Page 109 of Merciless Is My Crown

A photographic memory when it came to cataloguing those scents. And by memories, I meant every single aspect of that long-ago memory evoked. I remembered the exact turquoise shade of those crystalline waters, the silky soft sand beneath my toes still plump with baby fat. The comforting feel of my mother’s hand wrapped around mine as…

The tears froze to my cheeks before I wiped them away, stalking off toward the Oracle’s lair as if I was checking on Simon’s progress not fucking imploding over a memory from six centuries ago.

As if he could read my mind, Zephryn stopped me with a question. “How old are you, wyvern?”

“Older than you.” I scuffed my boot toe in the snow, meeting his eyes.

My age made no difference, given I was the only wyvern left in this miserable world. If there was still a pyre of us, I could be their king by now, I supposed, as my sire was. Although…I looked over at Zephryn.

What sort of fucking luck brought us both here, would-be kings of lost kingdoms that would never rise again?

Torin disappeared around the building, her boots crunching in the hoarfrost as she trailed her fingers over the smooth stone exterior, muttering about there being no protective ward.

“Do your companions know?” Zephryn asked, never taking his eyes off the spot the seer had last been. “How old you are? That there are no more of your kind?”

“It’s never come up,” I told him with a glare that clearly said, and don’t you fucking tell them, dragon. He raised his hands in mock surrender then glanced back to the building, frowning.

“Where did she go?” Zeph said sharply, an edge of fear to his voice as he jolted to his feet.

“She was right there, double-checking to make sure there’s no ward.” Jeez, if the old drake was this spooked at letting his female out of his sight for a minute, what had he been like for three hundred years?

An image of Anaria’s face flashed in my head, followed by a bone-deep shudder that left chills in its wake. Okay, fair enough. I’d fought my attraction to Anaria for weeks, then months, only to fall under her spell in the end, and I couldn’t even be upset about it.

Maybe my advanced age did have something to do with my initial contempt for a princess who’d killed my friends, and yet…I’d been smitten with Anaria from the first time I’d seen her.

From the moment she’d begged me to go back into Tempeste to save her friend.

Something moved in the shadow of the building cast by the moon rising overhead.

“There she is, safe and sound, dragon. You can’t even…”

Every last thought eddied from my head at what crept out of that darkness.

Grotesque. Corrupted. Nightmarish.

There was no sign of Torin when the dark, twisted creature skittered toward us on stick-thin legs moving so fast they were a blur, holding aloft a soft bulbous body swollen and mottled and spongy with age.

“What the fuck is that?” I hissed to Zephryn. We were shoulder to shoulder as we backed away, minding our footing on the treacherous ground. The thing’s black-as-night eyes—three of them—gleamed with hunger, and all were firmly fixed on us.

“I’ll hold it off; you transform.”

“You’re bigger,” I countered, turning as the thing changed direction and unslinging my bow from my shoulder. Where the fuck was Torin? Was she already dead?

Beside me, Zephryn’s breathing turned raspy, as if he’d just asked himself the same question.

“Torin’s alive, Zeph.” I took another step back, not daring to look down as I slid an arrow from my quiver, knocking it in my bow. “She’s smart enough to avoid danger, she’s probably waiting for the right moment to come up behind this fucking thing and use her magic to save us both and make us look like arses.”

My string creaked in the cold and the creature shifted to one side, blindingly fast, faster than something of that size should be able to move. But with all those fucking legs, the creature moved like an unstoppable wave over the rocky, uneven ground, while we had to watch every fucking step we took.

Below those glittering eyes were pincers as long and wide as my arms, dripping something green and frothy. Poison, most likely, a sweet, rotten smell hitting me as the bug-like creature drew closer.

“If you are going to shoot that, I would do it now, Lord DeVayne.”

“Will iron even kill this thing?”

“Only one way to find out,” Zephryn hissed. “Do it.”

My fingers gripped the fletching, my back muscles strained as I drew the bow taut enough to send my arrow straight through the monster’s eye and out the back of its head, if its skull was as soft as the rest of its spongy, grotesque body.

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