Page 9 of Dragon Cursed
But it wasn’t nothing.It waseverything.It was hope and despair, desire and denial, all wrapped up in one impossible, unbearable moment.
A violent growl climbed his throat before he crushed it back down.Heat rolled beneath his skin in brutal waves, scales flashing briefly along his forearms before vanishing again.His claws bit into the stone hard enough to splinter it.
Mine.Keep.
The words hammered through him with savage insistence.
The dragon surged against the cage of his human form, restless and furious, hunger sharpening each time Poppy moved farther away.It cared nothing for the curse eating through him piece by piece.Nothing for the slow descent waiting at the end of it.Nothing for the death already circling him like a patient scavenger.
Their mate stood within reach.
And Alsander was letting her leave.
The beast recoiled violently in refusal.
Alsander staggered back a step, dragging air into lungs that no longer seemed capable of holding any.The shift pressed hard against his bones now.His spine locked painfully.Fire pulsed beneath his skin in hot, savage bursts while the outline of wings flickered across the clearing shadows behind him.
“No,” he snarled through clenched teeth.To claim her, to bind her to his cursed existence, would be the ultimate act of selfishness.It would be a death sentence for the one woman in centuries who had made him feel anything other than agony.
His dragon refused to listen, pulling instead on magic they couldn’t afford to expend.
The curse answered immediately.Victoriously.
The trees nearest them shriveled.Leaves turned brown and fell to the ground.Darkness coiled through his veins like living smoke, tightening around him with cruel familiarity.Agony followed close behind — deep and grinding, settling into his bones until even standing upright became an act of sheer will.The mountain beneath his feet trembled softly with the force of his restraint while sweat gathered at his temples despite the cool forest air.
"Go," he repeated.Harsher this time.The voice of a creature who had ruled skies."Now."
Poppy flinched at the tone, her bright eyes dimming."But I —"
"Leave me."He turned away before he did something they would both regret."And don’t come back."
He heard her hesitate.Heard the soft sigh of her breath.Then the crunch of leaves as she turned and walked away.
He didn’t watch her go.
He couldn’t.
If he looked at her again, he wasn’t certain he would be able to let her leave.
Only when her scent had faded from the air, when the sound of her footsteps had vanished into the distance, did he allow himself to move.He sagged against the rough bark of an ancient oak, his body trembling with the effort of holding back the monster within.
The dragon roared in his mind, a keening sound of such loss and longing that it brought tears to his eyes — eyes which hadn’t wept since the day his sister fell.
He had found his mate.
And he had sent her away.
He’d done the honorable thing.It was the only way to protect her.
Fool.She is ours,the dragon snarled.She is ours and you let her go.
"I know," Alsander whispered to the empty forest, to the dying trees, to the dragon clawing at the inside of his ribs.
"I know."
His only solace was in knowing she would be safe.Alive.
With an anguished roar that echoed in the silence, he charged back into the forest, ran without direction like an angry bull until he could run no more.He ran for hours.Finally, under the full moon, exhausted beyond his endurance, he slid down the trunk of an oak until he sat in the moss, more dragon than man, empty.
