Page 185 of Between Flames and Deceit
“He should have stopped!” He jerked my arm again, his rage barely contained.
“Just stop for one blasted moment!” I hissed, my hands shaking from the fury that refused to quell. I cursed my lack of magic to make him stop and think about this.
“Ronan, let me get changed!”
“You’re not setting another foot in that palace!”
“You don’t decide what I do!”
Gyrak’s enormous snout slammed into me, shoving me toward his saddle as soldiers flooded the courtyard, their boots pounding against stone. I whirled, pointing a trembling finger at the dragon’s snout.
“No!”
Something cracked deep inside me, a surge of energy rippling across my skin. Gyrak recoiled from my touch, his pupils narrowing to slits.
“I am a Dragon Rider, Princess.” Ronan’s words were thick with authority. “I outrank you by position and birth.”
Fury burned through me like wildfire, painting my vision crimson. A daughter. That’s all I was. A tool to be traded for alliances.
A broken tool.
“Don’t do this.”
“I won’t abandon you here.” Ronan’s voice softened, but his presence loomed, towering over me, forcing me to tilt my head to meet his gaze. “I won’t leave you with him.”
The weight of his words pressed down on me, a finality that shattered my resolve.
This was it. No turning back now. There was no convincing him or undoing the damage. Kallias couldn’t follow me—not without sparking war. He’d lose everything.
The truth had spilled. Our secret was exposed, and nothing would ever be the same.
I had destroyed it all. Radaan, Draconia, my future—Kallias’ peace. His hard-won stability was shattered by the recklessness of a single moment.
“Come with me, Nienna. There’s no future for you here.”
His grip tightened, pulling me toward Gyrak, and this time I didn’t resist.
Ignoring the shredded remains of my gown, I climbed onto the black-scaled shoulder of the beast. A sob wracked through me, painful and raw. Cold leather bit into skin as I settled in. Ronan followed, his movements mechanical as he buckled my boots into the stirrups.
I caught his angry looks at my naked legs, diverting his gaze from my thighs.
There was something painfully exposing about being laid bare to so many. But more than that, the humiliation of it shattered what was left of my heart. My shoulders slumped as Ronan pressed his body tightly against mine, pulling his flight goggles over his face.
“Hold on. We’re going home.”
His strong arms encircled me, locking me in place as he gripped the ridge of the saddle. Gyrak roared beneath us, the force of his fury ripping a shrub from the earth. With a mighty beat of his wings, the dragon launched into the sky. Ronan’s body was an ironclad wall, holding me steady as we ascended.
The thunderous clap of wings echoed like the final strike of a hammer on a coffin. We soared, Gyrak’s enormous form cutting through the air with surprising speed. Below us, the palace shrank, its bustling life reduced to nothing more than ants scrambling over the ground. We climbed higher, toward Draconia, the land that should have been home.
But home was no longer a place—it had become a man. The invisible tether between me and Kallias stretched, taut and unyielding, urging me to turn back, to race into his arms. Nothing would ever be right without him. Life felt hollow without him.
But there was no life with him.
A low whimper escaped me before I could stop it, and Ronan’s grip tightened, drawing me further into his embrace. My eyes squeezed shut as panic clawed at my chest, my fingers grasping at the broken thread that once connected me to Kallias.
Then it snapped.
.
