ra

ire body aching with a

es pulled tightly to my chest. It was a defensive sleeping pos

nightmare around me. Skulls. Femurs. Ribcages. The floor of the massive cavern was a graveyard of every sacrif

hing sound pulled my at

crouched near the entrance of the cavern, his cri

il my spine hit the freezing, solid

ted to his wrists and ankles dragged across the stone floor

ather had spent years teaching me how to read the shifting tides of political

n my palm had scabbed over during the night. It

l his snout was inches from my chest. He aggressively nudged my close

. He wanted the scent

exploded outward. The black, infected veins beneath his scales were pu

o execute them. They were feeding him. If a royal wasn't fed fresh blood to suppress the virus,

e wanted, he was going to t

hand, dug my thumbnail into the cen

ediately welled up an

Kaelen froze instantly. His frantic digging stopped. His cri

but I pushed it forward,

d, closing the distance in a millisecond, and pressed his mouth to my

lf to watch him. I endured the stinging scrape o

to flatten and recede. The rigid tension in his massive shoulders m

t pull away. Instead, he let out a long, heavy sigh

f his skull pinned my legs to the ground, and the heat

my left hand. I let it hover in the air just above his broad f

hard scales between his ears. It was exactly how I used to approach the temperament

ating purr. He closed his crimson eyes a

the back of my throat. I was sitting

ck echoed from the ceiling far above us. Someo

earth-shaking roar. He vaulted to his feet, placing his massive body ent

ian

the pristine white fabric of my coat marking me as one of the three r

ing to a halt on the m

he updraft from the ventilation shafts. It w

th it was something else. Something breathtakingly sweet. I

n into the pitch-black abyss leading to the deepest leve

lf, my voice echoing in the empty corrido