Page 108 of Wild Bond

I looked behind her to where her dragon lay unmoving, and my heart sank.

The dragon was dead, the female’s long neck lying at an awkward angle. And even though, technically, the dragon had been the enemy, I still felt the loss. Losing even one dragon was a tragedy—a tragedy I was placing squarely on the shoulders of this mystery rider.

A rider who stood so calmly next to her dead, bonded dragon. If that had been Skye . . . I couldn’t imagine how she was remaining so calm and unaffected.

“Who are you?” I demanded, taking a step closer and cursing at the pain in my leg. She held a sword, but the way it hung awkwardly at her side made me think she had little experience with it. If I could just get close enough . . .

The rider just laughed. “Do you really think I would reveal that to you?”

No, I didn’t. But her blade was still lowered and held loosely at her side, and I had made it another step closer.

“Why are you doing this, then?” I asked, instead of answering her. “You’re dragon riders. Why are you attacking us here? Why now?”

She said nothing.

“The fact that you waited to attack until nearly half of us had already gone home implies some knowledge of what goes on at Three Points. Are you after someone in particular?”

“No,” she replied simply. I couldn’t see her face, but I could hear the smug grin in her voice.

“So, the fact that the future leaders from all three kingdoms are here right now had nothing to do with it? If your attack is successful, you could possibly take them all out in one fell swoop.”

The woman laughed, and there was something unhinged and possibly familiar in the sound as she answered with a shake of her head. “That was someone else’s idea. I just needed a way to test out whether the bonds were working, and this opportunity was too good to pass up.”

See if the bonds were working? Someone else’s idea?

“Whose idea?” I demanded, wondering if she was just cocky enough to tell me.

She took a sliding step toward me on the rocky ground, and I was careful to mirror her movements. I forced the pain in my leg, my worry for Skye, and for Rake, and all those fighting above us into the background for now.

“Uh-uh-uh,” she tutted waving her sword tip back and forth before her. “You’ll have to discover that for yourself, Rin.”

“You know me?” I asked, inching forward the slightest bit more. Part of me even wondered for a wild moment if this woman was the queen, but then, dismissed the thought. The sound of this woman’s voice, and the way she moved and carried herself, suggested a much younger woman. Not to mention the queen walked with a cane.

“Of course, I know you,” she snapped. “By now there probably aren’t many in the three kingdoms who don’t. And don’t come any closer!” she warned, her voice rising to a slightly nervous shout.

I had managed to shuffle my way over so that now we only stood a few yards apart. Deciding to divert her attention, I gestured to the battle being waged overhead, keeping a hand still fisting a dagger pressed to the bleeding wound at my side. “It doesn’t appear to be going so well for your forces. Your plan—whatever it is—is failing.”

She shrugged, again not seeming concerned that even now the riders she led were dying above us. “The bonding potion works. That’s all I care about.” She waved a dismissive hand upward. “They are unimportant. I can make as many riders as I want.”

“Bonding potion?” I repeated in confusion. Glancing over to where the broken body of her dragon lay behind her, I again wondered how this rider hadn’t reacted to the fact that her dragon had just been killed. In fact, it didn’t seem to matter to her at all. She should be nearly catatonic with grief. I knew I would be, if it were Skye . . . unless the bond with her dragon . . . the bond wasn’t real.

What she had said about making her own riders finally sank in. Horror hit me as realization dawned. “You-you’ve created a potion that forces a bonding?”

She shrugged again. “I had some help, and it’s a little more complicated than that, but yes,” she answered calmly; as if what she was admitting to wasn’t a heinous crime against nature, against the very fabric of the world as we knew it—and a perversion of the worst kind. To force a dragon to bond with someone who was not their rider, to manipulate a connection that was so pure . . . the very idea made me shudder with revulsion. Then my mind went to the people who would decide to be a part of such a horrible thing. To allow themselves to be bonded in such a way . . . unless of course they were forced as well. Then they would be victims just as much as the drag—

I felt sick to my stomach.

“The people,” I breathed, swallowing hard. “The people who have been kidnapped or gone missing . . .” My mind thought of all those people from Dessin and all over Baldor. Borden and all the other victims . . . Lessa and the other children. Then I thought of the dragon we found chained up in the woods, and the dragon who was even now locked down at the compound, the dragon who had gone crazy, most likely from this vile potion.

I glared at the woman before me. “It was you.” Everything. All the clues, the trail Rake and I had been following and piecing together for months. “It was all you,” I repeated. “You forced those people and those dragons to—” I couldn’t even finish the sentence.

She said nothing, and a cold anger quickly overcame me. With a cry of rage, I leapt forward, ignoring the burning pain in my leg. The woman stumbled back, not expecting the sudden attack. I was able to swipe the weapon out of her hand easily with one of my blades, while holding the other to her throat.

She went still as I sheathed my other dagger, and in a single move, ripped the helmet from her head. As the rider’s face was revealed, I almost—almost—lowered the dagger in shock.

“Mercedes?” I breathed in utter disbelief to see the princess of Baldor staring back at me, with an unrecognizably mocking smile on her face. A face that was bare of glasses, I noted absently.

“Not who you were expecting, I’m sure,” she taunted.

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