“Don’t worry about it. Let’s just train.” His mouth pulled to the side as he sliced into his tender hand. He turned away from Kyrith, toward the center of the cavern. The air knocked from his lungs as Kaida sprang free and nearly took him to his knees, the drain on his magic at an all time high.
Kaida shook her great shadowy body and her crimson eyes slid to Vesper in a sly sneer.
On a heavy breath, Kyrith said, “Will you let me help you?”
“That’s what you’re here for, right?” His exhaustion sat on his chest. “What am I doing wrong, now?”
Kyrith took his hand again, and this time, his entire body turned to stone. “You’re not doing it wrong,” she said, gently, a tone she’d never used with him. She extended his palm toward Kaida’s snout, and the dragon stopped her side-eyeing to sniff the blood wafting from Vesper’s hand. Kaida took a step toward him, and butted her snout up against it.
Then she purred.
And the drain on him … lessened.
Vesper gaped first at Kaida whose eyes shut in submission, and next at Kyrith who kept her hand pressed to his. “How did you—”
“You need to bond,” she replied. “You have to be one with her, or she’ll fight you at every turn.” Her eyes slid down to the teeth marks in his arm. “And evidently take a chunk out of you.”
His traitorous eyes took in Kyrith’s high neck cobalt-blue shirt. How the fabric clung to her curves. Vesper tried not to look or meet her gaze or feel the weight of her hand on his, but his frantic heart thrashed in his chest and wouldn’t slow. Especially as her hand lingered and her blackberry scent invaded his senses.
His mind fell back into the memories of this last week. Him settling into a free tiny house, drinking at the tavern each night, swapping stories, Nef laughing with the rest of them, how the citizens of Rensburrow would come up to Kyrith and chat with her. Fawn over her. And all of this was easy. Fluid. And for this short time, even though he missed his friends terribly, Vesper wanted to pretend this was his home.
Kyrith had never even passed him a glance. She had always looked at him like she’d seen all she needed to. But now—
She stared at him in a way she never had before. How really no one else had looked at him. Like he wasworthsomething.
And at that precise moment Stiggy came barreling into the cavern, chasing a screeching rat. It skittered and darted for escape, but the little dragon was faster. She snatched it up into her mouth and swallowed it whole.
Kyrith yanked her hand away and turned to her dragon. “Gross, Stigs.”
Vesper scrunched his nose. “Does she do that often?”
“To her, rats are a delicacy,” Kyrith said. She wouldn’t look at him as she shoved back her hair from her face and said to her dragon, “Stiggy, why don’t you go see Thorrin?”
The dragon puffed a plume of smoke into the air then froze as her eyes met Kaida’s. The two watched each other, neither of them moving. They both made low growls that ended in a higher pitch. It didn't sound entirely aggressive and Vesper bloody hoped it wasn’t. The last thing he wanted to do was break up a fight.
Kyrith twisted her mouth to the side. “What do you say we go for a ride? It would be good training.”
He didn’t know how to process this shift. How she softened to him. After a few tense moments in which he told himself he needed to reply and not be awkward, he cleared his throat and said, “If you think so.”
Vesper rounded his dragon and leapt onto Kaida in the smoothest move he could manage, then offered her his hand. She studied the saber pactum before she hesitantly placed her hand in his and he yanked her onto Kaida’s back. But she didn’t sit behind him but nestled in the space between his thighs as Stiggy leapt into her lap, too. He didn’t breathe as she leaned back into him, almost tested to see what he would do. If he would touch her, or—
He wasn’t sure of the boundaries. “Can I—do you want me to hold onto you? She’s getting better, but it may be a bit bumpy.”
A laugh burst from her. “I’m not afraid of a little roughness.”
He nearly groaned.Gods, she’d be the death of him. He pulled on his mask and wrapped an arm around her soft middle.
“But try anything,” Kyrith hissed, “and lose a hand.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Before either of them were ready, Kaida shot toward the gaping hole in the ceiling like a flaming arrow. Kyrith fell back into him.
“Don’t fuck around!” Vesper scolded. The dragon shot a smug grin of sharp fangs over her shoulder. “Stop, Kaida.Slow!”
Kyrith had the audacity to laugh. “Reach into your mark. Lean into her but also let her lean into you too.”
Vesper snorted at the ridiculousness of that. Why would Kaida lean on him? But as he sank into his mark and found Kaida there, they both faded together, their hearts melded. Her wings shot out like black shadowy fans as tendrils trailed behind them, and she soared.