Claws and Kisses

“Psst.” A soft, feminine voice whispered gently. “Wendy? Wendy, wake up.”

Confused, I slowly roused from my slumber, looking up in a daze. The cell was submerged in complete darkness, but with the quick flare of a match, the cage was briefly cast alight from the small, golden glow of a candle. There, crouching on the floor, halfway between this world and the next, stood Bear.

Mists swirled and danced around her body. While her chest and torso were firmly rooted in the space of the cell, the lower half of her body was caught in the mass of whirring magic. Bear’s Fae magic. Her black, starless eyes were tinged with specks of gold and amber highlights. A sure sign of her unnatural abilities.

“Bear?” I sat up from the cold stone floor, running a hand through my tangled mane of curls as I studied her. The strain in her shoulders. The barest hint of emotion in her usually mirth-muddled gaze. The way her eyebrows scrunched together as she scrutinized my bruised body.

“Oh, Wendy.” Stepping out of the mist, she kneeled next to me, her hands hovering above my body as if she could not decide where to lay them first. “What did he do to you?”

Avel. My mate. My everything. He had tossed me aside without even listening to what I had to say. He had thought of ridding me from his life. Aamon’s head was next on the chopping block, and Romeo was halfway out the door. I was in a dungeon because my mate thought I had betrayed him. Who the hell was going down next?

“What are you doing here?” I asked, closing my eyes as she gingerly prodded a cut on my forehead.

She sucked in a breath, drawing her hand away. “The Inner Circle was ordered not to take one step past your cell door.” Her onyx eyes finally met mine as she offered a weak smile. “Technically, I didn’t break any rules. I came out of the wall.”

A broken laugh bubbled up my throat, but never reached my lips. I shifted so that I was leaning my back against the wall, and drew my knees up as I faced her. “That was very clever of you.”

Shrugging, the Drachen-Fae looked away, her eyes drawn to the cell door, hooded. “Wendy,” she began, her voice heavy. “I know that Avel putting you in here is . . . awful and stupid, but . . .” Her eyes flickered to mine. Vulnerable. “I need to know. The rest of the Inner Circle isn’t bound to both Avel and you through a Drachen Bond yet, so I’m the only one who can feel the turmoil going on. And I need to know, if . . . if you did it.”

My brow furrowed. “Did what, Bear?”

She huffed, pausing a moment before looking directly at me and asking, “Did you truly cheat on Avel? With the warlock?”

Immediately, my defenses were raised. I drew my knees tighter against my chest, feeling like this was more of an interrogation than a check up. “Did Avel put you up to this?”

“Ugh, no. I—” She stood up, her hands shaky as she began to pace the small length of the cage, her heels clicking loudly as she went. There was a mix of emotions playing out on her face, and she struggled to find the right words to say. “Wendy, I know you’re new to all this, so I’m going to explain things best I can.

“The Drachen Bond I made with you? It connected our souls,” she began, her eyes flickering from the floor to me and back again as she spoke. “You’re human, so it’s probably going to take some time for you to get the feel of the bond, but your emotions, your thoughts, your mood—all of it has been projected onto me. When you’re happy on a particular day, I’m usually in a good mood too. When you’re angry or sad, I’m irritated and upset. That bond? I also share it with Avel. Right now? Both bonds reacting within me? Hell to feel.”

My eyes widened as I took in her words. “You connected our souls? Bear, what the fuck—”

“Save your questions until the end, please.” She waved my worries away and continued. “The Drachen Bond between lord and servant—or in this case, lady and servant—is sort of like the Mating Bond if the Mating Bond was between friends instead of lovers. Now, the rest of the Inner Circle shares one bond, and that’s with Avel. Everything he’s feeling right now? Projected onto the Inner Circle. More than that, projected onto the horde, because when the Dragon Lord and his Inner Circle is upset, everyone is upset. And what does a distraight horde equal?”

I tilted my head, waiting patiently.

“A dysfunctional horde! Correct. Good job.” The end of her speech seemingly winded down as she once again kneeled beside me, her eyes wide and earnest upon mine. “So what does this all mean, you ask?”

“I didn’t ask—”

“It means,” she cut in, tapping my chin. “The little scuffle between you and Avel? It’s causing the whole horde to lose their shit. It’s only been a day, and after the attack, things aren’t looking good. Instead of rebuilding, there have been fights, revolts, accusations, pillaging in some cases—the works.” She captured my jaw, the humor gone as she searched my eyes. “No one in the horde or the Inner Circle can help you. They are bound to Avel, not you. Everyone but me is on Avel’s side. So, if the horde is going to recover, I need you to tell me what happened so that we can move on from there. But I can only help if you tell me the truth. Do you understand?”

I bit my lip, thinking. She would not want to help me when she discovered what I had done. Ever since I had made that deal with Aamon, a sure feeling of dread had seized me. Knowing that I would have to pay my dues sooner or later to the warlock was wreaking havoc upon my mind. Wasn’t it worth it, though? I thought. Wasn’t it worth keeping Avel?

Not anymore. Avel would not take me back, and I’m not so sure I wanted him to. After what he had done to me . . . it was unforgivable. I could not live with a man I did not trust. Even if that man was Avel. The dragon I had grown up with. The boy I had fallen in love with. The lord I had thought myself capable of bowing to.

Not anymore.

“Wendy?” Bear snapped me out of my thoughts, blinking wide at me. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

Scoffing softly, I shook my head. “It’s doesn’t matter what I tell you. My mate made his feelings clear. Whatever we had is over now. If he ever lets me out of this damn prison cell, I’m taking Rhett and we’re leaving.”

“Did you hear anything of what I just said?” Bear leaned back, exasperation clear in her voice. “My horde is in ruins, Wendy. My friends are jumping off the deep end, and my lord is the worst one off.” She suddenly grasped my shoulders, something like desperation swelling her her gaze. “I need you to tell me what’s going on so I can fix things. Else . . . fuck if I know what happens. Nothing good, that’s for sure.”

The blaze of emotion in her eyes had my resolve crumbling to pieces. Suddenly on the verge of crying, I slowly shook my head again, my voice barely above a whisper. “You will hate me when I tell you what I did.”

She gulped, blinking. “It’s alright,” she said, trying to sound firm but coming off shaky. “It’s alright,” she repeated. “You don’t know how cheating affects Drachen males, especially during the Mating Ritual. It’s not great, but we can get through this. You’ll have to—”

“I didn’t cheat, Bear.” My eyes dropped to the floor as a single tear ran down my cheek, followed by one. Two more. I quickly wiped it away, sucking a breath in harshly. “I did something worse.”

The she-dragon frowned, leaning back to study me. “You didn’t cheat on Avel?”

Another silent no.

She cocked her head the tiniest bit to the side. “What did you do, Wendy?”

I parted my lips, but the only sentence I was able to force out was, “Tell me how cheating affects Drachen males.” She blinked, confused, but I pressed on. “You said I didn’t know how cheating affects dragons during the Mating Ritual. Please, just—tell me.”

Rolling her tongue along her cheek, she scrutinized my nervous, trembling frame for a moment longer before saying, “I think you forget sometimes that Avel isn’t human. Again, I’m not defending him for what he did, but . . . you have to understand that he doesn’t feel things the way you do.” Her eyes lifted to the ceiling as she struggled to find the right words. “Dragons, especially males, have more intense emotions than humans. Than a lot of other creatures. When they’re happy, they’re really fucking happy. When they’re sad, they’re in an abyss of despair. When they’re angry . . .”

“They’re furious,” I finished, thinking of Avel’s face as he dragged me down to this cage. I frowned as I processed her words. “That doesn’t make sense, though. Avel shows emotion once every blue moon. He gets irritated from time to time, sure, but most of the time he’s as expressive as a block of stone.”

She tapped her forehead. “Avel has to keep his shit on lockdown. Lords have it the worst off—anything can set them off, especially when it comes to gold, food . . . mates.” Rolling her shoulders, she leaned back on both her hands. “What he did was bullshit, but he thought his mate had cheated on him. That would have sent any dragon into a blood-lusted rage. That, mixed with him being at the top of the food chain and it being the end of your mating . . . well,” she shrugged, looking sheepish. “We kind of got why he lost his shit so damn bad.”

The explanation had bile rising in my throat. Was Avel just supposed to get a pass for dragging me into his cellars and tossing me into a cage because he had anger issues? He hadn’t even had enough trust in me to ask me what happened. Oh no. He had just assumed I had cheated, even though all I had done in the past few weeks was try to save him from throwing his bloody life away.

And after all of that . . . I still couldn’t help loving him.

Damn that stupid Dragon Lord! I clenched my fists, trying to digest Bear’s words. She had a point, even if I didn’t want to admit it. There was also the fact that if I had thought Avel had cheated on me . . . there would have been no creature in this world who could have stopped me from tearing both him and the culpable female to shreds with my bare hands. Even the thought of another woman so much as glancing at him suggestively had me foaming at the mouth.

Is that what he had felt? I thought bitterly. Did he feel that awful, burning jealousy and hate in his chest when he found out about Aamon?

“There’s just one thing I don’t understand,” Bear said, interrupting my thoughts. I looked up to see her thinking hard. Too hard. “Avel said that he could scent and taste Aamon on your lips. If you didn’t cheat . . .”

The moment that the cogs spinning in her head finally reached a conclusion was displayed clearly on her face. Horror and disbelief fought for control over her features, waging a war of emotion before she finally settled on one. Denial.

“Wendy,” she whispered, slowly rising. Her eyes shuttered as she backed away from me. “There’s only one other reason that warlock’s scent would be marked on your lips.” She shook her head, desperate. “Please tell me you didn’t do what I think you did.”

I hiccuped. “I’m sorry, Bear. I w-wasn’t thinking.”

“Damn straight.” She rubbed her hands on her pants, wiping the sweat away. “Hell, kid. What were you thinking?”

Shaking my head, I tried stifling my cries. “I—”

“Oh shit.” Suddenly, she was down on her knees before me, yanking me up by the shoulders to look me in the eye. “What did you promise that boy, Wendy? What damn deal did you make with that devil child?”

The sobs were coming in hard now. Avel will kill me if he finds out what I did. “I didn’t—”

“Tell me, dammit!” She shook me hard, her voice near hysteria. “What bloody deal did you make?”

“Avel,” I coughed out, heaving in air roughly. Her grip tightened on me, demanding more of an answer. I gasped, and sobbed out, “I made the deal for Avel. I told Aamon that if he protected Avel during the Drachen Trials, I . . .”

She shook me again. Harder. “What? What did you promise him?”

I couldn’t answer. Collapsing in her arms, I began crying in full, feeling absolutely shattered in that moment after all that had happened. She held me stiffly, even as she muttered, “No. No, not even you could be that dumb Wendy. Tell me you didn’t.”

I choked out the word, hating the way it tasted on my lips. “Anything,” I confessed. “I promised him anything.”

Short Q/A today because I am so tired. I apologize in advance for any typos. I don't even know what I just wrote lol.

I feel bad that there was no Avel this chapter. I was going to try to squeeze him in at the end, but I wanted to have another chapter dedicated to their interaction after the "cheating" fiasco. So, I promise that you guys will see him next chapter on Saturday :)

Also, so many comments on the last chapter! Wowzo. There was a lot of mixed response to what happened last chapter with Wendy/Avel. I was surprised to see the diverse reactions. Some of you thought Avel was at fault, some of you thought Wendy should've had more trust in Avel, and a whole bunch of you were like they are both idiots lmao. Either way, so glad for all the feedback!

Anyways, you all are super cool and I hope you enjoyed (maybe?) this chapter. I know things have been rocky lately, but I think things are going to be picking back up pretty soon. Hang on tight and strap in to your seats because this story is for sure going out with a bang ;)

Alright, that's all for today folks. New chapter update on Saturday - I hope you all are excited!

~Elaine

(P.S. I looked it up, and dealio is a word. Haha, who knew right?)