Page 21 of Dreams and Dragon Wings (Clean Fairytales for Adults #2)
Aurelia
Now
E verything.
That is the word that should steal my breath—that should stop my heart—as I lie there in Bene’s arms, my head pillowed against his chest.
And yet it is the other— Na’therya —that makes my pulse flutter.
I should be angry. What does he mean by everything ? I should demand he stop looking at me like that , as if he is trying to memorize my features all over again, and start answering the million questions ricocheting through my skull.
I know all this.
But it is difficult to be angry. It is difficult to be anything but utterly lost as I stare up into sapphire eyes that have haunted my dreams nearly every night for the past twelve years.
Am I dreaming still?
Blue light suddenly fills the edge of my vision, drawing my attention toward another pixie. A short, squat pixie with blue curls and eyes too large for her face: Brisa .
“You look just like her,” she whispers, a hint of awe in her voice.
I frown. “Who?”
But it is Velda who answers with a soft, “Your mother.”
My mother. Lord Reggie. Panic grips my heart all over again as Friedemar’s threats roar back to the forefront of my mind. I must save them. Friedemar will kill them both if I don’t.
Before I even have a chance to utter such a thing aloud, a vicious snarl rips from Bene’s throat, as if something unspoken has passed between us.
Setting me back on my feet, his gaze snaps toward a wall of ice now coating the far side of the room.
He sweeps his arm wide, sending a scythe of Air whipping toward the wall.
Shattering it into a million pieces.
A rush of cold spills through the room, flooding the space with yet more mist.
A slender, bespectacled pixie with emerald hair swept back into a no-nonsense bun retreats from the shattered remnants of the ice wall. “Please control yourself!” she calls out. “It is difficult enough for him to manage his emotions at this time without being burdened with your own.”
Glorana .
It takes me a moment to realize she is speaking to me.
“Friedemar!” Bene shouts in his accented Common, clearly as out of practice as I am. “Where are you keeping them?”
Friedemar strides out of the fog, unharmed, unfazed, an insufferable smile on his lips.
His hand falls to the hilt of the sword at his hip and wrenches it free.
Bands of Air, Mind, and Spirit wreathe the weapon, sending the blade beneath rippling between shades of purple, silver, and gold, as if it were forged from liquid rather than metal.
All three pixies gasp and fall back, ringing Bene and me in a protective half-circle.
Confusion, agitation, and a small shred of fear emanate from my dragon king. His muscles tense. A growl rumbles from low in his throat. Stepping between me and Friedemar again, he uses his body as a shield.
“Where did you get that?” Bene asks, his voice little more than a whisper.
But Friedemar doesn’t answer. He merely points the blade toward us and booms, “Benevolence, King of Drakara, you have hereby broken the treaty between our kingdoms. You have come in violence, and I stand ready to protect myself, my lands, and my chosen bride that you seek to steal from me.”
Softer still, the King of Briarhold murmurs, as if relishing every word, “This means war, Cousin.”
Within my mind, Bene’s voice unfurls. “Do you wish to stay with Friedemar?”
My breath catches in my throat.
When I don’t answer, Bene whispers again, more urgently, “It is your choice, selira feyra . Do you wish to stay with Friedemar?”
A million questions careen through my thoughts. Dozens of doubts soon follow.
Everything . By his own admission, that is what Bene has been keeping from me. There are so many things I don’t know. So many more I don’t understand.
Why did Bene call me Na’therya ?
Why does Friedemar want me so desperately?
But as the Aether presses in close again, as it reminds me that it is still here with me, I draw in a deep breath and say aloud in my stilted Draconic, “Naei, na’valraen.”
Warmth immediately unfurls across the strange connection now binding me to my dragon king.
Without another moment’s hesitation, Bene roars, “It was war the moment you dared lay a hand on her.”
Friedemar slashes his blade through the air, sending a bolt of golden lightning arcing toward us. The three pixies draw tight a prismatic shield, weaving it before the five of us.
But it unravels the moment Friedemar’s lightning connects with its gleaming surface.
Velda and Glorana gasp.
But Brisa screams, “Bene! Run!”
Friedemar’s laughter rings hollow. “There is nowhere left to run, I fear. Do you truly think you can outfly all my ballistas? We might not have been ready for your arrival, Cousin, but we will certainly be ready for your departure.” With a smirk, he offers, “Hand over the Jewel, and I will grant you and your pixies a swift death.”
Tension crackles through the air between us all just as surely as another bolt of gilded lightning crackles along the edge of Friedemar’s strange blade. The soldiers cowering behind the King of Briarhold watch on with bated breath.
As do I.
“Bene?” I whisper, trying to keep the fear from my voice, trying to mask my rising tide of panic just as Glorana asked me to do.
Bene subtly shifts his weight to his back foot, edging closer to me. “I need you to trust me.”
“I do,” I whisper back.
“And… please do not run.” Before I even have a chance to ask why , he softly adds, “It will be difficult to resist chasing you.”
Something seems to pass between my dragon king and his fairy godmothers—something I am not privy to—because in the next moment, they move as one.
Brisa and Glorana blast Friedemar and his men with a gust of Air mingled with Earth, flinging them backward.
Velda weaves a web of Mind and Spirit that settles over me like a second skin.
Bene’s left arm snaps about my waist and pulls me tight against him. The fingers of his right hand twitch, drawing forth threads of Fire.
Fire he uses to engulf the floor beneath us, turning it to ash.
I scream as we fall, tumbling down through one floor and then the next, all the way to the ground level of the palace.
Straight into a gallery. Row after row of portraits line the walls of the enormous room, marking generations of Briarhold royalty.
Air sweeps beneath our feet, cushioning our landing.
Shouts still ring out far overhead, followed by sounds of fighting. The very floor beneath my feet trembles with the latest blast.
The moment I am steady, Bene retracts his arm and steps away from me, as if he can’t bear to touch me for a moment longer.
Ridiculous though it is, my chest tightens with the sharp, familiar sting of rejection.
“Velda,” he growls aloud.
His silver auntie is still with us.
Closing her eyes, she sends out a golden strand of Spirit that speeds through the darkness like a shooting star, flitting beneath one of the many doors lining the far wall. After the span of a single breath, her eyes flash back open and she points toward the northeast. “They are this way.”
Rather than using one of the doorways leading out of the gallery, Bene weaves together Fire and Air and blasts a hole straight through the wall in the exact location Velda indicated.
The silver pixie immediately dashes off through the hole and disappears from sight.
“Follow Velda,” he orders me without even glancing my way. “I will walk behind you to better protect you.”
I want to protest. I want to demand he tell me what’s going on before I move another step.
But Mama. Reggie. Their safety is more important than my confused feelings.
I kick off my dancing shoes, leaving me wearing only stockings on my feet, and race after Velda as fast as I dare. The corridor beyond is dark. Deserted. The ball must have ended after that awful business with Lord Reginald and the king.
Footsteps thunder in the distance, driving me onward.
I veer to the right, following the distant gleam cast from Velda’s wings.
Bene follows, his nearly soundless steps lost beneath the shallow hitching of my own breath, the racing of my heart.
I walk briskly, remembering Bene’s warning about not running.
A moment later, a pressure grows just behind my eyes, as if a headache is coming on.
Bene’s voice sounds in my head again. Tense. “Who is ‘Reggie’?”
My steps skip a beat, leaving me stumbling as I round the next corner, following Velda’s distant silhouette like a hound tracking a fox.
Disbelief washes over me. Is Bene truly pilfering through my thoughts?
A flare of irritation tightens my jaw. On pure instinct, I imagine a metal gate slamming into place around my mind, keeping him out.
Behind me, Bene hisses, as if in pain.
“You do not get to ask me any questions. Not until you tell me what you meant when you said you have been keeping everything from me,” I breathlessly inform him, no longer caring that I am being rude , that I am speaking with a sharp tongue to a man far above my station.
This is Bene—a man who is supposed to be my best friend, but whom I am no longer sure I even know.
I have been lied to. Kidnapped. Held against my will. Struck .
I will have answers.