Beneath me, Zenevieve’s breasts are crushed against my chest. She curves her fingers around the nape of my neck, and that’s when I realize her lips are tantalizingly close to mine. So close that we’re sharing the same breaths, and hers are short because most of my body weight is pressed onto hers.
“Did I hurt you?”
Her eyes run over my lips and down my chest, and I follow her gaze and see the extremely obvious bulge of my cock and knot pressed tight against her hips.
I take a panting breath. “Sorry, I…”
Zenevieve reaches down, and she draws her slender fingertips over the outline of my cock. My heart is lodged in my throat. I take a shuddering breath as she plays with the head, sending hot sparks through my body, and when she draws her fingers down my length and over my knot, I groan and bury my face in her throat. She goes on stroking me, over and over, while I pant and groan and whisper her name. I’m grateful for Nilak’s sheltering wings because there are dragonriders all around us, and I can’t seem to shut up. A spasm goes through me, and as my hips thrust instinctively into her touch, I nearly spill my seed and burst my pants open with my swelling knot.
My mouth finds her throat. My lips pull back from my teeth so that I can sink my dragines into her flesh and mark her as mine.
But before I can, there’s an earsplitting crack, and the barrier keeping us out of Emmeric’s stronghold shatters.
Zenevieve twists in my arms so she can see what’s happening. Hope transforms her beautiful face, and she grasps my shoulders. “Stesha, we can reach Shar.”
I look up and see that Zenevieve is right. The barrier is down, and the dark stone of Emmeric’s castle stronghold stands before us. I see the tower that Isavelle described, the one where Shar is imprisoned. I wrap my arms around Zenevieve and pull us both upright in the saddle.
As the dragon army takes to the air with Zabriel at its head, Nilak spreads her wings, and we split off from the other dragons, flying for the tower.
I keep one arm securely around Zenevieve so she’s tight against my body. She wants Shar back in the flare, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to make that happen for her.
26
Zenevieve
The sounds of battle are all around us, the roars of dragons and the whir of wyvern wings as they dive at the enemy spellcasters. Emmeric has summoned a great undead army to defend his stronghold. A shiver goes through me as I witness that the bad-tempered, spiteful boy I once knew is capable of so much evil.
One of Stesha’s arms is tight around my waist as Nilak flings a boulder at the sea of undead soldiers, tumbling through the enemies like skittles and shattering them into bony splinters. She snatches the boulder up again, and we climb higher. Stesha’s face is grimly determined, and I can feel his focus as he silently communes with his dragon. This time, Nilak hurls the boulder at a turret, and then another at a wall. She roars in triumph as it comes tumbling down, then paints a line of dragonfire on the ground, incinerating the undead and giving us a safe space to land.
As soon as my feet hit the ground, I draw my new sword, and Stesha draws his. Nilak turns to replenish the flames to keep the undead on the battlefield away from us. There appears to be no one moving inside the castle, at least in the part we’ve broken open. Stesha and I exchange looks, then clamber over the rumble to get inside. My heart rate quickens. The hole is large enough for Shar to pass through. This is the way we’ll lead him out of the prison Emmeric forced him into and lead him back to the flare.
Stesha points to our left, toward the base of the tower that’s shrouded in darkness. “Shar is that way, if Lady Isavelle described this place to us correctly.”
The air is dank and stale as I hurry forward. Up ahead, I see a faint glow and a large, dark shape lying on the ground, and I break into a run.
He reaches for my arm. “Zenevieve, wait.”
But I’m wound too tight with hope and anxiety to listen. As I draw closer, I see the glow is from giant manacles that are clamped around all four of the dragon’s legs. Isavelle described how Shar was being kept, but nothing prepared me for the ghastly sight of a dragon in chains. His beautiful body doesn’t move. His scales are dull and lifeless, and his eyes are closed. I swallow down a sob at the sight.
But Shar is not alone. There’s a tall figure with his back to us, brandishing a dagger in his shaking fist and muttering to himself. He raises his voice and lowers it again. “I won’t. Shut up.Shut up.”
Emmeric’s tight, angry voice sends cold shivers through my body. Clammy sweat breaks out on my brow and my lower back. I fear this man for many reasons, and most of them I can’t remember.
Emmeric hears our footsteps, and rounds on us with a gasp. As he looks first at me and then Stesha, there’s devastation inhis eyes. Then his eyes narrow with hate, and I realize why he’s brandishing a dagger. He’s here to kill Shar.
Stesha raises his sword, and his free hand closes around my wrist, drawing me back and stepping protectively in front of me. “Emmeric. Put the knife down.”
Emmeric looks back and forth between us with an expression of disgust. “So you found your way back to each other.” He draws a deep breath into his lungs as he stares at me, then he flicks his gaze at Stesha. “But you’re still as miserable as ever. Good.” He smiles, and there are no dragines in his mouth. The black, midnight blue, and gold have faded from his eyes and hair, just as Minta’s coloring has faded from mine. I wonder how that can be when Shar yet lives.
“Your barrier is breached,” Stesha tells him. “There’s an army at your gates. It’s over, Emmeric.”
“Do you think this castle is what’s protecting me? I’m immortal. The whole world is my castle.”
“Please don’t hurt Shar,” I plead with him.
“What, this thing?” Emmeric asks. He waves a hand, and his eyes flame green. The magical, glowing chains locked around the dragon vanish. I hold my breath, waiting for Shar to open his eyes. Lift his head. I know he lives because his chest is faintly rising and falling. Otherwise, Shar is as still as stone.
“Shar, please wake up,” I call to the dragon. Tears are welling up in my eyes. I have a horrible feeling I’ve seen Emmeric smirking at me while standing over an unmoving dragon.
