The rest happened just as Wolfe described to Rui that night when she woke him from his nightmare. Except this time, Rui saw the dragon’s point of view. She could hear his thoughts. Feel his desperation. His heartbreak.
For the female he’d given everything of himself did not have the courage to love him back. He saw the horror and terror in her eyes when she witnessed his transformation into dragon. He felt her revulsion and rejection. Her hatred of him for having been deceived.
He’d thought to explain. But she wouldn’t listen. She’d loved a lie. Never the male inside.
With a roar, the dragon unfurled his wings and tried to take flight. He could not withstand the burgeoning pain within, the withering of his heart and soul.
Wolfe rushed him suddenly with a sword, cutting into the fleshly underside of one foreclaw. As he reflexively closed his claws at the wound, he accidentally scratched the boy.
Rui felt the dragon’s instant remorse as he looked down upon the young human.
Wolfe’s angry face was soaked with blood. But he wouldn’t back down. He would do anything to protect his mother from the dragon.
The monster.
My son,the dragon thought.And now, you will hate me too. Come find me when you are grown. I shall be waiting.
With that, the dragon beat his gigantic wings and took off.
Never to return to these lands.
Rui awoke on a gasp, her eyes peeling wide open.
“There you are,” Ere’s voice came from beside her. “I was going to shake you into consciousness if you didn’t rouse yourself.”
“Where’s Wolfe?” she demanded immediately, doffing the furs.
“Finishing the afternoon matches, I presume. If we hurry, you might make it to the last round before you get disqualified.”
“Why didn’t you wake me sooner?” she groused, pulling on her clothes and boots in record time.
“Your body needed to heal. No point competing if you can’t win. Now, I think you actually stand a chance. Come on.”
They left together on horseback. Upon arrival at the wrestling grounds before the royal stands, Rui dismounted while her steed was still galloping. She landed with a somersault in the middle of the ringed area just as the herald announced the winners.
“—first place to Wolfe, Champion of Tristan. Second place to—”
“I am here!” Rui interjected. “The contest is not done. Who is up to fight me?”
The crowds murmured, and the queen narrowed her eyes from where she sat in the royal stands. The king and his sister wore the same implacable masks they always wore, staring at nothing unblinkingly.
Wolfe stood a few feet away from her, arms folded across his massive chest, his scarred side facing her. The vein in his temple ticked just above the corner of his right brow.
He seemed angry. Furious, actually.
But why?
He didn’t look at her. He was glaring blackly at the queen.
The herald blinked nonplussed at Rui, his place in the announcements lost in light of her uncouth interruption.
It was Wolfe who gritted out in a low rumble, “’Tis done.”
She faced him fully and took a couple of steps toward him, but the way his muscles bunched into steel like armor at her approach made her pause.
He seemed angryat her.
“But I have not had my turn,” she persisted.