Page 67 of The Longing

“Let me go,” I say as I recognise the rain which is falling like icy shards. “You’ve done enough by forcing him to be my mate.”

The chuckle which echoes over the stones is pure evil. Not that I was expecting anything else.

“The Wyrm disobeyed me, and I will never be disobeyed.” The queen materialises next to me, pulling on the mist around my wrists which goes taut, slicing into my flesh like metal.

It has become chains, binding me to her.

“Humans,” she sneers. “You think we came to save you, and yet what did you offer in return?”

“Aw,” I pout. “Did you want a thank you card? Flowers? Perhaps a box of Milk Tray?”

Her beautiful face flashes with the demon within, twisted and dark.

“We wanted you. Without humans, the Yeavering cannot continue. You have been taken since time began for our needs, our pleasures, our whims.” She snarls at me. “And you provide the vessel for a new Wyrm, one which will be loyal to me and only to me.”

“No.”

The queen throws her head back and laughs.

“It’s too late for refusal, human,” she spits. “You have already rutted with the Wyrm.” Her mouth twists in disgust. “You have taken his seed, and you are with young. Nothing can stop nature from taking its course. Your child will be mine and the days of the Wyrm are numbered.”

Wind whips violently at my hair, at my wet clothing, pulling and writhing. I’m lifted into the air, my limbs wrenched upwards on the chains which bind me. I think I scream but I’m not sure. I don’t want to give the queen the satisfaction, but I cannot help myself.

But I don’t scream his name.

Because he should have warned me, and he chose not to. Now I have no choice at all.

FENROTHER

Iwant to follow her, my Alice, as she flees from me, but my guilt holds me back.

It sits in my stomach like a stone, and that is something I know all about. Not the first time I’ve swallowed a stone, although this one is of my own making.

I should have told her. I should have said about the curse. About the way it ends. My text told me all about choice and I gave my mate none.

Alice disappears into a gulley, and having her out of my sight tears at my heart. She belongs to me. I shouldn’t have to lose her.

But a curse is a curse. I have not the magic to break it. Mine comes from the earth, not the air, the strongest of the elementals. I am but a Wyrm.

And I hate being powerless against such a force. The Faerie could have stopped the wars in the Night Lands in a single glance, a flick of their delicate wrists, but instead they chose to send wave after wave of us into the breach, as if it was a game.

A game I refused to play, and this is the result.

I roar out to the fells, to the heather, to the creatures within, but no one listens. No one ever listens to a Wyrm. I am silenced.

A crack of thunder spears me from behind. I become the Wyrm in order to resist, but unease settles within me. If the Faerie are close, I should have Alice by my side.

The queen gave us a moon month, and it has been longer. I had held hope in my heart she might not come, she might have lost interest, but I was wrong.

I am hopelessly wrong wherever my Alice is concerned, save for giving her pleasure. I swarm my way over the fell side, searching for her, needing her.

Wanting to tell her how much she means to me, to my Wyrm, to my pizzle, to all of me, every single scale, every flutter of my wing, every point on my tail. I might not be able to break the curse, but I belong to her until I am no more, and I need her to know this.

Rain pounds as I dive into the gulley. A shriek which is suddenly cut off makes my scales stand on end.

“Alice!” I growl her name through a magical fog which seeks to dull my senses.

“She is mine now,” Mab echoes back to me, maybe in my head, maybe in the air. “And you are mine too, Wyrm.”

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