Page 48 of Valor’s Flight (The New Protectorate #5)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Alashiya untangled their hands. Quickly putting away her veil and closing the box, she set it on the table.

When her lap was clear, she leaned forward until she could cup his cheeks.

“I know this kind of pain,” she whispered, pressing soft kisses to his cheeks, the bridge of his nose, and his bottom lip.

Taevas bowed his head toward her, accepting her touches. “I wish you didn’t.”

“Tell me what happened to you,” she murmured.

“I went into hiding for a while. But I was so angry, Shiya. So, so angry.” He let out a long sigh.

“I never meant to start a rebellion. I didn’t think that far ahead.

Not until it was already happening, anyway.

I kept meeting other people like me, who’d been conned and exploited and punished by that asshole.

I started going after his inner circle on my own, but others wanted in on it.

Things just started happening naturally after that.

Everything seemed to escalate overnight.

Next thing I knew, clan leaders were seeking me out, looking to help, and I was Jaak’s number one target. ”

Alashiya’s lips parted with surprise. She leaned back a bit to look into Taevas’s face, trying to imagine it as a teenage boy, lost without his parents and waging a war against a dragon with an army at his disposal.

“But you were so young,” she whispered.

Taevas gave her an ageless, sorrowful look. “I was, and then my father died, and my mother went mad in solitary confinement, tortured by the loss of her Chosen. I stopped being young very quickly after that.”

“Chosen?”

Something stirred in his eyes then, but she couldn’t define it.

“It’s what we call our mates. When a dragon Chooses, there is no other.

There is no going back. There is no tolerable separation.

The same parts of our minds that can navigate the Earth’s magnetic field realigns to make them the center of our world. To lose one is… fatal.”

Ice dripped down her spine. “We have something similar,” she told him.

“When we marry, we twine ourselves together and become symbiotic. Losing a spouse isn’t always a death sentence, but it can be.

When my grandmother passed… my grandfather didn’t live well.

He got sick, and no matter what I did, he only ever got worse.

I watched him wither away until one day he was just gone. ”

Taevas searched her gaze for what felt like a long time before he said, “Then you know how terrifying it can become, thinking of tying yourself to another when you’ve seen what can happen when it goes wrong.”

It occurred to her then, in a slow drip of realization, that she and Taevas were very much alike. The similarities weren’t confined to the sadnesses of their past, but to how they’d reacted to them.

Alashiya sucked in a sharp breath. Gripping his hands, she rasped, “Is that the part of you that was locked away?”

“I thought so,” he answered. “Life is easier when you can control these things.”

“What things?”

“Becoming attached. Falling in love. The specter of loss.”

Her heart squeezed in painful recognition. “I understand.”

“Do you?” Taevas tilted his head to one side. His expression was softly troubled. “Do you really understand, my Shiya?”

“I understand what it means to hide from the world,” she answered, “and I think you’ve been hiding for a very long time, my dragon.”

One corner of his lips kicked up in a small, wry smile. “Only you would think that.”

“Maybe I’m the only person who sees you clearly, then.”

He leaned forward to press a soft, seeking kiss to her lips. It was all tenderness, all longing, and when it was over, Alashiya was left boneless and warm. “Of that I have no doubt,” he murmured into her lips. “Now, my beautiful metsalill, shall we make some breakfast?”

Thinking of the hideously chopped cucumbers from the previous night, Alashiya wrinkled her nose and teased, “Do you even know how to make toast, great Isand?”

“I breathe fire, remember? Toast I can do. Eggs… might be beyond me.” Taevas gave her another kiss. This one was sweeter, lighter, like he wanted to offer her a reward for supporting him through such a harrowing tale — or perhaps make her forget. “But I am excellent at making coffee.”

“I already made my coffee,” she protested as he levered her out of the chair.

Taevas cast the mug a disdainful look. “It’s gone cold! I’ll make you a new cup if you make the eggs.”

Despite the heaviness of everything they’d talked about and all the worries that dogged her, Alashiya couldn’t fight the smile that pulled at her cheeks when he gave her that haughty look, like the idea of her drinking lukewarm coffee personally offended him.

“I’ll make breakfast,” she promised, letting him lead her out of the living room, “but only if you sit and tell me about that tapestry. I want to know every detail.”

Taevas didn’t turn his head to look at her when he replied, “I’ll tell you everything you want to know, metsalill, but I promise, you’ll see it yourself soon enough.”

There were two versions of the story — one told to the rest of the world and one heavily debated amongst the clan.

The argument stemmed from the rumor that his ancestor, the princess Saara who’d needed saving from two feuding dragons vying for her noble seat, was not an arrant princess, but an elf.

Taevas had scoffed at that version of the tale many times growing up. He’d slept beneath the tapestry that told the story all his life. Wouldn’t he notice if she’d been rendered with pointed ears?

Nevermind the fact that the tapestry had been commissioned long after her death, when elves had formally forbidden the taking of non-elvish mates, making the depiction of her as an elf…

not risky per se, but less than socially acceptable.

Regardless, it seemed too outlandish to be true.

He’d certainly never seen any elvish traits in his uncles or his father — or he thought he hadn’t, at any rate.

It wasn’t until he met his first elf on the battlefield that he began to wonder if there was some credence to the story. If, perhaps, the famous A?daja coloring — vivid crimsons and violets — couldn’t be traced back to a jewel-toned elf somewhere down the line.

Not that it mattered, really. Dragons had notoriously dominant genes.

If there was an elf somewhere down the line, their traits would’ve been lost within a generation.

The question of Saara’s identity was little more than an idle curiosity for all his life.

The greatest effect it had on him was that he had something of a soft spot for those proud beings who held themselves so apart from the world.

He watched with satisfaction as Theodore Solbourne willfully defied a thousand years of tradition to marry his pretty little witch, thinking that if Saara was an elf, she’d be proud to know that Taevas had played some small part in nudging Theodore to free her people to love again.

But it wasn’t until a couple years later, when all the rumors of how elves found their mates began to trickle in, that Taevas began to wonder. Really wonder.

As he told Alashiya the story of his famous ancestors, he considered what it would’ve been like for Saara.

If the rumors and old stories were true, she would’ve known that Vanasarvik was her mate the instant she caught his scent for the first time.

Elves were incredibly sensitive to pheromones and found their mates with their noses.

Once found, they relied on their mate’s pheromones for nervous system and hormone regulation — making them an extreme weakness.

It was no wonder elves had kept their secrets for so long. A dragon would go mad without their mate, to be sure, but an elf’s body would shut down completely in a miserable, slow-acting death.

Taevas watched Alashiya drift across the kitchen on her bare feet, her golden robe fluttering around her as she sliced cheese and plump tomatoes. Sunlight touched her curls, her soft cheeks, and the tips of her eyelashes. The scent of her, cypress and warmth, permeated every breath he took.

He recalled how he felt when he smelled her for the first time. He forced his mind past the instinctual recoil he experienced whenever he thought of how out of control he’d been, how ashamed and afraid.

He hadn’t dared probe any deeper into his suspicions, all those silly family rumors about an elvish ancestor, until he sat in Alashiya’s kitchen.

She asked a dozen questions about what the tapestry looked like and how it was made, completely unaware of the monumental step Taevas was silently taking. He did his best to answer her, but his mind was in that instant ten years ago, when everything in him had shifted so violently.

Saara had lived many generations in the past, and dragon genetics tended to dominate whatever they were mixed with. If there was any trace of her left in the A?daja line, it couldn’t be seen at a glance.

But perhaps it could be felt.

He wasn’t certain why it was so much easier for him to consider that possibility than the other certainty — the thing he knew in his bones, in the part of him that grew fiercer and fiercer every day. But there was no running from that nameless thing any longer.

Because Alashiya was right. He’d been hiding for a very, very long time. He’d hidden something essential away, hoping it would die in darkness, but it’d only been dormant, awaiting her sunlight.

Now it was alive, and it would never allow itself to be hidden again.

Whether they were drawn to one another by fate or some genetic predisposition didn’t matter. He couldn’t be without her. He didn’t want to be without her, despite his fears.

Taevas wanted her presence pressed into the grain of his life. He wanted to make a new nest with her. He wanted to show her that the world wasn’t only full of terrors, but beauty, too. He wanted to make up for everything that had been so cruelly ripped from her — from them both.

But it wasn’t those wants that urged him to confront what he’d been stubbornly ignoring. Rather, it was the certainty that he couldn’t force any of it. He couldn’t demand anything from Alashiya, least of all her blind trust.

As much as he needed to get back to his people, Taevas came to the sobering realization that if it came down to it, he would choose Alashiya over returning to the ’Riik. He’d choose her comfort, her autonomy, and her grief over everything he’d worked for over a century.

He’d choose her.

He’d Chosen her.

Taevas let out a slow breath. There it is.

The filmy curtain he’d placed between himself and the truth was pulled away, revealing what he’d known for a very long time.

He wasn’t giving up on getting her to safety, nor the ’Riik, but Taevas was forced to accept that he couldn’t rush it or force her hand without risking her loss.

Guilt and urgency gnawed at him, but it was muted by the sudden and profound peace he felt when he accepted what was done. There was nothing gained without sacrifice, he knew, and if he had to give up a little more time to earn her trust, then so be it.

He tilted his face up for a kiss when Alashiya bent to place a plate in front of him. She shyly met his demand, her touch light and sweet.

“Will you show me more of your work while I rest today?” he asked.

She pulled back a little to examine his face.

He wondered what she expected of him. More demands, probably.

More pressure to help him, to leave the only home she’d ever known.

It must’ve been a surprise to hear he only wished to spend time admiring her for the work that had drawn their threads together.

A slow smile spread across her face. “If you promise to really rest, I can work in bed.”

Voice pitched low, he honestly replied, “For you, metsalill, I’d do anything.”