I swallowed hard, landing roughly next to him, trying not to fall over as landing was not yet something I had mastered.
I didn’t know what to say yet, so I just stood beside him, staring at the solid green jade headstone with gold engraved writing.
Her Majesty, Queen Amelia.
Beloved wife and mother.
Best Friend.
A sob formed in my throat, but it sounded like a hacking growl in my dragon form.
The king looked over at me, his black shiny scales in such contrast to his yellow burning eyes. ‘Don’t try to cry in dragon form. It sounds awful and will scare the local villagers nearby.’
He rarely joked with me, so it startled me and I snort-laughed, which again sounded awful in dragon form. Black smoke leaked from my nostrils.
His lips peeled back, displaying all of his dragon teeth. I was hoping it was a smile and not that he wanted to eat me for laughing at a time like this.
‘Amelia would have liked you. She liked to practice her sword with Regina any chance she got.’
‘Really?’ I asked, I never knew that about her. I’d only ever seen her in a dress with a delicate wave and feminine makeup. Imagining her practicing sword with Regina brought a smile to my lips.
‘After we lost our first child, Amelia ran from the castle crying and I found her here, in the center of the trees weeping. I asked her to come back and that I would build a mausoleum for our lost little one that was bigger than a house, but she said no.’
‘Why?’ I stepped closer to him, hanging on his every word.
‘She said that the trees looked like they were crying too, and she wanted to share her grief with them to lessen the burden. So we buried our first one here.’
My chest ached as sorrow overcame me. It was a beautiful thing to say. The trees did indeed look like they were crying, hence the name “weeping willow.”
What he didn’t have to say was that another child passed, and another, and finally another, along with his wife. And he’d brought them all out here.
‘Thank you for bringing me here. It is a very special place.’
He started to shift into his human form then and I turned, giving him privacy as he put on clothes. Walking over to a field of wildflowers, he pulled a handful of them and placed them on Amelia’s grave. Then he pulled another bunch and I decided to shift as well. Shifting back into my human form felt like pulling the plug on a bathtub drain. You were holding everything in and suddenly it all rushed out. It took me a moment to transform, then I ran over to the basket, putting on a long tunic that hung past my knees and smelled of Drae. It hung well past my knees so I didn’t bother with the trousers.
Drae was laying flowers on the third child’s grave when I pulled a bunch of purple and white blooms, bunching them together, and then met him at the fourth. Without a word, I handed them to him and he placed them on top of the little mound.
We stood there quiet for a long time, just letting the light breeze move the long ropelike branches of the willow, until finally he turned to me with a storm brewing in his gaze.
“I don’t love Joslyn,” he declared, and my entire body went rigid.
Why was he telling me that? Because I was now good friends with her?
“I respect her, I care for her well-being… but I don’t love her.”
My heart rattled my ribs like a cage. I genuinely feared it would leap out of my chest and fall onto the ground, exposing my nerves.
“You must have an heir or the dragon-folk people would die.” I tried to assuage his guilt and he nodded.
“But I could have chosen you,” he said boldly, stepping closer to me, and it was like the entire world had been tipped on its axis.
Why is he saying this? My brain was so befuddled I didn’t even know how to respond. Was he saying he wished he had picked me? Simultaneous excitement and sorrow ripped through me. The king took another step closer. My breast pressed against his chest with only a thin piece of cloth between us and suddenly it felt as if I had stepped into an inferno. Heat like I’d never felt before rushed through me and my upper lip broke out in a sweat. He took in a deep breath, his chest pressing harder against me, and then exhaled a shuddering breath. He leaned forward, licking his lips to wet them.
I wanted to kiss him—Hades, I wanted to bed him right now, but there was one thing flashing through my mind in this moment.
Joslyn.
He might not love her, but she was falling in love with him. They might not be married yet and it might only be a marriage of convenience, but I couldn’t do that to her. She was my friend.