Chapter 4

Over the days that followed, I moved into Caelun's quarters.

He had been gone too long. The room was heavy with damp.

I cleared out a small corner as best I could. Layered old clothes over dry grass to make the dragonlings something like a nest.

At night, the thick, sticky summer air drifted in through the window, carrying the cloying scent of the flowers Drakar had planted over my vegetable beds.

The dragonlings fussed and squirmed against my chest, too unsettled to sleep deeply.

They were heartbroken.

From the day they were born, their father had never been cold to them like this.

I leaned down and pressed my lips gently to each of their foreheads.

My eyes stung.

Outside, the sound of crying carried through the dark.

I rolled over and pressed my hands hard against my ears.

Then — a crash. A heavy, jarring impact.

"Drakar, don't — don't touch me. Please, I'm frightened—"

Lyara's voice was filled with a trembling of fear.

Then, a stumbling footsteps in the dark.

My whole body went taut.

The next second, the door was shoved open from outside.

Drakar stood in the doorway. His pale green dragon eyes were fixed on me with a wild, locked intensity.

His gaze moved over my face, then dropped to the open collar of my robe.

I knew that look.

I had seen it on a thousand nights. In the dark, it preceded him pulling me close, his tail winding around my waist, and the long, relentless hours that followed.

He was in heat.

I pressed myself back against the wall.

Something in Drakar's jaw ground tight at the sight of it.

He didn't know what he was angry about.

His instincts surged forward regardless, drowning out the rest — that is my female, no one takes her from me.

As he stepped toward me, I shook my head desperately. "No. I don't want this."

My refusal seemed to cut through him. He stopped. He looked at me like he'd been wounded.

Don't look at me like that.

You're the one who let me go.

"I don't consent—"

But I hadn't finished the sentence before he caught my wrists easily and pinned them above my head.

Then a sharp hiss.

The largest dragonling fought free of the blankets.

Pushing with his little tail, he dragged himself forward until he was positioned in front of me.

I could feel him trembling.

His eyes reflected Drakar's half-shifted form, and what filled them was terror.

But he opened his mouth anyway.

He bared his small, still-forming fangs and hissed a warning directly at his father.

The other two jolted awake.

They imitated their brother, shaking violently, pressing up in a trembling row.

Three dragonlings barely bigger than my palm, lined up between me and the male who had made them.

The tears burst from my eyes without warning.

"Baby — don't, don't come closer—"

I tried to reach for them.

Drakar held my wrists. I couldn't move.

Drakar looked down. The heat had clouded his mind. He reached out.

The dragonling thrashed in his grip, tail lashing frantically.

"Let go of him! You're hurting him!"

I fought like I'd lost my mind. My nails raked his arm.

Drakar's expression tightened. With an absent, careless motion, he tossed the dragonling aside.

The tiny body struck the wall and slid down.

"Baby!"

The pain drove the breath from my lungs. My eyes went red.

"What is wrong with you? That is your child! How could you—"

Something surfaced in Drakar's face. A brief flicker of clarity.

He stared at his own hand. He looked at the dragonling crumpled against the wall.

But the instinct rose again. His gaze returned to me. His hand came back up.

"Amber..." he murmured, barely coherent.

From the doorway came a scream.

"What is happening in here?!"

Drakar went rigid. He spun around.

Lyara stood barefoot in the entrance, her eyes stretched wide, staring at us.

Drakar shoved me away. His face twisted with something I didn't have a name for.

In the panic of the moment, the words came out before he could stop them.

"It was — she came onto me."