Page 18 of Dreams and Dragon Wings (Clean Fairytales for Adults #2)
Benevolence
Now
I drive forward into the night, my wings carving a ruthless path. Faster . I must be faster.
The Corona Ignis blazes where it rests above my brow. The Air bends to my will, carrying me onward. Over villages. Cities. Farmlands. Forests. Faster than I have ever flown.
Chasing something bright. Something fierce. Something impossible: a thread of Mind so powerful it binds me to Aurelia even across that great distance.
A thread that snapped into place the moment I ripped open the Door.
“Bene!”
Her voice cracks through me like lightning. Undeniable. Unmistakable. I know it just as surely as I know my own pulse.
But it is not just her voice that fills my thoughts. It is all of her.
Her fear. Her pain. Her desperate need.
With each beat of my heart, her magic sears through me and hooks deep—so vivid it steals my breath. I’ve never felt anything like it. Not even from Velda.
My chest swells with pride, with awe.
Even untrained, her power is unmatched. And even though she knows nothing of what she truly means to me, still I am the one she reaches for when she is in need.
Instinctively, my queen calls for me.
And I must answer.
But when the dark spires of Spindleton blot the horizon, the most intoxicating scent slams into me with such force that my wings skip a beat. My thoughts scatter like autumn leaves.
Aurelia.
Deep inside me, something stirs: the hunger again.
The desire to consume, to possess, to hoard .
I want her. I need her. She was always meant to be mine—
A bell booms in the near distance, tolling out a warning. Heralding my approach for all of Spindleton to hear.
Through the bond, I taste Aurelia’s fear.
Through her eyes, I see the room where she is being held. I see Friedemar and a man I do not know, silhouetted in a dark doorway. I see the box the latter holds, threads of Spirit radiating from it like waves of heat.
I know what the box contains without even needing to see it opened.
Panic grips my heart. Fresh rage rips through me.
How? How has Friedemar come to possess such magic?
It cannot be.
But I see it with my own eyes.
Air surges beneath my wings. Faster. I fly faster—straight for the palace looming at the very center of Briarhold’s great city. Straight for the stone walls they think can possibly keep me from Aurelia.
Nothing can stop me. Not Spindleton’s gate. Not Friedemar’s pitiful soldiers. Not the arrows that shatter against my scales. Not the bell that tolls my approach.
Far below me, screams ring out into the night. The stench of human fear chokes my senses. But I barely notice.
As I approach the backside of the palace, all I see is her , sitting atop a balcony railing. Radiant. Wreathed in magic. Burning like a star guiding me home.
My eyes fixate on her and only her. I don’t want to look away. I never want to look away.
I can’t look away.
Not when she suddenly tumbles backward off the balcony.
Not when she falls.
“Naei!” That word tears from my throat—a roar that seeks to split the heavens.
She answers me with a scream. A wordless cry for help.
I don’t think.
I just dive.
Air responds to my thoughts before I can even finish thinking them. Glittering purple threads rush past, sweeping under Aurelia, slowing her fall.
More magic ripples in her wake, streaming in the wind. So much untapped potential.
Deep in the darkest places of my soul, my Shade stirs.
The things I could do with that magic. With her magic. It would be so easy. To wield threads of Spirit. To bind Aurelia’s soul to mine. I could keep her with me always .
… Or I could consume her very essence—her most precious gift of all—before her body even shattered against the earth.
Her magic could be mine. My own. Mine .
“Naei,” I snarl aloud, refusing to listen. Refusing to surrender.
Please , I pray to my God. Help me.
I cannot do this without Him.
“Bene!” Aurelia shrieks, her hands reaching out for me.
Flattening my wings against my sides, I fall all the faster. My front paws extend, claws reaching for the beautiful fae beneath me, ready to snatch her out of thin air.
But no. I might hurt her. I would never forgive myself if I hurt her.
I shift in the next moment, transforming into my human form. The wind catches at my clothes, my cloak. The Corona Ignis shifts with me, settling heavy on my brow.
Above me, shouts ring out into the night.
Friedemar.
“Shoot him down! Now! Do it now!”
A mad laugh explodes from my throat, but the bitter tang of Aurelia’s fear across the bond brings me back to the present. Back to the fact that we are still falling.
With a twitch of my fingers, I draw the Air already wrapped around her tighter, closing the distance between us until there is none at all.
Screaming, wide-eyed, she flies into my embrace and slams against me. Hard . I wrap an arm around her waist, pinning her to me, steadying her as I slow our fall completely. Leaving us hovering.
Warmth. Light. Summer. That is what she is.
These are the things that flood my senses, drowning out all else.
The shouts of the soldiers racing along the ground beneath us like agitated ants. The screams of Friedemar far overhead, demanding my head. The clang of the bell still ringing in the distance, warning of danger—warning of me .
They are nothing to me with Aurelia in my arms once more.
“Bene,” she whispers, that single word shivering through the scant space between us.
I shiver right along with it, basking in the melody of her voice.
Na mavelen sha. I missed you. That is what I want to say. But when I catch sight of the wound splitting her lip, the blood on her chin, I forget all else.
I reach for her, longing to lift her face toward mine. Within my hold, she trembles. Within my soul, a long-buried longing stirs. Hers? Mine?
Or that which belongs to my Shade?
My hand freezes before my skin ever makes contact with hers. Better I not risk it.
Gently, I weave just enough Air to tip her chin upward, to let me better inspect the damage Friedemar has done.
Beneath the moonlight, Aurelia is even more beautiful than I remember—a vision painted in alabaster and gold.
A faint luminescence pulses beneath her skin, making her shine as brightly as any star.
My jaw hardens as I tilt her face to the side and spy the dark bruise blooming on her cheek. Friedemar has committed the greatest of crimes: violence against a woman.
My woman.
I am going to kill him.
Tears shimmer in the eyes of my queen— Na’therya .
“You came,” she whispers.
“ Vaei ,” I breathe back as my arm around her waist tightens, as I tip her chin upward by just a touch more. Starlight dances in her summer-sky gaze—eyes in which I long to drown. “You called, Na’therya .”
I speak those words across the thread of Mind still linking us—a thread of her own weaving—and delight in the way that simple utterance makes her breath audibly hitch in her throat.
If only I could steal her breath again and again. If only I could make her heart race, just as she makes mine. But I know these moments between us are stolen ones. Fragile. Fleeting.
Already, I have wasted too much time.
My aunties will realize what has happened before too long—that I am no longer in the Living Waters, that I have taken up the Corona Ignis, that I have opened the Door. They will come for me. They will try to stop me before I can do the unthinkable.
Just as I have always prayed they would.
“Aurelia,” I whisper, my tone turning urgent. “There are things I must tell you—”
But my words shift to a roar as something thumps into my left shoulder. Pain radiates from that point—dull, throbbing. An arrow. Someone has shot me.
Aurelia screams as more arrows descend like a dark cloud, threatening to pierce us both.
From far away, I hear Friedemar shout, “No! Not her! Do not shoot her !”
With a scream of rage, I draw in threads of Spirit and weave them around us both, shielding us from the onslaught. I adjust my grip on Aurelia, wrapping both arms around her now. My shoulders hunching, I brace myself.
“Hold on, selira feyra ,” I whisper against her hair.
“Bene!” she screams in reply, her voice ringing in my ears as, with a gust of Air, I fling us toward the palace.
And straight through the nearest window.