Page 122 of Spar of Hearts

She came nose to nose with him, fingering through the hair on his chest as she whispered, “If you’re good for me, I’ll show you what a real bite feels like.”

He was about to show her how good he could be when a familiar, sulfuric scent pricked his nose—and a gravelly voice popped into his head.

Great Mother.

“Yomira?” He craned his neck toward the half-open tent flap.

Anya pulled back, unsurprisingly displeased. “We’re about to wake this whole forest up and you’re thinking about Yomira?”

“No, she’s—”

Rod! The purple wyvern charged out of the tree line, unleashing a stream of happy grumbles and screeches and flattening shrubs along the way. Her wings flapped back and forth with every stomp. Anya bolted up, yanking the blanket up over her chest.

Yomira shoved her head into their tent, filling it with her signature sulfurous scent. You did it, Rod! The Princess loves you! She loves you! I saw Millie and Ellis like this once, and she told me when two folk love each other very much, they put their lips together like that, and then they—

“Woah there. I don’t need a lesson on that,” Roderick said with a chuckle, resting a hand on her warm snout. Too much information. Way, way too much.

But—

He gripped her snout with both hands, forcing her single ruby eye onto him. “What happened to the Lupus Star?”

“Is Blackbird all right?” Anya asked, panic driving her words.

The ship! The ship! Yomira backed out of the tent and straightened. I didn’t see where it went. But there was no wreckage. I had Isen check. We were so close to the shore, we would’ve seen it.

“Who’s Isen?” Roderick asked.

Anya’s worried eyes parried between Roderick and Yomira. “What is she saying?”

He’s—Yomira whipped her head back to the woods—Oh Great Mother, here he comes.

“Yomira! There you are!” The ground shook as a white dragon with a long, lean body bounded out of the tree line, with an almost fin-like tail flapping behind him. The dragon’s voice was crystal clear, not mumbling within his head like Yomira’s.

“Can you hear him?” Roderick whispered.

“Yes,” Anya said cautiously. Roderick caught her slowly reaching for her cutlass, then settle for more blanket armor. “But how?”

“It’s been thousands of years,” Roderick said. “They must’ve evolved, like those Kobolds we met.”

The dragon skidded to a stop beside Yomira. It was nearly the same size as the wyvern, just a head or two shorter. He rubbed Yomira’s side like a cat greeting its owner, then plopped down beside her with his forelegs tucked in front of him. His crystalline, blue eyes stared at Roderick and Anya in turn, wide and friendly, so unlike the tales of greedy secluded beasts that Roderick had been told as a child.

“Huh. They are strange. Not Were. Not Elf,” the dragon said, tilting his head this way and that as he stretched his neck toward them, flaring his nostrils. His voice was gravelly but still held a cheerful cadence.

Yomira groaned, and her single eye actually rolled back in her head. Was she annoyed? He’d never seen her annoyed before. She was usually the source.

I told you on the way here, she grumbled, they’re descended from Weres and Vampires.

“How did you get here?” Roderick asked.

I flew through the storm but got lost and washed up in the nest of the coastal dragons. She huffed through her nares, then backed out the tent and looked at Isen. But I needed to find some anyway.

The dragon tipped his head in greeting. “And that’s where she met me. I am Isen of Bairseech, Yomira’s mate.” He crossed his front legs and dipped low, then puffed out his chest with pride.

Yomira scrubbed her face with her winged arms, huffing nares betraying her fluster. Roderick couldn’t resist the chance for a friendly tease.

“Oh, I see.” He waggled a brow. “So this was the hush-hush ‘wyvern business’ you spoke of.”

An impossibly quiet screech came from Yomira as she nodded, still hiding behind her wing arms. It’s the way our kind solidify an alliance.