Page 46 of The Frost Witch (The Covenants of Velora #1)

I’d seen my share of monstrous creatures during my time in the coven lands. But I’d never seen anything like her. Her scales were a lavender purple so light that it almost appeared white, with a pale green shine to them when she moved. The iridescent flashes were her, moving between the trees.

A dragon.

And she was watching us as closely as we watched her.

Garrick moved to my side, one hand going to the small of my back, the other casually fingering the line of hilts that crossed his chest. “There are many strange creatures in these mountains.”

“What do you expect me to say to that?” I breathed. The dragon cocked her head to the side, as if listening to us even though we whispered.

She was the size of a large dog—or what I remembered of dogs. The humans had eaten those not long after the horses. But with her tail and neck stretched out, I guessed she would be as long as Garrick was tall.

“Many of them are the creations of the witches, if the legends in Balar Shan are true,” Garrick said. He was close enough that I felt the words against my skin. But for once, I was too transfixed to do more than note the little flame that licked to life in my belly.

“Spare me your fae legends,” I said.

“Even if they are true?”

I shook my head, both to clear it and to dismiss his line of thinking. “Witch spells have wrought all manner of intentional and unintentional consequences over the millennia. But not the dragons. They predate even us.”

And they were exceedingly rare. To my knowledge, one had not been spotted in Velora since shortly after the curse.

They were creatures who fed on the magic and power of the land.

With Velora’s slow death, it was believed that the dragons had sought out a new home.

They were not stupid enough to die on this continent with the rest of us.

She walked around the base of a tree, her tail curling around the trunk as she did. The muscles beneath her scales bunched as she moved, four legs working in a graceful symphony with the shimmering wings tucked in against her back.

“What do you want to do?” Garrick asked.

As if I had any idea.

Was he deferring to me because I was a witch, an immortal being like the creature before us?

Or was it my experience? Despite his accusation of my naiveté, four hundred years had passed since my birth.

Or was it something else? Did the half-fae part of him sense the thrum of power in the air, the taste that now rode on the slight breeze?

I watched the little dragon as she moved to stand between two trees.

Two delicate horns twisted back from just over her eyes, framing the line of spikes that ran down her neck and back all the way to her tail.

They bore a startling similarity to the curved blades that Garrick wore in the bandolier strapped across his chest.

But it was her eyes that gave me pause. They gleamed a bright yellow-green that I had not seen in the forests of Velora since my childhood. The color of new life.

“She’s a baby,” I said softly.

Garrick’s hand tightened on my waist, pinning my side against his. “How can you possibly know that?”

I ignored him. If she was a baby, then her parent must be around here somewhere. Waiting around for that reunion seemed likely to get us burned to death before we even reached the Devotion Gate.

“We have to go,” I said, slipping free of Garrick’s grasp. I moved slowly back into the trees, keeping the little dragon in my sight as I retreated. Garrick mirrored my movements without question.

It was a damn good thing my heart was long dead, because leaving behind that beautiful, wondrous creature made something inside of me ache.

I awoke to a warm body pressed to my side.

I’d gone to sleep shivering every night for weeks. What had made Garrick change his mind now? He’d already given me his cloak. We’d sparred in the woods yesterday, and he’d said… he’d complimented my curves. He’d been so hard against me.

I had told myself that this was a terrible idea again and again. Giving in to the attraction I felt, and now suspected he returned, with the Lifebind still in place between us…

But he was so warm, curled around my back like that. He’d even nudged apart my legs, sliding his own spiked calf between mine?—

Spiked. Calf.

I sat straight up, swallowing my scream for fear that if I woke the creature curled on the ground, it would try to swallow me .

But the little—not so little—dragon was already awake. She shook her head from side to side, the same way I did when I tried to dislodge the last vestiges of sleep. She stretched out her neck and flared her wings, reminding me of a child stretching their arms overhead.

“Koryn.” Garrick’s voice floated across the fire, which was nothing but smoldering embers. “You need to move very slowly. Our friend from yesterday is here.”

“I have eyes, you idiot,” I hissed through my teeth.

At my side, the dragon cocked her head, then opened her mouth and bared her fangs at Garrick across the fire. It seemed she was a good judge of character. I was not certain I wanted that judgment pointed in my direction, even if she had decided to sleep curled around me.

I inched away from her, curling my legs under me and rising to stand with deliberate slowness, even though it aggravated the perpetually aching muscles in my calves and thighs.

She turned her elegant head, well aware of every movement.

She watched as I slowly walked around the fire, coming to stand by Garrick’s side.

And then she stood up and followed right after me.

I completed the circle, moving back to where I’d slept, where my cloak and pack were still laid out as a bedroll. The dragon followed, circling wide enough to avoid Garrick, but arriving right back at my side.

“Why is she following me?” I whispered—useless, considering she was two feet away from me. But I couldn’t help the impulse.

Garrick cocked an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth turning up in his characteristic smirk. Apparently, now that he’d decided the dragon was not about to kill me, he found this whole scenario amusing. “It couldn’t be your winning personality.”

I hissed at him. To my utter shock, the little dragon opened her mouth, leaned forward, and replicated the sound. With a few more fangs.

Garrick’s blasted smirk transformed into an unrestrained grin. “If he gets big enough, maybe you can ride him,” he said, taking a cautious step back and looking at us again. Us . Dark Lord, help me . “Though I doubt he will grow soon enough to help you in the gates.”

I rolled my eyes. “Stop being ridiculous. Dragons are not for riding.” Not to mention those lethal looking spikes that ran down her back. They’d be the size of swords by the time she was full grown, if the legends were true about dragons’ size. “And she is a baby.”

“She?” Garrick chuckled.

The block in my chest eased a bit at the sound, my legs clenching together ever-so-slightly so that I could ignore it.

“Don’t ask me how I know,” I added. I could not have explained it. But just like I’d felt that thrum of power on the breeze the day before when we’d first encountered the little dragon, I could feel the rightness of my understanding of her.

“Of course I am female. A witch would never accept a male as her familiar.”

“How do you know about familiars?” The words were out of my mouth before I realized it was not Garrick who had spoken.

He straightened slowly from where he’d bent to repack his belongings. “I do not know anything about familiars.” His eyes slid from me to the dragon, her bright yellow-green eyes now staring up at me expectantly.

“A man who acknowledges what he does not know. I approve. He may stay.” And then she nodded her head, dipped her rounded snout a few degrees, and eyed Garrick across the camp. A little huff of frosty air puffed out of her delicate nostrils.

“Good decision. He is impossible to get rid of,” I said.

Garrick crossed his arms over his chest, a frown replacing his smirk, his pale brows knitting together. He looked at me like I was losing my mind, and in that moment, I was not entirely sure that I wasn’t.

“You are perfectly sane. I already said, I am your familiar. That is why you can hear me and he cannot.” Her spiked tail swished dangerously close to my legs. I did my best not to flinch.

“I do not have a familiar,” I said aloud. Could she hear my thoughts?

“You do now.” She nudged her snout at my pack, flipping it over easily even though it must weigh half as much as she did.

“What is happening?” Garrick asked.

If only I fucking knew. “She…”

“ Isanara ,” she inserted.

I cringed but adjusted. “She is called Isanara. And she has decided that she is my familiar. Which apparently means she can speak directly into my mind.”

“I am also not a baby. A hundred years have passed since my hatching.”

“And that makes you…”

“An adolescent.”

“Even better.” I sighed heavily, the motion lifting my entire chest. “A teenage dragon,” I said for Garrick’s benefit.

“That dragon,” Garrick lifted his hand to point, seemed to think better of it, and inclined his head instead. “Is speaking into your mind.”

Another sigh. “Yes.”

“They did not mention that in the legends at Balar Shan.”

I did not admonish him this time. References to his years in the fae court were the least of my worries at the moment. As if I had not had enough before. “Stop rooting around in my pack.”

Isanara’s head snapped up, her viridescent eyes blinking at me. “Well done. You are learning quickly. I chose well.”

Familiars chose their witch, that much I remembered from the covenants.

But none of the witches in my coven had ever had one, not in the nearly four centuries since my resurrection.

Maura had implied that it was because there were so few animals left in Velora.

The bond between a witch and her familiar was sacred. Tantamount to her duty to her coven.