Page 116 of The Breeding Cave
I closed my eyes, tears sliding down my cheeks. “When you died … I thought …”
“I know,” she whispered, drawing her hands through my hair. “You don’t have to relive it.”
She took my hand and placed it on her growing belly bump. Somehow, it had grown since she had made it back. I didn’t want her to come with us tomorrow, in case the dragons targeted our baby, but I knew we needed her.
Tomorrow, I had to trust her to be strong and smart, and I did.
“She’s going to be a phoenix too, isn’t she?” I hummed. “Strong like her mama.”
“She’ll be the first to be born as one.” Yeosin beamed.
“How do you know that?”
“When I was dead, someone told me,” she said. “Another phoenix trapped in the dungeon of the Dragon Clan. She showed me the horrors that the dragons have put the phoenixes through.”
“Who was it?” I asked.
“I’m not sure, but she was”—she smiled softly—“really pretty and sweet.”
I kissed her on the forehead. “Just like you.”
Like she had when we first met the night at The Breeding Cave, Yeosin blushed and shuffled in the bed nervously. I tugged her closer to me and pressed my lips to her temple, then her cheek, then her lips.
“We’ll free her tomorrow,” I said. “We’ll free all of them.”
CHAPTER
SIXTY-SEVEN
YEOSIN
Dawn light flooded around the trees, creating patterns on the forest floor around me. I stared ahead at the path we’d take—one that we would forge—to step into a new life. Soon, the Dragon Clan would be gone. Forever.
Warriors shouted behind me, pumping each other up for the fight. I placed a hand on my belly bump and closed my eyes, hoping to connect to the phoenixes. That woman had said that we had a shared consciousness. But I had been trying and failing to activate it all night.
My baby kicked the inside of my stomach over and over, as if she was somersaulting inside of me, as if she was ready, excited even. One of these days, we would have to give her a name. That was, if we made it out alive.
The wind blew heavily around us, blowing the feathers of my wings back. I inhaled the sound of Luciano’s footsteps—it was still weird, being able to experience sounds as smells or sight as touch—and moved into the forest.
“It’s time to go,” I said over my shoulder.
Once the warriors gathered all their weapons, they followed through the woods. I clenched my fists, talons digging into the skin on my palms. We would win. We had to win. For the pack. For all the families lost. For all the families to come.
“Are you okay?” Luciano asked, capturing my hand.
I released my fist and softly gazed up at him. “Fine.”
“That doesn’t sound fine.”
“I’m nervous,” I whispered. “What if we’re leading all these people to death?”
Luciano nodded. “We might be.”
I smacked him on the shoulder. “That doesn’t help!”
“It’s the truth,” he said honestly. “You haven’t been in war before, so you don’t know. To be a soldier, you have to be willing to lose everything, even your life. All the warriors behind us know that and accept that. They’re fighting for freedom.”
“Freedom,” I repeated, a sudden pain through my head.
