The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

Jack cajoled. “He loved his possessions because he owned them rather than owning them because he loved them. He did not touch you out of anger, Katrina. In time, the scars he left on your heart will fade. When you are ready, I will be waiting for you.”
    “I fear you must wait a very long time. I can’t ask you to do that, Jack. I love you too much to keep you from finding someone who can return your love.” She broke away from his embrace and turned her back on him.
    Suddenly the little courtyard where she had set up her lace bolster seemed too small to contain all of Jack’s panic. How could he get permission to take her away from here unless they were married?
    “I’ll always love you.” He reached out for her but let his hand drop back to his side before he touched her. If she did not marry him, how could he protect her?
    “Perhaps by the time you figure out how to separate the queen from the cat spirit that also inhabits her body, I will be ready to love you properly.” That project had occupied the finest magical minds for over three years without success.
    She fingered the wide piece of lace she had been working on when he sneaked into the courtyard.
    “I’m nearly ready to try the spell, Katrina.” He had a few ideas but not yet enough to try the spell. Right now, though, he’d try anything to get Katrina out of the city. “As soon as we know the queen is back to being one person in one body, King Darville will dispatch me to SeLenicca as ambassador. I need you to come with me as my wife. Only together will we be able to help rebuild your country.”
    She looked over her shoulder at him, a hopeful smile tugging at her lips. “Home.”
    “Barely. SeLenicca is changed, torn apart by war and natural catastrophe. Your family is gone. The lacemaking industry is in tatters. Nothing will be as you remember. But it is your home. You belong there. Here you will always be a political refugee, no matter how much the queen favors you.” One foray into the marketplace could bring the witch-sniffers down on her as it had on the dye merchant.
    “Will you be able to use your magic to revive Queen Miranda from her coma?” Katrina asked. Hope shone from her eyes for the first time since Jack had pressed her to marry him. “With our queen restored, SeLenicca will rebuild, stronger than ever before.” She rushed back into his arms. “On the day after you cure Queen Rossemikka of Coronnan, I will marry you. Then we will go home, together.”
    Jack sealed her promise with a fierce kiss. His first assault on her mouth softened, explored possibilities, deepened to a mutual sharing. They were getting good at this. He kissed her again, pulling her tight against his chest.
    She fit snugly against him, as if they were two halves of the same mold. A tremendous ache built within him. He deepened the kiss, needing more of her, all of her, forever.
    “Home.” Katrina repeated when she came up for air. Then she renewed the kiss with vigor and promise.
    A playful squeak in the back of Jack’s mind alerted him to new observers. He opened one eye and stared into the silvery muzzle of a baby dragon perched on the courtyard wall. Bricks sagged and mortar crumbled beneath his purplish talons. Jack’s ungainly tag-along might be only a baby—barely two full years old—but he already exceeded a pack steed in size and weight. He’d grown rapidly in the past months since Jack had first made contact with the dragons.
    The stub of his slightly-askew spiral forehead horn also glowed with the identifying color—the rarest of all dragons. That all-important horn might never grow to its full length the way Amaranth kept stumbling and falling on it.
    Jack had tried to match the dye to Amaranth’s pinky-purple tipped wingtips, and talons. What had happened to the dye merchant?
    He took a long deep breath, anticipating the dragon magic that would soon fill him, augmenting the power he drew from the ley lines that wove a lacy network beneath the kardia in Coronnan.
    “Where did you come from, Amaranth? And where is your mama?” Jack asked aloud, reaching to touch the baby. He could communicate with this dragon mind-to-mind, but Katrina could not. He’d developed a premature rapport with Amaranth when he’d tried gathering dragon magic from him in order to heal the mother dragon’s injured wing. The spell had failed, but the bond with Amaranth was sealed long before the baby was mature enough to understand it or cope with