Page 74 of The Dragon Warlord

River’s glowing. “I’m fine, Alpha.”

“C’mon, you two. None of that. Get dressed and get moving. We don’t have a lot of time.”

“Explain yourself,” I demand, not releasing River and instead keeping him trapped against my body, which is set aflame by my blood.

“Well, you wouldn’t listen to me, so I had to take drastic measures.”

“Forget the beasts of the Wastelands, I’m fighting my inner one, begging it not to tear your throat out. You can never do this again, Ikara. Next time, I will kill you.”

“I already knew you wouldn’t kill me, Warlord,” she says, brushing her hand through the air to command the waters of her gift.

Seers. Always claiming to know. I can’t even argue with her when she’s turned out to be correct.

“You’ve condemned us to death,” I hiss at her.

“We’re not going to die. You’re going to bring us back an ice dragon.”

“Us, or you?”

Her devilish smile is reminiscent of her father’s, but her placid voice is what I remember of Amira. “You have no choice, but to find out.” She throws our jackets at us. “C’mon.”

I would like to cover up my omega, so I get moving on that. “How did you do that with the portal? Can you pull them from thin air now?”

“If you understood how they worked, you wouldn’t make a comment like that. There is more than one way to create a portal. I used the moon’s help for that one.”

“In other words, we have to get this done before morning.” The moon is different here, overcast with a dark blue light, but there is still a moon.

“I already told you that we would be back by morning.” Not as afraid of me as she should be, she blithely hands me my sword. She has the good sense to steer clear of River.

“If we make it back, I’m having your hands strapped for touching him.” That should deter her.

“When we make it back, I’ll let you.”

* * *

We trudge through the relentless mire and muck for what feels like years. Thank the Gods she had the good sense to bring our boots. She did not bother to bring us proper clothes and River and I are left to trounce around in our night clothes and jackets. We wear different things to bed. This night was a hot one so we’ve naught but our thin cotton pants, which have already collected whatever mixture of green and brown shite that we’re trudging through. They’ll have to be burned.

The only bright side to being in this gnarly place is that I’m forced to go into battle mode. It distracts me from being River-focused. I’ll always have some amount of attention on him, but I’m not obsessed with hoarding him for now. Instead, we confer and work together on a solution to the problem that’s been thrust before us.

We’ve worked together and lived in each other’s pockets for five years. He’s another limb of mine as I am of his. I don’t remember how I used to go into battle without him. It seems like an impossibility now.

“I am unfamiliar with the layout of their fortress, Warlord, but maybe if you can use that wild blast of firepower, we can smoke them out,” River says.

“If I can get it to work. Brock had to threaten your life.” I won’t soon forget that.

“Now that you know what you’re doing, it will come easier to you, Warlord,” Ikara says.

Yeah, let’s hope so. “If only I’d gotten the chance to try it a second time.”

She shrugs. “If it helps, River is in danger.”

“Yeah, I’m trying to forget that part.” I’m also uneasy with us being out in the open like this. It’s leagues and leagues of open swampy marsh with only a few trees to mark our path with. The trees are covered in something akin to thin black tar. If they’re still alive, it won’t be for long, and they’ll be consumed by this place. Vines and vines of dragon ivy grow as rampant as the weed it is. After today, if I never see dragon ivy again it’ll be too soon.

A stray thought catches my attention and I laugh.

“Something funny, Warlord?” River says.

“Papa often threatened that my room would turn into a stinking bog if I didn’t clean it regularly. I think this is what he meant.” Servants kept my room in the palace clean, but I was made to tend to the one in the barracks so that I didn’t become too spoiled.