Page 94 of Exquisite Monster

A giant pile of fabric and wayward pillows formed a makeshift bed. Along the walls, tiny scratches marked the time she’d spent here, and I hung my head. She was here with no one but Gleym, who wasn’t anything close to warm and fuzzy. As good as being alone. In a placemeantto be forgotten.

Pain speared through my chest. She should never have been here. No wonder she was angry.

The scraping of Gleym’s staff on the floor alerted me to her presence. “Is she well?”

“As well as she can be.”

A grunt of affirmation.

With a final look at my mate’s bed, I turned back to the ancient dragon. She was just as old as the other Elders, though she’d kept her human form. “I don’t think it will surprise you to know that I am not someone who begs.”

“You? The Heir toalldragons? Of course not, Your Highness.” She blew smoke in my face with one raised brow. “Does that mean you’re about to get on your knees and beg?”

I continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “I won’t insult your intelligence. You know what they’re doing. You know why. They arebreakingthe world for their own whims, and something has to change. You, of all dragons, should understand that.”

“I do.”

“Then will you help us?”

Gleym leaned heavily on her staff. “What would you have me do from my hole in the ground?”

My beast rose to the surface in an instant, power flaring. But even now, I knew I could not win a battle of wills or power, and it was sofucking frustrating. “I didn’t come here for sarcasm and cutting remarks.”

“Then what did you come for? Beyond a basic plea for help, you haven’t asked me anything, little prince. It is an honest question. What help would you like? Are you going to fly me out of this cave and ask me to confront the remaining six? Provide you with some of myinfiniteknowledge? Lead a march on Doro Eche? Ask me an actual question and I’ll give an actual answer.”

Smoke poured from my mouth as I heaved out breath in anger. “If I knew the questions to ask I would have sought solutions long before now. I do not know what to ask when what I need is a way to subvert our very nature. I have pushed myself to the brink and read every tome I could find. I’ve asked everyone I could risk. There isnothingthat can overcome the right of power. I havetried.”

“Is there nothing? I don’t know that to be true.”

I shoved past her and stormed back toward the entrance of her home. If all I was going to get was vague cynicism, my time was better spent with my mate.

“Wait,” she called, following me slowly.

“Only if you stop speaking in fucking riddles.”

Gleym chuckled. “You must forgive an old dragon, Endre. I spoke truly to your mate in that I do not mind my life down here. But I admittedly do not have much practice with nor patience for others.”

My hands curled themselves into fists. “I don’t need your patience, I need your help. If you cannot offer that, then there’s nothing more for me here.”

I turned, but didn’t make it a step before she spoke once more. “Come. Sit.”

Her eyes sparkled with amusement when I turned back. Hope flared to life and I tried to smother it. Hope was too dangerous. “Why?”

Another puff of smoke curled in the darkness. The Gleym smirked. “I never said I wouldnothelp.”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

________

KATALENA

Terror gripped me as I fell. Gleym wouldn’t save me this time. Andaros had made sure of that. Now it was me and only me falling. The last one. The hole hadn’t been this bright the first time. I hadn’t been able to see the bottom. Stars. The fear was a living thing inside me. No longer was there water or a dragon to catch me.

I gasped, my back arching in phantom pain and shock before I realized I wasn’t dead. Clearly, the potion I made hadn’t helped the nightmares. It made it easy to fall asleep, but it didn’tkeepme asleep. Maybe I needed the stronger version I’d learned for incapacitating enemies.

Hauling in a breath, I opened my eyes. I was lying on a soft mattress, my mate looking down on me with concern. Sirrus had a hand beneath my neck, searching my body with his eyes for the source of the pain. “You were thrashing,” he said. “And I felt?—”

A different kind of fear crept up and gripped my lungs with shadowed claws. “You can feel my dreams?”