“What the…” I breathed out, trailing off as I tried to make sense of the mark on my skin.
A light blue circle was etched into my skin, and as I dipped my head to look closer, I could see what was a dragon that seemed to be curling around to almost eat its tail marked above my breast.
My hands flew to my temples as the walls of my mind were attacked and ripped apart with ease. Pain seared behind my eyes and a deep throbbing began throughout my head, leaving me breathless as I struggled to grapple with the pain.
“You are weak and unworthy of being bonded to my offspring.”
“What? Bonded?”
My eyes were squeezed shut as I fought through the waves of nausea that began to roll through me in combination with the pain. Somehow, I got the impression that vomiting on the floor of the cave wouldn’t endear me to the already infuriated voice in my head.
“Look at me when you are speaking to me, human.”
It hit me then that the rich, commanding voice was a dragon. They were speaking to me as Theo did.
A moist snout bumped against my face and I opened my eyes, squinting as the room spun around me from the attack on my mind. Disorientation in the face of a grown dragon was high up on the list of things I didn’t want to ever feel again.
On instinct I reached out, placing my hands on the baby dragon who’d bravely stepped in front of me, protecting me with his life. The sides of his face were rough, but much softer than the skin I’d felt on Theo’s. It must harden as they age, I reasoned. This certainly wasn’t the time to be thinking such things, but my mind couldn’t seem to latch on to the fact that I was in imminent danger.
The baby’s wings were now tucked at his sides, and he gave his back to the looming threat that was his mother. I didn’t like how exposed it left him, guilt gnawing my insides raw at the thought of being the party responsible for any harm that came to him. I stumbled around him as I dropped my hands to my side. Lifting my arms out at my sides to make myself a bigger target, I planted my feet in front of him.
I attempted to reach back out mentally as I’d done with Theo, but was met with a block, so I settled with yelling out, “Will you hurt him for protecting me?”
Her pupils narrowed to slits as she brought a large foot up before slamming it into the ground. I tried not to focus overly much on the way my legs trembled in response to the earth-shaking stomp of her massive, clawed foot. Her talons dug into the ground, the screeching sounds of rock being gouged through stinging my ears.
“Do not insult me. We protect our young with our lives.”
I kept my arms up, despite feeling him nudge at them from behind me.
“I’d also give mine up for him,” I answered, lifting my chin and trying to muster all the false bravado I could find within myself. “I owe him that, now.”
Her large head jerked back and a chuffing sound came from her, over and over, like she was laughing.
“You owe him far more than that, rider. He awoke at your presence, sensing the soul he found worthy of a bond. Your lives are now intertwined.”
Her large eyes blinked before her massive head swung down to sniff at me. I’d thought Theo’s dragon large, but as she loomed over me, I realized I wasn’t even tall enough to reach above her ankle. The undine shifters must have far advanced magical abilities over the full-blooded undine dragons to even stand a chance in a fight.
I tilted my head back to look up into her eyes. “I don’t understand. I’ve not heard of a human in Andrathya bonding to a full-blooded dragon. How did this happen?”
She shifted her nose to the left of me and I watched her long tongue snake out to lick at the baby behind me. Dragon spit bounced off my face and I flinched, waiting to see if it hurt me in some way. When I realized it wouldn’t, I barely resisted the urge to wipe it off, disgust filling me. Who knows what had been in her mouth recently. A deer or a bear, perhaps.
I dropped my arms, sensing no animosity from her other than her finding me wholly inadequate. The baby dragon I was supposedly bonded to now wobbled out to stand under her large head. She cleaned him off, seemingly ignoring me for now.
I took the moment to glance around, remembering the tiny spawn that also hated me. Sure enough, the smaller baby was wobbling toward us, seeming weaker than my friend. I moved toward them, wanting to help, but once more, it hissed at me.
“She is angry that she was born early and is weak because of it.”
“Was she born early because of me?”
“The connection as twins is strong, and she didn’t want to be without her brother, but now that you are bonded, she will have to be.”
Remorse filled me as the smaller twin hobbled by me. I watched as she plopped down under their mother’s head, seemingly exhausted from her short trek across the nest.
The mental block I felt in my connection to the mother disappeared before she spoke once more.
“Fret not, they will be able to communicate with each other as we are when they come of age. They just have not developed the skill. It won’t matter how far they are from one another.”
Guilt gnawed at my heart from stumbling upon the nest and awaking these two babies before they were ready.
