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A dragon without its rider is a tragedy. A rider without their dragon is dead.
Sarah Draheim and 1 other person liked this
“Andarnaurram.” The sweet, high voice of the golden fills my mind. “Andarna for short.”
Sarah Draheim liked this
I look Jack straight in those evil eyes and smile. I’m done being scared of him. He ran back in that meadow.
“I didn’t hide out there, and I’m not hiding here.” I raise my chin. “I’m not the one who ran.”
“As aggressive as Baide might be, from the way Tairn’s looking at you, he’ll have no problem scorching your bones into the earth if you take another step toward his rider.”
“It’s up to the Empyrean to decide,”
“Stay close to the wingleader until we return,”
“Look who rode in on the baddest motherfucker around!”
“I’m fine,” I assure him, but that doesn’t quell the worry in his eyes. I’m not sure anything ever will.
“Then you have to choose Andarna.” He nods as if his decree equals a decision made. “The gold one is the safest choice of the two.”
He is absolutely vile
Does Dain think I’m too weak for a dragon as strong as Tairn?
“I’m not choosing,”
“You are. And it has to be Andarna.”
“And it doesn’t matter. It will mean that you won’t be able to ride with a wing, but they’ll probably make you a permanent instructor here like Kaori.”
“They’re a mated pair, Tairn and Sgaeyl. The strongest bonded pair in centuries.”
“Please, do tell me what it is you think I’ve done.” A shape emerges from the shadows, and my pulse quickens as Xaden steps into the moonlight, darkness falling off him like a discarded veil.
Heat rushes through every vein, wakes every nerve ending. I hate the reaction of my body to the sight of him, but I can’t deny it. His appeal is so fucking inconvenient.
“Did I see her outnumbered and already wounded? Did I think her bravery was as admirable as it was fucking reckless?”
“Did I see her fight off three bigger cadets?”
“Because the answer to all of those is yes. But you’re asking the wrong question, Aetos. What you should be asking is if Sgaeyl saw it, too.”
Unfortunately, Tairn chose you all on his own.”
takes all the willpower in my body not to reach for my chest and make sure he didn’t just rip my heart out from behind my ribs, which makes absolutely zero sense, since I feel the same way about him.
“Would you really level that accusation knowing it would have been what saved the woman you call your best friend?”
“And out of curiosity, would you have, let’s say, bent those rules to save your precious little Violet in that field?”
“No. I wouldn’t have.”
“Each time a dragon chooses a rider, that bond is stronger than the last, which means that if you die, Violence, it sets off a chain of events that potentially ends with me dying, too.”
I’m tethered to Xaden Riorson.
“The unbonded are going to try to kill you in hopes they’ll get Tairn to bond them.”
“And honestly, being hunted by forty-one people is a lot less intimidating than constantly watching dark corners for you.”
“While tradition has shown us that there is one rider for every dragon, there has never been a case of two dragons selecting the same rider, and therefore there is no dragon law against it,” he declares. “While we riders may not feel as though this is…equitable”—his tone implies that he’s one of them—“dragons make their own laws. Both Tairn and…” He looks over his shoulder and his aide rushes forward to whisper in his ear. “Andarna have chosen Violet Sorrengail, and so their choice stands.”
“As it should be,” Tairn grumbles. “Humans have no say in the laws of dragons.”
Heat blasts my back, and I hiss in pain as riders on both sides of me cry out.
“You’ll like it,” Tairn promises. “It’s unique.”
A back that has a glistening black relic of a dragon mid-flight stretching from shoulder to shoulder and, in the center, the silhouette of a shimmering golden one.
“You always want me safe.” He’d do anything. Except break the
“You have to know how I feel about you.” His thumb strokes over my cheek, his eyes searching for something, and then his mouth is on mine.
After years, Dain is finally kissing me. The thrill is gone in less than a heartbeat. There’s no heat. No energy. No sharp slice of lust. Disappointment sours the moment,
I don’t want it anymore.
“And you know how hard I’ve worked to be a squad leader. I’m determined to be a wingleader next year, and as much as you mean to me…”
“And maybe next year, if you’re in a different wing, or even after graduation,”
There is nothing more sacred than the Archives. Even temples can be rebuilt, but books cannot be rewritten.
“Let’s get one thing straight, Dain.” I take a step closer, but the distance between us only widens. “The reason we’ll never be anything more than friends isn’t because of your rules. It’s because you have no faith in me. Even now, when I’ve survived against all odds and bonded not just one dragon but two, you still think I won’t make it. So forgive me, but you’re about to be some of the bullshit that this place cuts away from me.”
“Wake before you die!”
“Mine!” Andarna screams. Skin-prickling energy zings down my spine, then rushes to my fingertips and toes, and the next breath I take is in total, complete silence. “Go!” Andarna demands. I blink and realize the first-year in front of me doesn’t. She isn’t breathing. Isn’t moving. No one is. Everyone in this room is frozen in place…except me.
“You’re all fucking dead.”
“Dragons don’t make mistakes.”
