Page 414 of Kingdoms of Night

“She likes you very much,” Werian said, his eyes wide as he traded a look with Rhianne.

Rhianne crossed her arms. “Hmm. I wonder…”

Werian rubbed a spot behind one of the dragon’s crystalline spikes. “All will be well. You rest and we’ll take care of those terrible people.” He gently eased her snout onto a bed of grasses, then he stood, Isa doing the same.

“Viridi is there.” Isa pressed a hand to her stomach and tried to stop shaking.

“Is he…?” Werian’s eyes were soft, and his voice careful.

“He’s alive.” She pointed. “Can you heal him?”

Werian asked Rhianne to stay with the dragon, and he walked quickly with Isa to where Viridi lay.

Viridi’s beauty and courage stole her breath again. Not only had he risked his life to save her, he’d been fighting the monster inside of him the entire time. The bond between them vibrated and a tickling, warm feeling rose and fell inside her chest and stomach.

Glancing at her as if he might have noticed the catch in her breath, Werian went to one knee and set a hand against Viridi’s shoulder, near some of the burns. Tiny pricks of light and a soft golden glow showed around Werian’s hand.

Viridi stirred, his dark eyes flicking open, his thorned fingertips digging into the ivy that grew around the base of the pine.

CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR

VIRIDI

“Isa?”

“I’m here.”

Her voice shot heat through his blood and he was on his feet in a blink.

Prince Werian stepped away with a sad smile. “I’m going to check the village for the Brunes and their men.” His hand went to his short sword and his gaze was alert though the sounds of fighting had died away.

Viridi swept Isa into his arms. He held her tightly, the leaves of his crown and the ones that grew along his collarbone and from his forearms encircling her gently. She smelled like a blessing, a spell, a promise—sweet and powerful.

He pressed his lips to hers.

Her mouth was so sweet and soft that he forgot everything but the joy she magically gave and the heat of want she roused in him. His whole body hummed with need as he drew his tongue over her upper lip. Cradling her face with his hands, careful not to injure her with his thorned fingers, he tilted her head back, and with his lips traced a slow line down the petal-soft length of her neck. She shivered—hopefully with pleasure.

Drawing back, he returned to reality, to the beauty and the grief of what had happened.

Tears glittered in her eyes. “Fated mates is such a wild adventure. And in the middle of all this … this horror? It’s madness.”

“It’s fate, Lady of the Sun. Love is a magic that none dare try to understand.”

He took her hand and helped her through the rubble, over a ditch he’d most likely made when he had been in his other form, and then across Rom’s broken vegetable cart.

Despite the joy of having Isa at his side, Viridi felt as though he hadn’t fed in ages. His feet didn’t want to move. There were no bodies here, but there would be in the forest where the fighting had gone quiet, where some had lost their struggle against the intruders. He hadn’t killed anyone, he would have known if he had, somehow he knew that. But if they were dead, he wasn’t innocent in the fact; he had been distracting them, trying to frighten them. Even if he had acted in hope of helping, he had been the cause of some of these deaths. Never would he forget this day.

Werian and Rhianne joined them, the dragon plodding along after Werian. They checked every home for survivors, talking quietly and gravely about what had happened and why Viridi had done what he had done. They found one youngling hiding in a closet inside Branch’s home. It was Branch’s son, Linden.

He bent low and extended a hand, hoping the child hadn’t seen him in his Thorned One form. “Linden? It is safe to come out now. Let’s go find your kin, all right?”

Isa, Werian, and Rhianne wouldn’t know what he was saying, but they must have figured it out, because they joined in, gently giving the lad encouragement that he could most likely only comprehend by watching their kind smiles and seeing their outstretched hands.

Linden didn’t smile, but he did crawl out. He immediately grasped Isa’s leg and held on, closing his eyes and pressing his face into her skirts. She laughed sadly and ran a hand over Linden’s head of fine blond hair, her fingers brushing his pointed ear. She didn’t jerk away from his differences, but instead cooed at him like he was her own child. Viridi could see how the mother-son sort of relationship had formed between Isa and Nico. She had a way with young ones despite her occasionally sharp tongue and blunt manner.

When the five of them emerged from Branch’s ruined home, they found a host of his people gathered in the debris of the village. Some had black blood still trickling from cuts along their arms or across their sides.

Showing a black eye and a bruised jaw, Felix hurried to Viridi and set a hand on his shoulder. “I’m here. No matter what.”

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