Nyfain had effectively drugged us, and I hadn’t been the wiser because he’d chosen a collection of flavors designed to muddle the taste.
My animal kept pushing, desperate to be heard. I finally relented, opening a crack so we could communicate.
He’s gone, she said, and her panic infused me. I can’t feel his magic connecting us anymore. He cut us off.
“Finley, are your eyes glowing?” Sable said as her mouth dropped open. “Hannon, are her—”
I pushed Sable’s words to the back of my mind, focusing instead on a strange, dark hole deep inside of us.
He went back to the castle last night, I said. Obviously we wouldn’t be able to feel his power from here.
You don’t understand. Since that time we helped Hadriel, I’ve always had his dragon’s presence with me. I thought that meant we were working toward mating and just waiting for you idiots to get your shit together. It got stronger when he was here. And now it’s gone. He’s ripped it away. He’s broken the connection.
Why didn’t I know about the connection?
Because you’re dense? I don’t know. He basically blasted us with it. I accepted, and there we were.
That must’ve been what I’d thought was Nyfain’s power washing through me, sometimes held by my animal, sometimes pushed back. They’d been playing footsie for days, but I hadn’t realized it was anything permanent.
Except…she was saying it was no longer there. He’d severed it. He’d cut me out.
No, his dragon had. His dragon had apparently heard the things he’d said to me and chosen to walk away. Except animals didn’t care about social stuff. They didn’t care about kings and commoners. At least, mine didn’t.
Maybe the dragon of a prince understood things a little better.
“He’s gone,” I said flatly, not sure how to feel.
Memories flooded me. How many times had Nyfain told me what would happen if the curse was broken? Hadriel had hinted at it, too.
The demon king had killed the defenders of the kingdom. He’d killed anyone capable, for goddess’s sake. Anyone who could hold a sword or even just do their job well. Once the curse was broken, the demon king could kill Nyfain and move in. Nothing would stop him.
But that had always been the case, and Nyfain had done his duty anyway.
I remembered what he’d said the other night when the poison was taking hold.
“The last sixteen years have been misery. Each day has been worse than the last. I am so tired, Finley. I am so tired of this nightmare that never seems to end.”
Fear lodged in my middle, blotting out reason.
He’d left here half healed. He’d ventured into the wood in a weak state at night, when the demons would be prowling. He hadn’t a hope of defeating all of them in the state he was in.
But that hadn’t mattered to him. He was a man of duty, late to the game, maybe, but now the only fierce defender of the kingdom. He’d try to clear the wood even in the state he was in. I knew he’d go out and die fighting, if that was his fate, and the curse would die with him. When it did, he’d expect me to make a deal with the demon king for my family and village. For my kingdom, if possible.
Didn’t he know that was madness? I would never have let him put himself in jeopardy like this without trying to help—
And that was why he’d drugged me. Because he knew that I’d follow and try to help him. We’d always had our differences, and half the time he’d annoyed the shit out of me, but that didn’t matter when it came to helping people. He knew I would go down with him if it came to it. And he clearly would not suffer putting me in harm’s way.
Well, fuck that. I was not some delicate flower, and this time he’d gone too far.
I ran into my room, changed, grabbed my trusty pocketknife, an older dagger that would have to do, and ran out the front door. If he wanted me to play hero, I would.
And I’d make him my damsel.