Chapter 28

Chapter

Twenty-Eight

Rose

I let my gaze travel over Magnus's enormous dragon body as I tried to swallow past a lump in my throat. I didn't even know how I was going to mount him, let alone ride. The sheer idea of trying to hold onto him as he lifted us into the sky both terrified and thrilled me.

"How do I?—"

Kitra giggled over my nervous rambling. I was so distracted by the magnificence of Magnus that I couldn't even finish my question. I walked down the steps and out onto the lawn so I could get a better look. The last time I'd seen him like this he'd been in a rage, and I'd been in pure panic mode. There'd been no time to admire him like this. But if I was expected to climb on and ride, the least I could do was explore everything first.

"Can I touch him?"

He snorted again, nodding his head, and I took that as a yes. I quickly walked across the lawn, only slowing my steps when I got to within about fifty feet of him. From this distance, I could feel the warmth radiating from him and I wondered if that naturally happened or if he was kind of warming my seat. I slapped my hand over my mouth to hold in another nervous giggle and made my approach.

I started to reach for him and stopped.

“It's okay, little one. You can do this.”

My mouth dropped open. The words I heard in my head sounded just like Magnus.

"Is that you? Are you really in my head?"

When no response came, I rolled my shoulders and shook it off.

Kitra laughed. "Without the mate bond or your magic, it's difficult for him to keep up with the communication. You will have to rely on your instincts and trust his."

I nodded. "Okay then. I'm just going to do this." I'd learned long ago that you could either embrace your fear and accomplish the things you really wanted, or give into the fear and live half the life you hoped for. I always chose to face the fear.

Stepping forward, with my hands up, I stroked down the sides of his scales. The first thing that struck me was how surprisingly soft they were. Not cottony soft, but like a smooth, silky shell that conformed to his body.

I had so many questions. And up close, I found myself mesmerized by the kaleidoscope of colors.

From a distance, the predominant green was all I'd noticed, but this close, there were dozens of shades of green, black, and quite a bit of gold mixed in. And they all shimmered beautifully in the waning sunlight.

"You're breathtaking," I said in awe as he snorted happily in response. Hoping it was okay to go further, and assuming he would stop me if it wasn't, I continued my perusal past his haunches and over the planes of many muscles before finally focusing on his wings. They looked inordinately delicate, but I'd bet my life on them being anything but.

"Will you demonstrate how you take off and land, so I can anticipate what to expect my first time?"

He nudged me with his wing as if to get me out of the way, and I stumbled away laughing. It was nice to know we could still communicate with body language if we had to.

When I was clear, he flapped his glorious wings, and the wind caught me in the face and pushed me back. It was then I noticed a second dragon, a black one, that had to be Isaac.

Watching them was incredible. The green of Magnus's scales and the way he lifted into the sky so effortlessly simply mesmerized me. I could not take my eyes off him.

I did, however, take note of how his wings moved as he lifted as well as when he banked a turn or dove for the ground. As I studied his movements and the lines of his body, I wished for a notebook to take notes. Trying to randomly figure out how best to ride a dragon needed more than a couple of minutes of watching and then trying to find spots on his body that looked safe enough to ride.

Like the backside of his neck where it hit the largest flat angle of his body. Maybe his shoulders. That's what I would call them. There was a divot that looked like one of the few spots that I could potentially sit and maybe not fall off. And there were bony protrusions there that I could hold onto.

My stomach lurched at the idea of my plummeting to my death because I couldn't stay on my butt.

"You look nervous," Kitra said, coming to stand at my side. "You don't have to be. He'll make sure you're safe."

"That doesn't seem fair to put that extra burden on him. If I'm riding him in the first place, then we'd obviously be in some sort of trouble which would mean that he needed to concentrate on the trouble we faced, not whether I can hang on.”

"I'm just letting you know it’s okay. The first time I rode, I had no idea what I was doing, not to mention I was terrified, and it turned out okay. Isaac would have never let anything happen to me."

"From everything you've told me so far, that sounds like too lofty a promise for him to give. We'll be in danger everywhere, right?"

She winced and tilted her head skyward to watch the two dragons fly. They looked like they were dancing together, but knowing them, it was probably some sort of competition they were embroiled in instead.

"Dragons can't fly much when outside the village borders, so you probably won't have to fly as much as you might think. Learning to fight will be as important, if not more important. You should worry about hand-to-hand combat more."

"Why can't dragons fly outside the village border? Is it against the law or something?"

"No, nothing that straightforward. They can technically fly anywhere, but outside the village is the dark forest and the creatures that live in the dark forest do not live by rules. They live by the law of survival."

"Which is?"

She turned and looked at me. "Kill or be killed."

"That sounds barbaric," I said after I managed to get my mouth closed again. "Seriously, what is wrong with the fae? I'd always been raised to believe they were tricksters and maybe not super trustworthy. But this sounds cruel for cruelty's sake. No wonder their uncle is such a bad person."

"Just like humans, fae come in many shades of good and bad. Most strive to live peaceful lives and as long as you stay where you belong and avoid certain people and certain places, you can live quite a normal life. Especially if you reside in one of the kingdoms where they focus less on magic and more on harmony and nature."

Now that sounded more like the stories my parents had focused on growing up. Peace and love and in tune with nature. I might have turned out very different than them, but they instilled my love of plants and nature and the desire to learn more. I'd devoted my life to bringing nature and humanity closer together.

Now I was going to step into a world where the majority would try to kill me just because of who I was. I didn't like it, and I had to admit that my apprehension about going was on the rise.

"Power begets evil."

"What?" Kitra stopped watching the dragons and turned back to me. "What did you say?"

"I said, power begets evil. It's an old saying my parents used to infuse into the fairytales when we read them together. It was so ingrained in them, that I'm not even sure they realized what they were doing."

Kitra smiled. "They knew. All fae fairytales begin like that. With the focus on the villain. Our children are raised on those stories from a young age. It's how we instill a healthy fear and caution about the darker aspects of our world. Not all magical beings are naturally born with fear. Their curiosity generally outweighs everything else. Including their own safety.”

I blinked at Kitra, soaking in all the information she continued to share. Especially when I could see aspects of it that ran through my own childhood and now made so much more sense. My parents weren't as eccentric as I'd thought. They just weren't human.

"So there's really no chance I could ever return here in my own timeline?"

Kitra's eyes shuttered. "I'm afraid not. The magic that binds this realm is ancient, dark…and not well understood, even by most fae." She met my gaze, regret plain on her face. "The time differences between our worlds are unpredictable, and the spells used to facilitate travel are unstable at best."

"But you understand it?"

She shook her head. "Barely. My knowledge is still infantile and probably dangerous at best. But my mother knew it well and she passed it to me."

I had to admit that I was a little jealous that she had a mother who'd passed such a legacy on to her daughter. Especially one so rich in history and power.

"Do you know much about my fae parents?"

"A bit about your father. Because my father was king of his realm, he spent his fair amount of time around the courts and dealing with politics. I remember him referring to the dark fae king as unforgiving. A man very set in his ways and the ways of tradition. He wasn't interested in modernization. Unfortunately, I do not know anything about your mother. It's not even clear who she is."

I swallowed thickly. "Does that mean I'm a?—"

"I doubt you're illegitimate if that's what you're worried about. But the dark fae king did keep a harem, and he loved to keep secrets. He made it very unclear which wife bore which child. It seemed peculiar, but maybe it was a security thing."

"Maybe," I said, trying to wrap my head around this new information and what it all meant. I'd hit overload a long time ago, and now I just wanted to make sense of it all.

"You ready to ride?" I turned at her question to find Magnus back on the ground, his foot pawing at the ground and looking every bit as impatient with me as I imagined.

There were divots in the ground where he and Isaac walked that I had to work my way around. I looked back to see Kitra hadn't moved.

"Aren't you coming?"

She vehemently shook her head. "Nope. It would have to be a dire emergency to catch my feet off the ground again, and even then it might not happen." She must have seen the worry that had pulled my brows together. "But don't worry, you'll do fine. You can't let my hang ups about heights color this for you. There may come a time you will have to do this to save your own life or his and better that not be your first time. Trust me."

I measured her words while calculating my odds of survival. Unfortunately, none of this fit in any of my scientific boxes and I would have no choice but to do this on faith alone.

I swallowed hard and nodded. "I guess you’re right. It's now or never."