Dragon

Chapter 24

Jaimin stumbled down the tunnel. His body in human form and his mind still fogged, though not with the mating bliss. He struggled to recall what had happened. Between Maay's touch, the dark of their chambers lit only by the glow of the warming bowl, and the fire in his gut, it was too much of blur to separate. There was nothing there to separate.

He shuddered at the cool blast of wind sweeping by as he stepped out from the side entrance. The last drop of his fire had been drained, hissing out his mouth to bathe the warming bowl and the wall behind it.

That image one of the few things he could recall. The metal had forsaken the rich, golden hue he'd already given it and now glowed white. It would be the last breath of fire from his lips until noon tomorrow. I shouldn't have let it happen. The egg depended on him to heat it. But her presence ... her touch ... the way she warmed him without even trying. It was so hard not to give in.

His hand slapped against the archway leading into the dining cavern, the stone underneath his palm chill. Memory had become divided into before and after. There was nothing in-between. Just emptiness. He shook his head in some vain hope that it would help dislodge his memories. It wasn't as if they'd been stolen, more akin to him never having had them to begin with. Like I hadn't been there. As if someone, or something, else had supplanted his very consciousness. Perhaps Laiyn could help him piece together what could've occurred.

He lifted his gaze to the far end of the cavern, pleased to see his knight sitting in the light of the fireplace. After trying Laiyn's personal chambers and the study area before the record room, he wasn't sure where to look if his knight hadn't been here. It'd been far too many years since he'd known the human just as well as one of his brothers.

Padding across the room, his footsteps making little sound, he stopped beside the big leather chair holding his knight. It was one of three that had somehow made their way here. From where, he daren't try to guess, but they'd been before this fireplace for as long as he could remember. Probably before he'd been laid.

Laiyn glanced up from the book in his hands. "Jaimin?" He frowned, setting the book aside and leaping to his feet. "By the Greatest One herself. Come, sit."

He yielded to the pressure on his shoulder, sagging into the old chair. The leather at his back still clung to the heat it had absorbed from his knight. Wriggling as far up against it as he could, he let a small sigh escape as the blissful warmth seeped through his clothes and into his back. Heat emanated from the fire roaring on the hearth. His chill limbs seemed eager to soak that up too.

"You look paler than usual." Laiyn crouched next to him. His nose had been broken several times during battle and its crooked setting gave a slight mocking tinge to his otherwise concerned expression. "Are you ill?"

Jaimin tipped his head back, relishing the warmth. Slowly unfurling a thin tendril of thought towards the bond linking them, he recoiled as his mind hit a barrier not of his making. He's still walling me off then. Not uncommon. He stared up at the ceiling sitting so high above them that the light couldn't reach. "I'm not ill, no." His breath condensed as he spoke, fast dissipating in the warm air. Never had he felt so cold. He wouldn't feel this chill if someone had stripped him of his thick coat and dumped him on the high mountains in the middle of winter.

"Can I get you anything?"

My memory would be nice. He grimaced at the thought. "What did you feel?"

"Nothing." Laiyn shook his head. "I swear I managed to wall you off this time." His dark blue eyes narrowed, brows merging as he frowned. "Why?"

"I can't remember a thing." His gaze drifted to the fire, watching the flames dance across the blackened logs. "There's before and there's after." His belly twitched at a faint recollection of the barbs securing him to her suddenly releasing and allowing him to slip free. "It was like I wasn't even there." Except he must have been. Was it not his fire that had bathed the warming bowl and left soot on the wall? He touched a hand to his head, flinching as the colder fingers brushed against his temple. This chill in his flesh hadn't happened last time. Why now? "Didn't you feel anything strange?"