Page 73

But rejecting him will be.Not being able to give him a completed bondismy fault.He said so himself… on various occasions.And I have no idea how to fix that.Maybe sending me to Earth harmed more than my body.Maybe it damaged our bond for good.Now Aruan is forced to exist like this, having found his mate who came back from the dead, only to live with a bond that will never be whole.

The thought floors me.A stone sinks in my stomach.I can never be the mate to Aruan he deserves.I’ve wondered whether he would’ve been better off if the Phaelix had never decided to kidnap me, but now I know better.His existence would’ve been nothing but loneliness and pain.And I don’t know what’s more perilous for Zerra: my presence or my absence.I suspect that an unfeeling Aruan is a hundredfold more dangerous than a feeling one, even when he’s angry.If he had no emotions left, no remorse or affection for anyone or anything, there’d be nothing to prevent him from unleashing the full force of his lethal power.

Despite the pleasant warm weather, a shiver rakes down my spine.

“Come.”He tugs me toward the cliffside of the beach.“Your aunt will be waiting.”

I ponder everything our bond has revealed to me as we trudge across the fine, snowy beach that sucks at our feet like quicksand.My gaze is trained on the distance, my attention focused inwardly, so I don’t spot the big hole opening in front of us until Aruan hoists me into his arms and carries me out of harm’s way.

I glance back at the hole of swirling sand, my heart galloping in my chest.

He lowers me to my feet carefully.“You have to watch where you go.Don’t step on the darker patches of sand.”

“Jeez.”I dust down the legs of my pants.“That was close.”

“Not with me by your side.”He takes my hand back in his.“I’ll never let anything happen to you.”

I let the reassurance of that promise settle me as he leads me underneath the thin trees.Jingling as clear as a bell rings through the air.In a second, the whole bunch of flowers above our heads are chiming, creating the most beautiful, haunting music.

I gape at the flowers, having a sudden urge to reach out and touch them.“What’s that?”

“An alarm system.”

Stopping, I turn in a circle with my head tilted back.“A what?”

“It alerts your family that they have visitors.”

When I raise my free hand toward a cascade of flowers, Aruan grips my wrist.

“They’re dangerous,” he says.

“What?”I utter a laugh.“These pretty little delicate flowers?”

“They’re disguised to deceive.”He picks an unassuming yellow flower from a scrawny bush at our feet and, holding it by the long stem, lifts it to the tiny flowers that drip like a purple waterfall from the high branches of the trees.

Immediately, the air smells sweeter.The chiming turns louder.The flowers directly above us emit the high-pitched sound of an idiophone that vibrates through the air.The moment Aruan touches them with the yellow flower, they close around it.Their pitch amplifies as the petals of the yellow flower turn brown before disintegrating as if being burned by a flame.Their music increases until nothing but the stem is left, and then they turn quiet.

“That’s creepy,” I say, equal parts horrified and fascinated.

“They feed on small winged water dragons and moths, but they’re capable of devouring something as big as a flying dragon.”He continues onto a pebbled path that runs through the undergrowth.“They lure them with their music and scent.”

Small tufts of the cycad beards drift into the air as we pass to float around us like fluffy white balls.

I point at one that passes in front of my face.“What are those?”

“They’re a different kind of alarm system.They float ahead of us to let the dragons know there’s prey on the loose.”

“What do they get out of it?”There must be a reason the plants would be so “generous.”

“Those cloudy pieces will land on the carcass the dragon leaves after his meal and absorb the blood.Once they’ve soaked up their quota, they become heavy and dense enough to roll back to the plants that released them.They ferment on the ground, and the roots of their hosts can reabsorb them.”

The mental image of the blood-soaked cottonwool-ish balls makes my skin crawl.“That sounds like something fromThe Little Shop of Horrors.”

He smiles.“What kind of shop is that?It sounds like a place of torture.”

“It is, in a way, but it’s just a story.”

At the end of the cycad field, we reach a flat slab of stone that drops away at our feet.A vast pasture spreads out in front of us with stegosaurus and brontosaurus grazing in the yellow-green grass.