and softens at the same time. Her hunger is reaching out to me. Her curse wants to feed.
I stand, leveling her with a heavy look. “I wouldn’t touch you. And I am not tempted.”
Even as the princess scrambles to her feet, she recoils with what I recognize as rejection. Good. She needs to know she can’t affect everyone.
“I didn’t mean to...I didn’t think you thought I was...” she stammers.
I lift a hand to stop her from spiraling. “I’m just clarifying.”
She follows as I step from rock to rock and head back to the riverbank.
“What about other Dragons?” she asks.
I can’t help the heavy sigh that leaves me. It’s my turn to cast my gaze to the water. “I don’t know if there are any other Dragons.” I don’t know why I have the sudden urge to walk, but she trails alongside me.
“What? What about your family? Your parents?”
“I don’t remember my father, and I was very young when my mom left. One day she just left and didn’t come back. Later, I learned Dragons are solitary, and it’s normal to leave their young to fend for themselves as soon as they’re able.” She might be alive, but I’ve searched far and wide for her. If she is alive, she doesn’t want to be found. As I grew older, I began to understand. I started to feel an intrinsic need to keep moving. To never form attachments. To live a solitary life.
Her brows knit. “How old were you?”
“Six.”
She gasps in horror.
I shrug. “It’s fine. This is how my kind is supposed to live.”
“From what I know,” she says after a beat, “I’m the only Succubus too. Succubae and Incubi were killed off two centuries ago. Too dangerous to let live.” She frowns and kicks a rock out of her way. Then a hopeful smile springs to her lips. “Guess we’re kind of alone together.”
“Alone together,” I echo.
The moment I say it, something shifts inside me.
The restless part of me—the part that always itches to move on, to avoid connections, to keep from getting tethered to anyone or anything—goes still. Like it’s been waiting for this. For her.
I don’t feel trapped.
I feel...anchored.
A weighted silence falls between us, as if something invisible has locked into place beneath the surface of the world.
Aurora rubs her palms down the sides of her simple skirts, eyes darting around. “I don't mind being around you,” she says, then rushes on before I can react. “Not because you’re a Dragon or because you’re supposed to be here, or whatever.”
