Harpy looked ill. And while I was curious in an abstract sense, none of that mattered right now. Because she was reaching for Galeta, taking her slight form into her arms, and my heart clenched powerfully in my chest at the thought of the clone’s destruction.
“No! No! Leave her. Don’t touch her!” I roared, reaching impotently toward Harpy, but it was too late—the portal had sealed shut, separating us. I grabbed at my chest, feeling the echoes of my heart thump powerfully against my palm, sick at my stomach.
I was smart enough to know that wasn’t truly Galeta, but it also had been.
I’d just watched the woman I loved die. Memories of my past began to churn and bubble up, tormenting me. Mocking me. What if my Galeta had died too? What if I was, once again, too late? What if...
Aphrodite gave me a strange look. “Whom did you yell at, Prince?”
I cocked my head, looking at her strangely. Had she truly not seen the bird?
She blinked, grabbed hold of her temple, and rubbed deeply. “It doesn’t matter. No matter. We’re very nearly there. Find her, dragonborne. Save the fairy. Save our world.”
My breathing hitched, and madness burned through me as I fought not to drown in my panic. How much longer would I be forced to endure this separation? What was happening to Galeta now?
Aphrodite tried to engage me in further conversation, but my thoughts were inward. I didn’t hear her. I thought of nothing other than my fairy. Of stopping what’d just been done once.
Finally, the damned portal opened, and I rushed out, stepping directly into chaos.
Memories crowded all around me. Galeta swinging a blade through a kneeling serf’s neck. Galeta laughing and sentencing man, woman, and beast to death. Galeta screaming.
Galeta crying.
Galeta swearing to the night that she would do it. She would finally end her suffering.
A massive golden dragon pleading with her to not do this. To listen.
Memory after memory after memory crowding one on top of the other, threatening to crush me. I was disoriented, lost to these memories.
Before, there’d only ever been one memory to battle, but now there were so many, I didn’t know where to start. Where to go. My fingers clenched.
“What is this madness?” I gasped.
Aphrodite, who I’d thought had left, came up to stand beside me. “This is the end, Syrith. Find her, before her past destroys her completely.”
I ran. Not knowing where, only knowing I would find her. I’d grown up in Wonderland, a land filled with lunacy and insanity. I’d learned to navigate that place—I would learn this one.
My dragon had claimed her. She was mine. And within my soul beat the pure inner core of hers.
“Find her,” I commanded my beast.
There was now an impenetrable tether between us. The tug of her pulled me to the left. Shifting into a blazing phoenix, I flew toward her, crying out with the loud shrill of the powerful bird that I was coming.
But the memories were crushing me. Crowding me. Anywhere I looked, anywhere I turned, they were there.
“You cannot do this!” Danika cried. “You cannot do that to Jericho. You know I love him. How could you?”
Tears dripped from her eyes. Her long brown hair hung limp around her slim shoulders.
Galeta sneered. “You stole my flower. You had no right. He doesn’t belong to you, Danika. No male does!”
I tore through that memory, shattering it to ribbons. Closing my ears and eyes off as best I could to Galeta’s past.
I already knew it wasn’t pretty. But I would not be the one to judge Galeta for it.
I’m coming my love. I’m coming. I blasted the thought at her. Hoping that somehow, maybe, our bond meant she’d hear me. She’d know she was not alone.
Your choice, my child. Two paths. One of light. One of darkness. What do you choose?
A voice far deeper than any I’d ever heard in all the worlds echoed through the pandemonium of Galeta’s memories.
And there she was. My wee, lovely fae. But she wasn’t The Blue. She was pink. Her features were soft, lovely. Her eyes completely innocent.
I watched the scene before me, entranced, hypnotized by it.
Galeta floated on a cloud of starlight. Surrounded by eleven other fairies. But none burned as brightly as she. She was a beacon in the night.
And I knew this was the beginning of it all. The start of Kingdom. My soul trembled as I realized what it was I was seeing.
They’ll all hate me. They’ll never know, will they?
Tears burned my eyes at the pain in her words. This was the story Harpy had told me. All the darkness, all the pain Galeta had brought upon others, she’d not been born to be that way.
This was the true woman.
This was the love of my life, willingly sacrificing herself so that others might live.
I will never forget or abandon you, my daughter. If you choose to bear the seed of darkness, I vow to you that someday I will return and free you of this curse.
I did not see the voice that spoke, but the fire burning through me rose higher. Even my soul shook. That voice belonged to something far greater than anything known.
Harpy had spoken of a Creator.
And now I felt It.
My heart beat with a powerful rush of love for my fairy as tears ran thick and free down her cheeks.
Then do it...
And then she screamed. Body twisting and contorting as agony scrawled heavy lines across her lovely face. Pink fading into Blue. Darkness crowding her bones.
Changing her.
Even I could see it.
I shook my head as if I could stop it. But I couldn’t. Because this had been her past. Her sacrifice.
And all for people who’d never appreciate it or know. Claws shot from her hands. Her face contorted into a scream that ran and ran and ran into eternity as that seed of darkness claimed her.
With a cry of fury, I tore through the image that I knew would haunt me all the days of my life, and that was when I finally found her. She was kneeling, head hanging forward. Alone and surrounded by a fog bank of darkness. Her tiny shoulders shuddered. Her short golden hair covered her face like a curtain.
Sobs wracked her tiny form as she clutched tight to her chest.
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I will never do this again, I vow it,” she whispered over and over, the sound so broken and heartrending that it crushed my soul to hear it.
She lifted her hand.
Sunlight glinted off the green glass she held. Galeta shuddered, lifting the tiny vial to her mouth, and I screeched. The Phoenix’s cry was a bloodcurdling agony ripped from the depths of my soul.
Shaking her head, she looked up. Her eyes were bloodshot, her pupils nothing but tiny pinpricks within.
“You’re not really here, my Prince. You’re a mere figment of my heart. I love you, but I cannot hurt anyone else. Forgive me, Syrith. Please forgive me.”
Tucking my wings in tight to my sides, I barreled to the ground. My heart a raging, panicked thing inside my chest. I would be damned if I lost her again. Landing just as she tipped the vial over, I shifted and slapped it so hard out of her hand that it knocked her backward. She landed with a hard thud upon the ground and groaned, and I grimaced.
Her eyes were closed, and she was clutching at her stomach.
“My love.” I raced to her, grabbing her tight and holding her to me, both grateful I’d arrived just in time and impossibly angry.
The glass and its contents had shattered upon the forest floor. The thick jewel-green blades of grass that’d been beneath it now withered and curled in on themselves. Anywhere the liquid touched, life died.
Grabbing her shoulders, I gave her a swift shake. “How dare you! How dare you try to kill yourself! How dare you—” My words shook, and tears stung my eyes and clogged my throat, making it so that my words were broken and shattered as I whispered, “I saw you die today. Don’t you ever do that again. You, yo
u who knows how deeply Seraphina’s death wounded me. How could you? How could. You?”
Shock scrawled through her deep-indigo eyes. “Syrith? Is it really you? But I thought you’d...you—”
I slammed my lips to hers, my heart a twisted, mangled mess in my chest at the thought of how close I’d come to losing her forever. I was furious. Angry. And not gentle.
But neither was she.
Her hands curled into the nape of my neck, clawing me. Drawing blood. I hissed, but the pain was exquisitely grounding.
I nipped at her lips with my own fangs. Tasting. Touching. Inhaling her heart, her soul. Wanting every inch of her inside of every inch of me. I’d cracked myself open completely to this fairy. Seraphina’s death had broken me. But Galeta’s would end me.
“I love you, you silly, wonderful, awful, beautiful fairy,” I moaned brokenly against her lips.
I needed more of her. Needed to be inside of her. Up until now, I’d been patient, gentle with her. But I’d watched her die once and nearly do it again. Gentleness wasn’t a choice I possessed anymore.
Letting my dragon loose, I tipped her chin up forcefully so that I could slide my tongue in deep. She accepted me with a heady moan, and I lost myself completely.
To her touch.
Her sighs.
I loved her. With every part of me.
Every fractured, broken part of me was hers completely.
Galeta was just as violent with me. Her clawed hands tore at my vest, ripping it straight down the middle.
I’d had no thought of making love to her this day.
I’d merely wanted to return to her, to hold her. But I would die now if my beast did not claim her completely.
In every way possible.
Her movements were almost angry as she shoved first my tattered vest off, then my shirt, popping the buttons in every direction. I was just as manic.
Barely taking notice of her gown, only knowing I needed to get it off her now. I tore the damned thing straight down the middle. Exposing her completely. Revealing her tiny breasts. Her impossibly flat, impossibly smooth stomach. Her skin color was a pearlescent ivory, beckoning for my touch. And on the tip of her right breast was a birthmark in the shape of a tree.
I grinned. Loving every inch of her.
I tightened my fingers into her hips. Jerking her, somehow now she was straddling me. Her long, lean legs had wrapped around my middle.
Her kisses were punishing and bruising, and I gloried in them all.
Small, clawed fingers raked across my skull, making me hiss, making my blood boil. The magic within me went wild, causing me to flicker between forms. I couldn’t control myself.
One moment I felt the press of her mouth like a hot brand, and the next it was just a whisper of pressure. I growled, shaking my ghostly head.
“Stop,” she hissed as I tried to pull away. “I can still feel you, Syrith. Every part of you. Your lips singe me with flame. Your eyes bore straight through me. I can feel you.”
She framed my face in her hands. A face that should not be, and yet I felt her touch burn through me.
“How do you do that, Galeta? How do you still see me?”
Her thin brows drew down, and a look of raw pain touched her fine features. “Because you are mine, beast. All mine. Every inch of you. Can you not feel this? The burn of true love? Does it not beat inside of you as it beats within me?”
Forcing myself to breathe through the battering ram of my emotions, I locked down on my magic, taking back control so that I was whole again. I nodded. She did beat inside of me. She had almost from the very first moment I’d met her.
“I must confess a truth, my heart.”
She blinked prettily, her chest heaving for breath as her breasts brushed against my bare chest, causing the embers within me to stoke and heat and coil tighter.
“What?” she breathed.
“My dragon has already claimed you as mine. I am sorry; I didn’t give you the choice. I didn’t ask you fir—”
She laughed, but the sound was high-pitched and manic. “I knew that already, Prince. And I want so desperately to be good for you. But I confess that I would do a great many terrible things to keep you with me always.”
Her eyes looked as if she were shattered, and I knew she hated her weakness for violence, but what I would never tell her was that she could have spoken no other words to me that would have caused my heart to sing as violently and swiftly as it did now.
She was mine.
And I was hers.
I’d finally been claimed, and by one of the most vile and cursed of creatures to have ever lived, and I loved her even more because of it, because I was one of the few who truly knew why.
“I would burn entire villages down for you, my fairy.”
She gasped. And without a word of warning, leaned forward, stealing my lips with her own. Sliding her wet tongue along the seam of my lips. I opened on an exultant growl.
Our tongues tangled, dueling fiercely. Tasting of one another, branding our scents so deep within each other’s souls that there’d never be any excising it.
I tried to sit up, to move so that I could get my damnable laces undone on my pants so that I might finally free myself. But she shook her head violently.
“Galeta, I need to—”
She flicked her wrists, banishing the rest of my clothes. With a stunned chuckle, I opened my mouth to tease her, but my wild fairy was having none of that.
Wrapping her hands around my shoulders, she pressed me down into her. Holding me fast with the supernatural strength of her kind. But I didn’t mind her savageness, because I was savage too.
With a snarl, I claimed her lips. She sunk her fangs into my bottom lip, and I thrilled at her dark touch. Coming alive for her.
Seraphina could never have handled my beast.
“More, Syrith. Give me everything,” she moaned.
And I did. Latching a hand onto her outer thigh, I notched her knee, opening her wide to me.
“Are you ready, my fairy?” I grunted, so hard and stiff that every inch of me ached.
If she told me to stop, I would, but goddess help Kingdom if she did. Because I think I might have truly done something terrible to some innocent village somewhere. Dragon myths existed for a reason.
Her eyes turned soft and dewy, her smile seductive yet innocent. She nodded. “I’ll always be ready for you, my Prince.”
With a cry of satisfaction, I sheathed myself deep in one swift motion. She stiffened beneath me, and I thought I’d hurt her.
Trying to pull out, I planted rows of kisses along her brows, her cheeks. “I’m sorry, my beauty. So sorry.”
She laughed, the sound deep and shivery. “Never apologize for such pleasure.” Then, slamming her claws down on my arse, she shoved. “Move.”
Laughing from deep inside my soul, I did as my fairy commanded. The first slick glide of me touching deep within her caused her to shiver. The second caused her to gasp.
“Good?” I asked between heated kisses.
All that left her lips was a fiery grunt. Galeta met me thrust for thrust. Moving as one, we were lost in the synergy of our bodies, the song of souls.
“Always, my beast, always,” she said on a languid sigh.
And then the strangest thing began to happen to her. Her body began to burn in mine. Growing hotter, deeper, fuller. Magic poured out of her, the glow of it permeating every inch of our realm, and everything it touched, everywhere it went, the world began to glow with life.
Leaves sprouted from the trees. Vines covered in roses slithered through roots. Great birds cawed through the sky. The breeze grew redolent with the wash of millions of flowers, bathing us both.
And though my body moved by rote, my gaze was astonished by the creation and life she birthed. I looked down at her, awed, moved by her beauty, only to realize I held a woman aglow in flame.
She burned like the sun, and I gloried in it. My beast roared its approval. A smile wreathe
d her lovely face.
Deep-blue eyes peered up at me. We moved as one unit, one body, one soul. Her slender fingers framed my face.
Love burst through every inch of her.
“I love you.” I finally said it. Her eyes widened for a fraction of a second, then they turned soft, lovely.
“And I you.”
My form shivered as I began to draw closer to the pinnacle of our shared pleasure. Her fingers sparked against the phantom flesh of my face. I still felt her. And I knew now, I always would.
“Tell me you’re mine,” I said as I rocked my hips harder moving deeper inside of her.
Her lashes fluttered, feathered against the tops of her cheeks. She wanted to close them, but I wouldn’t let her.
“Look at me, fairy, and tell me you’re mine,” I commanded.
“I’m yours, dragon. Only yours.”
With one final grinding of our hips, we both exploded into that little death.
Chapter 19: The End Is Only the Beginning
Harpy
The wind rolled with magic, and I felt the call of my Creator.
It is time. The vessel is now come...
With a gasp, I twirled, lips curving upward with joy, ready to embrace the sacrifice of the pure innocent come to take her place. I knew it couldn’t have been me. I’d worried over nothing.
The mark had faded this morning. I had indeed been hanging onto it for another.
Galeta had forever transformed herself down here. Her time as The Blue was now no more. I’d not watched them make love, but I’d felt the pull and sway of the mightiest of magics.
But when I gazed behind me, there was nothing but trees. Life that’d sprouted from their union. No more gray in this world. Color had leeched into everything.
It was beautiful.
It was pure.
It was lovely, and my soul trembled with a deep and terrible knowledge.
“The vessel is—”
You, It said simply.
The trees trembled, and wetness trekked down my cheeks. I shook my head. “But...but my mark faded,” I breathed.