Page 100 of Wild Bond

Afterward, I lay across him, a single finger tracing the dark ink on his chest while his large hand played with my hair.

“Realms, I love your hair,” he rumbled.

I didn’t even try to stop the grin that spread across my lips. I kissed his chest and giggled. “I know.”

I began kissing down his chest, my tongue following the dark curving lines of ink on his skin until I laved his nipple, sucking it into my mouth. I released it with a pop and then grinned again. “I love your tattoos.”

“I know,” he countered as I nipped my way up to his neck.

I dropped back down and folded my hands over his chest, my chin resting on my interlocked fingers. “So, any theories about who kidnapped me and brought me here?” I asked, not sure how to gracefully segue into this conversation.

Rake’s head rose up slightly, his facial expression bemused then sobering. “A few,” he admitted, not commenting on my change of topic. He bent one massive arm and tucked it behind his head, looking relaxed but serious as he replied, “It could have been anyone—any dragon rider, anyway.”

“Prince Pierce?” I asked.

Rake shook his head. “That was my first thought as well, but I have a hard time believing any of the more prominent figures could have had anything to do with it . . . at least directly. We’re too visible, especially during the trials.”

“What I still don’t understand is how they got me here in time?”

“There are several days of pomp and circumstance, ceremonies and the like, before the trials actually start,” Rake explained. “So, there would have been time, especially if they had a rider helping them, and Skye was in her minor form at the time.”

I then told Rake about what had really happened to me in the First Trial. What Daisha had done, and how Skye had used the bond to completely heal me somehow. He was furious about Daisha and wanted to have her disqualified, but then I reminded him that she technically hadn’t broken any rules and that I didn’t want attention drawn to what had happened with Skye.

“I’ve never heard of something like that happening before,” he said. “If she can heal you like that, why hasn’t she done so before?”

I thought on it. “It must be because my life was in danger,” I realized. “We both would have died if she hadn’t. I felt in the bond that healing me like that took a lot out of her. Maybe it’s something that only can be done under extreme circumstances.”

“Hmm,” Rake murmured as we both fell quiet, thinking on all that had happened and all we still didn’t know. “How are you feeling about the Second Trial?” he finally asked. I had been wondering when he would bring that up. The trial didn’t start until this afternoon, but it hung over my head like a dark cloud.

I began absently tracing his tattoos again. “Nervous,” I confessed quietly. “I wish I knew more of what to expect. All I know is what you and Trenton told us.” I took a deep breath. “And that it takes place in an obsidian chamber like the one you showed us.” I tried not to fall back into the emotions I felt that day under the temple. I was convinced I was able to fight off the panic in The Rift only out of a sheer need to survive. I swallowed hard. “What if it happens again?” I said, almost as if I was worried someone other than Rake would hear me admit my fears aloud. “What if I can’t even enter the chamber, let alone complete the trial?”

Rake’s arms tightened around me. “You’ll have Skye to help you,” he pointed out. “You won’t be alone.”

“But—”

“No,” he cut in, staring down at me with those amazing eyes I loved. “You can do this, Rin. I have every confidence in you. You passed the First Trial with little training and hardly any warning. You can master your fear. You already did once.” His hand reached out and traced along my cheek. “You deserve to pass the trial and become a dragon rider in truth,” he murmured, voice gentling. “There was something about you from the first moment I saw you in that square . . . a fierceness and strength that I couldn’t help but admire and be drawn to, even then. And it’s a strength that you can draw from now.”

My cheeks warmed, and my heart swelled with emotion at his confidence in me—amazed at how he saw me. “Thank you,” I murmured, meaning it and not sure what else to say.

I grew quiet as his hand moved to rub a lock of my hair between his fingers. The silvery strands contrasted perfectly with his bronze skin. The deeper emotion in his eyes was something that I wasn’t sure I was ready to examine, an emotion that I had been seeing there with varying degrees of intensity for longer than I was willing to admit. It left me both heady with excitement and overcome by sudden anxiety.

His eyes met mine again, and the certainty in them nearly left me breathless. “You’re welcome.”

MyconversationwithRakethis morning had helped strengthen my resolve some, but not much. I was still insanely nervous and felt like I might be ill when it was finally my turn to be called down into the chamber for the Second Trial.

I was wearing a new pair of the brown riding leathers, since the ones I had been wearing in the First Trial were unsalvageable. Skye sat perched on my shoulder. A female dragon rider from Zehvi escorted us from the room where all the prospects from the three kingdoms waited—those who had yet to go anyway—and down a flight of stone stairs that felt like they just kept going and going, before finally leveling off in a large stone chamber.

Skye’s steady presence and calm reassurance in the bond was the only thing that kept me from fleeing back up the stairs. The room that looked remarkably similar to the cave at The Great Temple. I could feel the familiar hum of panic in my blood, threatening to overwhelm me. My heartbeat pounded in my ears, and my palms began to sweat.

Once again, the chamber was only lit by flaming sconces set in the walls overhead; not nearly enough light to chase away the darkness from the corners or the memories in my mind. The walls and floors were engraved with strange symbols that didn’t resemble any language or lettering I had ever seen. Set in the far wall, a massive pair of ornate double doors stood open, revealing a large obsidian stone chamber.

Rake had warned me what to expect, walking me through what he was able to tell me of the trial—the discussion I had missed when he carried me from the chamber that day. It helped me a little now, and I was able to momentarily stave off the dread at the thought of being closed into that dark chamber.

An older woman with kind, sad eyes, who wore the long dark green robe of a Baldorian priestess, a Hollow One, approached us. She nodded to my escort, and the Zehvitian rider bowed in a sign of respect before taking her leave and heading back up the stone stairs without a word.

The priestess regarded me, and then Skye, before introducing herself. “My name is Alma,” she said. “I am one of the caretakers here at Three Points, and one of those assigned to help trainees through the final trial.”

I nodded, taking a steadying breath. I didn’t feel capable of speech at the moment, all my energy was focused on not sinking into that remote place I retreated to in my mind once before.Realms.It felt like these trials were specifically designed to torment me, ferreting out several of my deepest fears. And this one was just beginning.

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