Page 7 of Dragon Cursed
His jaw snapped with tension.Where were his manners?
Buried in the same cave you’ve been hiding in for three hundred years,his dragon growled.
She deserves better.Deserves respect, Alsander mentally growled right back.
She wants her mate, but you do not listen.Do as you will.
Irritated by his newly wakened conscience, nay, by the very dragon who’d slept through the last three centuries, leaving Alsander alone with his torment, he called upon his magic, waved his hand, and clothed himself in a pair of black trousers.It was as much civility as he could manage when he’d much prefer the alternative.
Absurdly pleased by her look of disappointment when he was decently covered from the waist down, he resisted the urge to pounce and said, "Yes.The island.Who is its king?"
Her grin was infectious, but it was the little sigh that nearly buckled his knees as she took a second look.He needed to let her go before it was too late.
"The king of Ireland?You're really out of touch, then, aren't you?Well, it's the year two thousand and twenty-six on the new calendar.We've got a parliament now.The king of England is pretty much a figurehead these days.Most people don't think the royal family is worth the taxes we pay to keep them in their fancy palaces."
What in the name of all that was sacred was she rambling on about?
Did not matter.
He hadn’t left this forest.Couldn’tleave this forest.Had been alone a very long time.Speaking made his throat ache.
Still, he couldn’t let her go.Not yet.
"The fever."His voice was rough.Fractured."In your village.How many children are sick?"
A flicker of something — sorrow, perhaps — crossed her features."Three are dying.The little ones suffer worst."She gently patted the leather satchel pressed to her side."But the flowers will help.So, thank you for letting me take them from your forest."
Alsander's gaze lingered on her hand where it rested against the pack.The Aos-sí-blooms —flowers sacred to the fairies, were his sister Mairin’s last gift to this world — the only part of her magic that had remained pure after her death.They thrived here, in the heart of his cursed domain, sustained by the last vestiges ofBanríon na Síol'spower.
His sister had been calledQueen of Seedsby the elves, blessed by the goddess herself.
The flowers were not meant for mortals.They were not meant for the outside world.
And yet he couldn’t deny this woman.Couldn’t summon anger.Her presence disarmed him.Made him weak.
"The path you used is treacherous," he heard himself say."I will show you a better way."
It wasn’t an invitation.It wasn’t kindness.It was a selfish need to understand the phenomenon that was Poppy — to understand why the darkness within him shrank from her light.And if he was honest, to spend just a little more time with the mate he could never claim.
Her smile returned, a beam of pure sunshine, and it struck his heart like a physical blow.All the air escaped him in a low, painful groan.She was human, but she’d bewitched him without even trying.
"I'd like that."She waited until he reached her, then fell into step beside him as they began the journey out of the clearing."I'm Poppy, by the way.Poppy Brightwood."
"So you said."
"What's your name?"
"I didn’t give one."
And he would not.Not even for his true mate.Not when keeping his name from her lips had even a slim chance of saving her from the executioner.Even the other magical beings from other kingdoms only partially knew the extent of the Draquonir’s true nature, and mates from those kingdoms were permitted full knowledge only when a Draquonir willingly shared their immortal dragonfire.To reveal themselves sooner or to the wrong person — especially a human — meant death for both.
Poppy had a chance, however slight, to return home before his kind discovered what he’d revealed to her.One single chance to escape the executioner.
He squared his shoulders, determination settling into place.Yes, he could protect her in this small way.She would live while he remained cursed, locked to the forest, his sacred duty to protect the land as long as the magic in his dragon's blood endured.
There was no alternative for him.The curse itself was a sickness.A scourge that had spread from the corrupted relic at the forest's heart, poisoned the land, turned vibrant greens to browns and grays, choked the life from the very soil.It drained his magic.Were he at full power, his dragon would have been slowly consumed by madness without a mate to accept his magic, his sacred dragonfire.But he poured all of it — heart and soul and every last ember his magic — into keeping the forest alive, fighting the curse upon it, holding the line.
He was weak from the constant battle.He’d been trapped here as surely as if he were staked to the ground.Unable to leave.Unable to fly more than a few minutes—unable to battle — to do any of the things a dragon was born to do.He was, for all intents and purposes, a dead dragon.And each day as he’d grown weaker, so, too, did the forest.
