Page 17 of Thauglor
But for now, I remain trapped, burning with the need to protect what’s mine. Soon, I tell myself as her mates’ comfort flows through our bond. Soon I’ll be free to make the world safe for our future hatchlings, to give her everything she’s ever dreamed of without fear of consequence.
The vision of tiny hatchlings playing in a secure nest, their laughter echoing off stone walls while Mina watches with contentment instead of terror, fuels my determination like nothing else could. That future is worth any amount of violence, any level of destruction I’ll have to unleash to make it a reality.
Over the next few days,Mina’s visions intensify, showing us battles with wyverns on the northern borders. The images flash through our bond like lightning—chaotic scenes of combat that make my confined muscles tense with anticipation. Two out of three of the visions show my descendant and her mate Abraxis single-handedly destroying the majority of the wyvern threat once and for all. Acid flows like rivers while fire consumes everything in its path.
Today is the eve of the battle, and I feel the coiled power of my mate pulsing through her like a second heartbeat. The energy crackles beneath her skin, electric and dangerous as a caged storm. I try to soothe her the best I can, sending waves of calm through our bond. I guess it’s working because she won’t leave me anywhere. Her hand is constantly stroking my shell, fingers tracing patterns that send warmth spiraling through the cursed barrier. I feel the love pulsing through our connection like liquid sunlight.
I also get to see fragments of several other minor battles—flashes of violence that taste like copper and smoke. Like the one that will happen here at her nest while she’s off fighting. The thought of her facing danger alone makes my scales crawl with protective rage.
“I know—you want to raze the enemy to the ground. Your time is fast approaching, Thauglor,” Mina’s voice is steady and confident, but I can hear the underlying tension stretched tightas a bowstring. The promise in her words makes my chest swell with anticipation.
I feel her move us and sit down somewhere that feels solid and secure beneath her. The stone carries the chill of high altitude. “The fire drakes and ambush drakes will try to attack us here, but they’ll never make it up here with us.” Her nest must be high in a mountain, like the great iron dragonesses of the past used to prefer. The defensive position speaks of her tactical brilliance. I rumble deeply to her, hoping to bring her comfort in her time of need. The sound vibrates through my shell and into her lap.
“It still amazes me how you interact with us in the eggs,” Klauth says. I can only guess that he comes to sit near us. His tone is contemplative, carrying a wonder that makes me proud of our unusual bond.
“It’s not like I’m talking to a lifeless chicken egg,” Mina says as she lifts me and settles me on her lap. Her warmth seeps through the shell, and I can feel the steady rhythm of her breathing. The comment makes me want to laugh—if only she knew how very alive I feel when she holds me.
“That is true. Still, I see what Abraxis meant—you really never let go of his egg,” Klauth teases, affection warming his voice. She goes on about the ways to destabilize her nest, and me being stolen is the first thing she mentions. Not her nephews or other precious things—me. The priority I hold in her heart makes my throat tight with emotion.
Klauth mentions it’s almost time, and I see Mina force a vision with effort that makes her muscles tense. She catches my old friend up on current events surrounding my descendant, her voice carrying an urgency that tastes like metal on the tongue. Mina summoned her mate’s father—another descendant of mine—to her. The fact that he came proves she is the most powerful dragoness on the continent. Power like that commands respect even from ancient bloodlines.
She explains about what she can do and the threat it poses to her and his son’s safety. Her voice drops to barely above a whisper, but the words carry the weight of life and death. Reluctantly, my descendant agrees to keep her secret and leaves to set her plan in motion. My mate is absolutely brilliant, and if I wasn’t already madly in love with her, I’d be falling head over heels now. Her strategic mind operates on levels that amaze even me.
She continues describing the vision and how things unfold if Vox had said anything about what she could do. Accidentally, I see the entire battle ensue through her eyes—a nightmare of violence and loss that makes my stomach clench with dread. I watch her and Klauth fall dead, Mina lasting longer than Klauth in battle but still succumbing to overwhelming odds. Her blood spreads across stone like spilled wine, and the image burns into my consciousness.
Later in the evening, the last thing I remember feeling and hearing is the pit of icy dread that sinks into Mina like a stone dropped in deep water. The emotion hits our bond with crushing force. The third option she told me about unfolds in real time, and terror floods through her veins like ice water.
“We need to go now...” Mina practically roars, her voice carrying desperation that makes my shell vibrate. I feel the disturbance through our bond—panic mixed with determination as she springs into action. The urgency in her movements transfers through her grip on my shell before consciousness abandons me, pulling me down into darkness just as crisis erupts around us.
The last sensation I register is her racing heartbeat against my shell and the taste of battle in the air—metallic and sharp with the promise of violence to come.
The days blurtogether like watercolors in rain as what brief time Mina makes for me feels short and rushed. Her visits carry the scent of antiseptic and exhaustion, her hands shaking slightly when she touches my shell. She spends the majority of her time with my descendant while he sleeps, and I can taste her desperation through our bond like copper pennies on the tongue.
I overhear Klauth talking about the extent of his damage, and my heart freezes in my chest like ice crystallizing in my veins. The clinical details hit me like physical blows—internal bleeding, shattered bones, organs fighting to function. If he dies, he may take Mina with him. The thought makes my confined muscles seize with terror.
The right of benefaction!I yell at the top of my lungs; the words tear from my throat like molten metal. The ancient law burns in my mind—if a mate dies, another from their bloodline can take their place to preserve the bond. The other side of the rite is to gift years to the injured mate. I can only hope my oldest friend thinks of it before our mate is lost to grief. The desperation in my voice echoes through the shell until my throat feels raw.
I am in my own personal hell, trapped and helpless while catastrophe unfolds around me. Our mate is almost mourningherself to death over my idiotic descendant, and I can feel every wave of her anguish crash over me through our bond. Her pain tastes like salt tears and feels like claws raking through my chest.Why does he fight how the flight needs to be for Mina’s safety? Why doesn’t he value his own hide enough to live for her?
We are black dragons—compact powerhouses that can turn entire countrysides into dead seas with our acid breath. My bloodline was once feared across continents, and now this descendant of mine lies dying because he couldn’t adapt to what his mate needed. The shame burns through me like acid eating through steel.
Our poor mate—I feel her pain and grief as if it’s my own, each sob that wracks her body reverberating through my shell. Her heartbeat pounds against my consciousness like a funeral drum, irregular and desperate. The weight of her sorrow presses down on me until I can barely breathe the stale air of my prison.
‘Bahamut, if you can hear me,’I pray with every fiber of my being, the words flowing from my soul like blood from a wound.‘Save and protect my mate. She is my life and light; without her, I am nothing.’The prayer tastes like desperation mixed with centuries of accumulated faith. I can only hope my words don’t fall on deaf ears, that some divine power might intervene where I cannot.
The silence that follows feels heavier than mountains. No sign reaches me that my plea has been heard, no comfort flows back through whatever connection might exist between dragon and deity. But still I cling to hope like a drowning man grasps driftwood.
I am so close to finally having my mate in my arms, so close to freedom I can almost taste it like honey on my tongue. Theanticipation of holding her, of being able to comfort her properly instead of sending useless pulses of warmth through a cursed shell—it’s been my only reason for existing these past centuries.
Please don’t let me lose her now.The thought repeats in my mind like a mantra, each repetition carrying more desperate weight. Not when I’m so close to showing her what true devotion looks like, not when I’m finally ready to prove myself worthy of the faith she’s shown in claiming my egg. The fear that I might emerge from this shell only to find her gone cuts deeper than any blade ever could.
Chapter Sixteen
The rematchMina has been waiting for is today. She told me how useless the tactician Abraxis has been working with is, her voice dripping with contempt that tastes like bitter wine. I can only imagine how this second round will play out. She relays how easily she stopped his attack the last time, describing his failures with the precision of a surgeon cataloging wounds. Honestly, I believe she will destroy him again.
A message about the war games comes up, and she mutters about being sidelined. Her voice carries frustration that vibrates through her chest and into my shell. I feel a spark ignite within her—power coiling like a serpent preparing to strike. She feels like a loaded spring, tension crackling through every muscle.What has my mate done?She goes back to whatever she was doing before as if nothing happened, but the electricity in her movements tells a different story.
It feels like forever later when something ignites within her. Whatever set her in motion makes my shell vibrate with her sudden intensity. I feel sorry for whomever crossed her. A spark of excitement floods through Mina like liquid fire, and I feel herpick my egg up with hands that shake slightly from adrenaline. She places me back into the holder she made for me, the familiar cradle warm from her body heat. The anticipation is killing me—every nerve ending I possess screams with the need to witness what comes next.
