Page 87 of The Dragon Warlord

“Oh, Riv. If you only knew what I would do with you if I didn’t possess the morals I have. I’d make it a war crime for us to be apart at all.”

“I wouldn’t mind that.” Closing my eyes, I inhale him again. “How sore is your arse?”

He groans. “Sore. How is it that even Dragon Land has its own cupboard of things to whack Tristan with? It’s not right.”

“I think I have a remedy for that.” Tristan likes stories about my mother. Especially when he found out that she led the army for some time. Several dragons took turns over the centuries while we waited for Tristan, but the title of dragon Warlord sat vacant, waiting for him. “I never told you that my mother was an alpha. She never bit Father, but she still spanked his arse when he deserved it because they had a special relationship.”

Tristan glows with delight. “If I didn’t already love her this would do it. Damn it, I’m sorry I wasn’t born a few hundred years earlier. And you’re right, suddenly my arse feels a lot better.”

Our pact to keep our distance begins badly. After we watch the sunset, we have a late dinner together on the veranda. Throughout dinner, we keep some part of us touching—knees, hands, feet. It’s already been decided that I’m staying in his room in the cot we pull out for these occasions.

That night, he rolls to his side so that he can face me. “I read something in a book in one of your father’s libraries while he held me hostage in his home.Da’mayet.”

Da’mayet. It’s a word in the ancient dragon language. Tristan has been teaching himself.

“My dragon mate,” I say.Da’mayetmeans dragon mate.

“Yes, but it also means my balance. Dragon mate. My balance. Makes a lot of sense, don’t you think? Everything the bond forces us to do strikes a form of balance, which explains why sometimes things affect you more than they affect me and vice versa. The catch is that the perception of balance is determined by the bond itself, which sometimes acts like a cranky toddler.”

My face cracks with a smile. It’s true, and some might consider that a form of torture, but what’s also true is that there is no one else I’d rather be tortured with.

“Some good comes from it. I see that now. Dragons are violent and volatile creatures, but with our mates, we’re calmed. Also riled up,” he adds, thinking about what’s happened over the past few days, no doubt. “But overall, balanced. I think if we ride the waves of that balance, we could finally be free of the bond’s whims and wishes. We could manipulate it.”

I laugh. “You know, the bond is beginning to sound like an unruly pet.”

“Not a bad analogy. I’ve spoken with many dragons about their bonds and there isn’t a single pairing who can give a straight answer about it. But in their case, they’re satisfied to simply do what their bond dictates without questioning it whereas we are not.”

Well, he is not. I don’t say so though. I have in the past. He doesn’t like to hear it.

“Each bond is unique to the bearers, but the commonality is balance. It seeks balance in some form or another. It decides what that is and fuck you if you disagree.”

“That’s one way of looking at it,” I say, studying him with the moonlight pouring over him. Tristan prefers to keep the blinds to the large double doors of his veranda open so that he can sleep under the moon.

“How else would you look at it?”

“A wild and exciting dance.”

“It’s wild all right.”

Silence spreads over the room and his breathing evens out such that I think he’s fallen asleep, but then a meaty hand shoots out and across the short distance between his bed and my cot. He grips my hand in his fist and then I thread my fingers through his and squeeze back. We don’t say anything, but we don’t need to.

We’ll start our pact to touch each other less tomorrow. Tonight, we hang on for dear life.

16

Dragon Land Year X

River

It’s a clear day even with the hazy glow of blue from all the magic protecting this place, magic that didn’t help a lick to keep away whatever the fuck makes up this horde from hell. As they get closer, they darken the sky and shake the burgundy and purple leaves of the massive flora.

There’s an explosion along the eastern perimeter as they blast their way through yet more of our magical barriers.

“Mother fucker!” Tristan shouts. “Fire in the hole, Riv!”

Just because I can’t be hurt by dragon’s fire directly, there are still plenty of other things the fire can destroy that I can be hurt by. Spinning, my armored jacket flies around me like I imagine my wings would. It’s my new and improved jacket the Warlord had made for me. When he found out that he could have some of his scales woven with mine, he was all about that. During the forging process, he was still able to keep the platinum tone of my scales with the use of a little spell. My sword is in my hand, and the magic from the blade races through me as I dive off a rock and cut into the attack.

Past the tree line, the creatures come into view. Demons. Flying ones. Walking ones. Fanged ones. Ones that spit acidic tar.