I lifted my hand and wiped off the remaining water before squeezing out as much as I could from my hair. “That’s not the same thing and you know it. I forced her into this marriage. We will find a way to break the curse, and then she will go back to her life as princess of Andrathya.”
Exhaustion crept into my bones as the mental and physical toll of the last few days finally caught up to me. I didn’t have it in me to have this argument. Not truly.
“Did you ask her if she wanted to go home?”
“Sinda!” I exclaimed, whirling to face her. “The odds that she is my mate are practically none. I won’t risk the wrath of my dragon if a bond doesn’t work.”
“And if she is your mate?”
My words were sharp, speaking to the pain I felt at the thought, as I countered, “And what if she denies me, still, forgoing our one chance?”
Perhaps I was the one who wouldn’t be able to handle her rejection, not my dragon. Maybe what I’d been doing all along was hurting her before she could hurt me with her choice.
Sinda’s front leg lifted until her talon knocked me back onto my ass.“Silly boy. You have much to learn about love. Sleep now. I sense your exhaustion. I will watch over you all. Perhaps when you all wake, everyone will have more clarity. And sense.”
Sinda was the only dragon I’d entrust to watch over not only myself, but Siyana as well. I was sending a thank you to the undine god for ensuring this was the nest she stumbled into. The results would have been disastrous had she found herself in any other nest, with any other dragon.
I didn’t bother arguing, knowing I’d need my rest as soon as Kaida and Siyana came out of the quickening. Not only would I have my hands full of a sassy, headstrong woman, but I’d also be responsible for a baby dragon that I would need to turn into a battle-ready guardian. No doubt Siyana would treat him like a baby and fight me every step of the way.
As my head lay against the ground and I gazed at the two of them, I couldn’t hold back a chuckle. I’d never pictured myself as a parent, but the thought of raising Kaida together, at least for the time being, had a new kind of warmth radiating in my heart. Thinking of him as a child to take on seemed to settle the beast within me.
My eyes closed and I attempted to give myself over to sleep, but I tossed and turned, unable to. Worry for Siyana’s well-being in such a state gnawed at my mind. Each quickening was different from what we knew, and there was nothing I could do to wake her up from it if her heart began to slow.
Eventually, I gave up on sleep and settled my racing thoughts by simply watching over her. What I wouldn’t give to see those eyes open and look up at me.
I bit down on my lip as I thought back to how haunting her gaze had been only hours earlier. Would she continue to look at me with such distrust and hurt?
Would she even give me a chance to remain at her side with another dragon completing a bond with her, even if it was different from the one my own beast ached for?
None of my questions mattered if she didn’t make it through the quickening.
Chapter Twenty-One
SIYANA
My head throbbedwith a dull ache and my vision blurred as I opened my eyes. I tried to sit up, but my body felt heavy and foreign. Panic set in as I looked around, trying to piece together where I was.
Icy wind bit at my skin as I took in the landscape. The tundra stretched endlessly in every direction, the only landmark a majestic castle of ice looming and glittering in the distance. As I took in my surroundings, I noticed a small, blue baby dragon lying beside me and startled. Its spine was tipped with glistening spikes of ice, and its milky white eyes were fixed on me.
Was I going to be its dinner? It seemed rather docile, the way it slowly rose to its feet and stretched out languidly. Their snout rose and swung to sniff at my face, and I went completely still as flurries of snow danced around us.
Once satisfied with their inspection, it seemed, they let out a soft, almost melodic growl and jerked their head toward the castle. I knew that we were bound together in this strange, frozen world. I wasn’t sure how I knew that, but it just felt like a statement of fact in my mind.
What I couldn’t recall as my brain whirled, was how I’d gotten here, and even worse…who I was.
A wave of fear washed over me as I struggled to piece together fragments of memory that remained just out of reach, teasing me to find a path to tether them back to me.
I blinked rapidly as I slowly rose to my feet, lifting my hands to block some of the glaring light reflecting from the castle and directly into my eyes. It seemed like the only logical option was to head in that direction, considering there seemed to be an endless embankment of snow every other direction I looked. So, why did my stomach fill with dread as I took a step forward?
The warmth of my companion pressed into my side, reassuring me, somehow. I lifted a hand to rest on the side of his neck, careful to stay away from the spikes that gleamed there, threatening to impale me if I didn’t use caution.
We began our trek toward the castle, but as its impressive size began to grow bigger and closer, my boots began to sink through the snow as it built up around us. Each step demanded exhausting exertion, my feet dragging through the mounds. Soon enough, the drifts were up to mid-thigh and I could barely feel my limbs through the tingling coldness that had settled into them. The fluffy snow was beginning to turn to slush around me, seeping into my bones and leaving me trembling with big, body-shaking shivers.
I wasn’t sure when my hand had lifted from the dragon, but as I glanced to the side for help, I found myself suddenly alone. How was that possible? Had I gone in a different direction?
It was as if I’d fallen into some kind of trance, so hyper fixated on the endless stretch of snow surrounding me and moving through it, that nothing else existed.
“Help!” I yelled as fear constricted my lungs, realizing I’d strayed too far from my friend.
