“You would need to cross into the forbidden lands. It is rumored if the gods deem you worthy of entering their world, a portal will appear. If you aren’t, they take your life to feed their own energy, in retribution for seeking them out.”
Instantly, my dread swelled to new heights, completely snuffing out any ridiculous pride I’d initially felt for my idea.
“You mean Sanctum?”
In the center of Edath, bordering all of the kingdoms, was Sanctum. The territory was a neutral ground claimed by none. I heard tales of many disappearing from each kingdom and never being seen again, but the myths I’d heard were that there were sirens within, calling out to lone travelers and drawing them into the mists that covered the land there.
Perhaps the sirens were truly the gods.
“Yes, now take a seat or lay down. The twins will need to sleep deeply to gain strength after their birth, and you cannot leave until Kaida has awoken.”
I glanced down at my dragon and smiled before gently lowering myself to lay next to him. Reaching out, I ran my fingers along his cheek, needing to feel just how real he was as Iquestioned if this was all a dream and I’d really been killed by his mother.
He purred and tightened his tail around my ankle.
Who would have thought the denial from a drackya would lead me to finding the bond I sought in a full-blooded dragon?
Chapter Twenty
THEO
The tipsof my wings scraped against the walls as the tunnel narrowed, but I refused to collapse them, needing to get to my wife as quickly as possible. Maybe I would be forced to give her up at the end of this, but for now, she was mine, and I was the reason she was now in danger.
There was a dragon blocking her mind from being reached, and I didn’t know which. Whoever they were, no matter their size or power, I’d have them cowering beneath my wrath if they harmed a single hair on her head.
My warning growl ripped from me and through the tunnels as I followed her scent.
I’d been so obsessed with not allowing my dragon to claim her that I’d sent her right into the jaws of another, but this time it was a full-blood. There would be no hesitation from them, no possibility of her being a mate to them—she was the enemy to them all. Nothing more. Nothing less. She was simply a human encroaching on their territory, despite the announcement that a human queen was here. Without a bond to me, she lacked the scent of a true dragon queen. Any dragon worth their mettle would question her, even if she claimed to be such.
The only thought keeping me sane in my search through the endless tunnels and alcoves was the knowledge that she was alive since I could still sense her mind, even if I couldn’t reach out to it. I didn’t understand the looping route her scent had led me on, but now that it was growing stronger, I was confident that I’d found the tunnel she’d gone down.
“Alstrid!”
The elder dragon once again didn’t answer, likely meaning he was in a deep, restorative sleep. He would be of no use to me, so I did something I swore I’d never do and opened my connection to all of the dragons within the mountains, asserting my dominion as king and forcing myself into their minds.
“All undine dragons, hear me as your king. If you are in the presence of a human woman with tanned skin that has a warmth to it like the sun, bright blue eyes like the peaks of our mountains, and the size of a baby dragon in height, you may not touch her. That is my wife and your queen. If I find she has been harmed by whoever is shielding her mind from me, I will destroy you.”
I didn’t make that threat lightly. The trust between dragons and drackya within Andrathya was a tense thing, and it had taken a very long time to come to our current terms of coexistence. Many generations of drackya had passed since the shaky peace had been established, and I bore no excitement over possibly being the king that ended it with my use of power and threats.
I was overwhelmingly hit with responses, some calling me a fool for disturbing them and others swearing they didn’t have her. A rumbling growl grew in my throat, frustration tearing through me as viscerally as the guilt that gnawed on my insides. If something were to happen to Siyana before I found her, I alone would be responsible.
A light appeared at the end of my tunnel and hope flared within me. Siyana had to have gone toward the light, hoping to be able to see.
“Calm down, young one.”
“Sinda?”
“Yes, I have your human here.”
I couldn’t help but correct her,“You mean the queen?”
Sinda scoffed into my mind.“She has yet proven to be worthy of such a title, and I don’t think I need to remind you that she won’t be recognized as queen until you have a bond with her.”
It was because of the bond I knew Sinda had with my mother that I held my tongue at her attitude. She’d never see me as an adult–and likely never would–having been present for my birth and her own lifespan being more than quadruple that of mine.
“Where are you?”I demanded to know.
She didn’t need to answer, because a second later I descended into the nest that was covered in Siyana’s scent. My eyes instantly closed in on her small, unmoving form curled up next to a newborn ice dragon. They were surrounded by a thick wall of ice. My heart thundered in my chest as my mind swirled with what felt like a thousand questions all at once.
