Page 130 of Foundling

Something metal shot into the border near the flames—had they begun attacking it with weapons?

Leita gasped when hot metal sliced through the border and sailed at her. Thick grappling chain swung round her, weighted by an iron diamond.

For a horrible moment, Leita hung in the air, one wing desperately trying to keep her aloft. Sickening memories flooded her mind and bile scalded her throat—the chain was spelled.

Leita plummeted.

Not just down but forward, crashing into the border. The wall wriggled and cried, the chain corroding through its magic. On the other side, Erastus held the chain looped round his arm, and a dozen dragons formed a line behind him.

“Heave!” Erastus commanded. “We’ve got her. Heave!”

Leita, no!

“Protect Queen Leita!”

“Aim at the anax!”

So much shouting—but—loudest of all was the faelands. Bellowing with the might of the river carving the valley, the faelands grasped at her with phantom hands, trying to keep her inside the border. It wailed in agony when it touched the chain, feeling its own power sapped by the spell.

“Heave!”

Leita screamed, the pain and pressure threatening to tear her in two.

Desperate, she did the only thing she could. She let go of the faelands and kicked through the hole in the border made by the chain, careening through to the other side.

She crashed onto the scorched earth below.

All around her, dragons roared in triumph. Smoke hung in the air, and the afternoon sun was blinding, bouncing off so many colorful scales.

Leita groaned, trying to take a breath.

For the first time in a fortnight, the pressure in her chest was gone. She’d disconnected from the faelands, leaving it behind the border.

Without that bond, her magic being drained away by the chain, Leita had her first clear thought in days.

What have I done?

Stubborn, reckless woman!

Attalus wasn’t proud of all the scorch marks he’d left across their bedchamber. It’d be hell to get the smokiness out of all the fine fabrics. But what pissed him off most was that these fucking restraints wouldn’t budge.

He raged and pulled at and fought the invisible chains binding his hands to the chamber floor. He threatened and cajoled and negotiated with the faelands, not sure if it even heard him or cared.

He did anything he could think of, then did it again although it’d already failed, for Attalus had to do something. He wouldn’t languish here, a prisoner of his mate, forced to stand by and let her endanger herself for him. Absolutely not.

Whether the faelands heard him or not, Attalus made no secret of his confinement. He shouted and screamed—letting the whole of Fallorian know that he would be free.

And oh, when he got his hands on Leita, fuck, she wouldn’t be able to sit comfortably for days. He could already hear the crack of his palm across her ass as he told her never again. He’d fuck her until she couldn’t see straight, until she needed him so badly, she’d never part from his side.

He’d destroy any idea that she could leave him behind again.

Right after he destroyed these fucking magic restraints.

A little head poked up from the pillows scattered across the bed. Slinky had fled beneath their shelter while Attalus raged, and he hated how her whiskers twitched in fright. He felt a beast then, caged and irrational, his anger a writhing thing inside him that needed out almost as much as he did.

Attalus hardly sensed the passage of time—it was long into the afternoon before he took any real notice that the sun had begun to head for the horizon. All he had to show for his day of futile protestations were singed clothes, sore arms, and an empty stomach. He sneered at the niceties Leita had left. As if he’d sit around in comfort while she tried to solve everything on her own.

Stubborn, reckless, insufferable woman!