Page 215 of Feralheart

I let my shoulders drop.

“I’ve never seen coloring like hers before.” She stopped a few feet away.

“Elite dragons are bred to be black or red.”

Selira’s coloring would mark her as other even if her wild-born stripe didn’t.

She nodded. “I don’t understand why, not when there are colors like this.”

“Control, maybe, even of the dragons. Being wild-born changes everything.” I kept brushing, the motion giving my hands something to do.

She came closer, her dragon trailing behind her. Up close, I saw the shadows under her eyes and the tightness around her mouth that came from holding something back stood out starkly. We’d all left something in the last trial.

“May I?” She gestured to Selira.

I nodded.

Lyndie ran her hand along Selira’s foreleg, her touch careful. “When I was elite, before…” She paused. “They taught us grooming techniques. Ways to calm agitated dragons. Make them more compliant.”

The elite were all about compliance, applying it to dragons, commons, and even themselves.

Lyndie’s hand slid up Selira’s neck to her jaw, her fingers moving with the familiarity of someone who’d done this a thousand times. She found a spot behind the hinge and pressed.

Selira’s entire body went liquid. She made a sound between a purr and a sigh, and it vibrated through my palm where it rested on her neck.

“How did you⁠—”

“Pressure point.” Lyndie’s fingers didn’t move. “Elite dragons respond to it. Makes them docile.” Her throat worked. “Grimstone loves it.”

“Your dragon is named Grimstone.”

She nodded.

“Show me,” I said.

Lyndie guided my hand to the spot, her fingers cool on mine. “Here. Gentle pressure, like this.”

Selira’s rumble deepened, her contentment flooding our bond.

“There.” Lyndie pulled her hand back. “She’ll remember now. It’ll work faster next time.”

If there was a next time. Neither of us said it out loud.

“Dragons are dragons,” she said. “The court didn’t change them. It only broke them.”

“Like the elite try to break the commons.”

Her hand dropped away, smacking against her thigh. “I’m not that person anymore.”

“Who are you now?”

“I’m still figuring that out.” Her mouth curved without humor. “Losing everything makes you question who you were when you had it all.”

We’d been watching the same horror. Her, from inside, as the elite destroyed what they claimed to love. Me, from the stables, as I polished the chains they’d forged.

Fen came closer, watching Selira quiver from my touch.

“Could I try?” he asked.