Chapter 1

CHAPTER1

The salt air tangled in her hair as the clouds parted and a dragon soared overhead. Lore sucked in a deep lungful of salt, brine, and the scent of an open horizon before them. One last time.

Soon they would reach the ports of Umbra. Soon, they would face the reality of their decisions and that they were not yet finished with their quests.

But right now, she wanted to pretend that she stared out at the open ocean with nothing but her own adventurous nature to slake. Maybe they would sail until they hit a new land. They didn’t need to worry overly much about food, because Abraxas had proven to be very helpful on their journey. He’d dove into the oceans more times than she could count, only to return with a massive tuna in his mouth. He could feed the entire ship if he wanted to.

They had no fear of food or clean water. They could continue on until they all found a new source of discovery and excitement.

Except they couldn’t. If she’d been so capable of giving up their world, then she would have stayed on the dragon isle with her beloved and her children and never cast another thought toward Umbra.

“Are you ready?” The song-like voice interrupted her musing.

Allura stood behind her on the deck, her legs spread wide for balance as the ship moved with the waves. The siren never looked like a single hair was out of place or that the salt had abraded her skin. She was, as ever, beautiful.

Lore felt rather grubby in comparison. Her entire body was slick with salt, and no matter how hard she tried to keep her hair washed, it was always slightly stiff. She’d tried a hundred different ways to clean it, but the sea always won. Apparently, Allura knew something she did not.

“I’m ready for a bath,” she grumbled, refusing to turn and look at what was behind her. “I’m not ready to see my homeland again and the people within it. I fear what is waiting for us.”

Allura eyed the skyline behind her, and the siren nodded firmly. “As am I. I usually get some sort of reports from the sailors that stayed behind. They send me hawks to let me know what to expect when I get back. I am used to already having a list of other jobs waiting for us the moment we hit the shore.”

“And this time?”

The siren’s mouth twisted. “Nothing. Not a single hawk has found me. And they would send at least one out every day, no matter how long I’ve been gone. The hawks find the ship when we’re close enough to shore.”

That was troubling indeed. Lore’s brows furrowed and finally she turned. Her eyes found the skyline beyond and the shambles of the port that she could just barely see. Just a dark smudge where she knew people lived.

What waited for them there? Just how far had Margaret gone in all this madness?

Allura’s eyes narrowed upon her, and Lore could almost feel the other woman’s stare like a physical touch. “You’re afraid,” the siren whispered. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you afraid.”

It wasn’t that she feared Margaret, but Lore was desperately afraid of what she’d find waiting for her in Umbra. Her gut twisted at the thought, knowing without a doubt that some of it would horrify her.

Margaret had been left to her own devices for far too long. And that was Lore’s fault.

Opening her mouth, she turned toward Allura to explain herself. Thankfully, she was saved from having to voice her fears. A blast of wind struck both of them, sending them to their knees on the deck as they tried to stop themselves from being tossed overboard. More than one sailor had been thrust into the sea when Abraxas landed.

They’d had quite the argument convincing him that he wasn’t allowed to land on the deck any longer. He’d left a dent in Allura’s ship the first time and the siren had almost pulled his wings off in her anger.

Now, Abraxas had to land in the water beside the ship. He changed mid air. The blast of magic was the wind that they’d felt as he fell into the water nearby. The sailors all laughed, shoving at each other as they decided who would be the person to fish the dragon out of the sea.

She watched them with a small smile on her face. They were all so much more comfortable than they had been even a few weeks ago. Though they’d had to travel with each other for months, it had taken the mortals a very long time to be truly comfortable with her dragon.

Abraxas tried. Hard. He spent hours on end working beside them, each day making sure that he was pulling on ropes, forcing the boat to move as he wanted, sometimes even fully changing into his dragon form in the water and pushing the boat when the winds died down.

And finally, the others had cracked. They’d given up the fear of the dragon and saw him as a man.

Her heart thudded hard in her chest as a few sailors flung a ladder over the side of the ship. She knew what he’d look like long before his dark hair appeared over the side of the ship, but she never got tired of this part. He hauled himself up, water dripping down his sides and the white conjured shirt that he always wore. Hair slicked back, a knowing grin on his face, his eyes sought her out as his muscles flexed and he brought himself back onto the ship.

Abraxas shook out his hair, water spraying all over the sailors who surrounded him. They all groaned, shaking their heads at the “animal” in their midst. But he had eyes only for her. As always.

Allura let out a little tsking noise before shaking her head. “You two. You need to get yourselves together before you get to Umbra.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because you’re going to make people sick if they see you acting like this.”

Perhaps. And maybe their obsession with each other would wane as there were more things to do, people to fight, a kingdom to save. It had before. But she finally had him to herself, for the first time in what felt like ages. Lore intended to use that to her advantage for as long as possible.

She left the siren’s side and walked down the ship. Closer and closer to him, where he stood still and watched her as a predator watches prey. A few of the sailors walked away, muttering with jealousy under their breath as they realized what was about to happen.

No one ever interrupted them, though. Almost as though it was rude to interrupt gods when they greeted each other, even if it had only been an afternoon.

She was the moon, finding herself in the sky with the sun once a month. She wouldn’t let him go for any moment of their time together.

Lore stopped a few feet from him, drinking in the sight of him. His wide shoulders, sharp features, the way his eyes heated when he realized what she was doing.

“Come here,” he growled, his voice sending a slow shudder through her whole body.

That tone of voice always danced through her entire body. She wanted to drop onto her knees before him and do whatever he asked. Or maybe she wanted to grab a fistful of his hair and send him down onto his knees before her. They never figured out which one of them wanted to be more dominant, and she supposed that was their life. The push, the pull, and the inevitable giving.

“Good hunt?” she asked, not taking a step closer to him at all. In fact, she made him stand there and wait, wondering what she was going to do next.

“Always.” Somehow his voice had deepened even further until it scratched at the inner part of her brain that screamed for his arms around her. “Lore.”

She knew what he wanted. But she was having so much fun denying them both. “Umbra is almost upon us.”

“I am aware.”

“You know neither of us can guess what waits for us there.”

“I do.” His hands clenched at his sides, then forcibly loosened as he restrained himself. “Do you really want to talk about this right now?”

Breathless now, she shook her head and bit her lip. “Not particularly.”

“Then come here.”

She jolted forward as though prodded with a hot iron. Lore flew into his arms, her own wrapping around his neck as he caught her against him. A low growl rumbled through his chest and he kissed her, his teeth biting at her bottom lip.

“I don’t like to wait for you to be in my arms,” he said against her lips, and she couldn’t help but grin.

“I know.”

“Then why do you insist on making me?”

“Because I like your reaction when I don’t.”

He gave another sharp nip to her lips. “You wouldn’t know how to behave if you were held at knifepoint, now would you?”

She tried her best not to smile. If she could stare at him very seriously, perhaps he would understand how important her words were. But Lore grinned all the same, knowing that he’d see her smile and roll his eyes. “No, I do not. Especially when you are involved.”

And there it was. The eye roll that always made her laugh because she already knew what he was thinking. She was ridiculous, his woman, and he was the only one who got this side of her. Their children weren’t here, so she had to always be the strong, powerful woman who could take out the world with a blink of her eye. Other than with him.

With her dragon, Lore knew that she could say or be anyone she wanted to be and he would love her all the same for it. No matter who she became or how powerful she was.

To him, she was just Lore. The girl in the forest who had convinced him to find a blue butterfly but who stole his heart instead.

All those months ago, they were both so different. She sighed into his lips, pressing a kiss firmly there one more time before she leaned back in his arms.

“But we do have to talk about what we’re expecting,” she mumbled. “I don’t know if Margaret knows we’re returning, or if she sensed that I’d been in the room with Zephyr.”

“We cannot plan for what we do not know.”

But she wanted to. Lore would spend the rest of the few days she had left trying to think of every possible outcome and how they were going to face them. Even the smallest detail needed to be considered for her mind to rest.

Abraxas drew their foreheads together, winding her tighter in the comfort of his arms. “Lore, listen to me. If you run yourself ragged thinking of everything that woman might have planned, then you will not see what is right in front of you. There is nothing we can plan for. Nothing we can fix. Not until we stand in the center of Umbra and find out for ourselves what she has done.”

He was right. Of course, he was right.

Blowing out a long breath, she nodded. “I understand.”

“Do you?”

A feathery laugh erupted from her chest while she shook her head against him. “No, I don’t. I’ll probably be up all night and then I’ll be as bad as the wights when we first picked up Zephyr.”

His gaze softened as he leaned away from her, holding onto her arms so she still at least felt like he was there. “Lady of Starlight, are you being emotional about when we first found Zephyr?”

“Of course I am. He was just a child. Don’t you remember the look on his face when we all walked into that crypt? He’d grown up underground, and we brought him out into this world. Showed him what else there could be and... And now they put him back in a crypt.”

Tears pricked behind her eyes at the thought, as they always did when she remembered the horrible conditions he was in.

“Lore.” Abraxas swiped his fingers underneath her eyes. “We will find him.”

She just hoped they would get there in time.