Page 75 of Lady Dragon
They were both human. For a very short window—one that was rapidly closing; Samansa could feel it. Her strength was waning. She’d longed for this moment so she could hold Kirek in her arms, but it was taking every part of her to hold Rakaback.
“Kirek, run!” Samansa cried, gesturing with her free hand.“Run until you’re safe enough to cut out your own stone, and be a dragon once more.”
Kirek didn’t run. Instead, she dropped her sword and clutched Samansa’s shoulders to help keep her upright, her fingers tightening as if she couldn’t believe what they held. The princess herself could barely believe it.
“But then Raka will overcome you once more,” Kirek said, dismay coloring her own voice, “and I won’t be able to use the power of the stone against her to try to get you back.”
Samansa grimaced. “It’s a losing battle. Her grip on me is too strong. I would carve out her stone myself, except I know I would die before I could manage.” She looked down at the dress that couldn’t be called a dress anymore, the yellow long overtaken by stains. Fitting, she supposed.
Kirek’s fearful, awestruck gaze was roving over her body as well, despite how dreadful Samansa must have looked, lit with an intensity that was far from disgust. Filled, rather, with longing.
“You said you wanted to touch me,” Samansa said suddenly, the thought sprung from the air. “I remember that much.”
The dragon girl swallowed. “Yes.”
“Then why aren’t you touching me while you still have the chance?” The bold words came to the princess as naturally as breathing now. After all, what did she have to lose that she wasn’t already?
“I am touching you. But I assume you mean—” Kirek stammered and glanced away, with a shyness so unlike herself. “I’m worried you’ll fall if I move.”
“Not if you keep holding on to me.”Keep holding on to me, the princess thought.
Kirek lifted a shaking hand to trace the line of Samansa’sface with a fingertip, eventually cupping her cheek in her palm. “So beautiful,” the dragon girl whispered. “So strong.”
Samansa’s eyes closed at her touch, a tear leaking out from under her lids that Kirek wiped away with her thumb. This was enough. It would have to be. Samansa wanted hundreds, thousands more moments with Kirek, but this was all they had.
She took a deep breath, steeling herself. “If you won’t run, then you need to kill me.”
Kirek’s silver eyes flew wide. They were so lovely, as bright as coins, Samansa thought—not so terrible, for the last thing she might ever see. But Kirek wasn’t snatching up her sword to stab her. She didn’t even respond.
“I have an ancient dragon’s life entwined with mine,” the princess said with rising desperation. “Take it, and regain yours.”
Kirek only stared, her hands frozen on Samansa’s shoulders.
“Kill me, Kirek!” she cried, her body seizing with effort.
“I can’t,” the dragon girl finally rasped, her grip tightening.
“Youhaveto.” A sob tore out of Samansa. “I can’t live like this, as her. You told me what an honor it is when someone gives you their life in every way. Trusts you tokillthem. Let me die as myself. It’s the only way to stop her.”
“I can’t,” Kirek repeated despairingly. “I’m—I’m too weak. I made myself weak, for you.”
The princess leaned her head against Kirek’s breast, pressing her cheek into the leather and breathing her in, the salt and sweat and human musk of her neck. Wishing she could stay like this forever. “You’re not weak. You are as strong as Nakor, the dragon queen who ended the War of Fire. Who loved a human. Whobecamehuman, for love.”
When she looked up, Kirek only shook her head stubbornly, her own tears making her eyes shine brighter.
“Fine,” Samansa murmured. “If you won’t kill me, then kiss me, you fool.”
She tilted her head up, and Kirek was there to meet her like an answering song—so ready and willing to dothis, at least, once invited. Her lips were soft, but not shy anymore—tender with deliberation and what Samansa imagined was barely suppressed terror that this might be the last they ever touched like this. With reverence, almost, how they trembled so delicately against the princess’s mouth.
Samansa didn’t let their lips linger against each other for long, as much as she wanted to lose herself in Kirek. Because shewaslosing herself—to Raka. She was out of time. The fire was raging in her chest, as if in protest at their kiss.
When Samansa pulled away, she smiled at her dragon girl through her tears. “It’s all right, Kirek. If you’re too sweetly, beautifully human to kill me, it’s all right.” Her smile twisted wryly. “Because I have a dragon in me still—andshe’sa bitch. And you forget I know how to use a blade.”
Samansa’s hand shot forward to close around the hilt of one of Kirek’s daggers before the dragon girl knew what she was doing. Kirek’s instinct must have kicked in as she tried to block against an attack—but the princess wasn’t aiming for her.
She flipped the blade around and rammed it with both hands directly into her own heart, right alongside the glaring shard of red stone. Pain ripped through her, exploding from the wound in a blaze of white-hot fire, staggering her. Tearing her free. Wiping her clean. The entire world tipped around her.
She could hear Kirek screaming her name, feel her pulling at the dagger’s hilt. But it was too late.
