“Maybe you’re being too hard on yourself.”

“And maybe you should stop being so nice!” she said, using both her hands against his chest to push him.

“Maybe I like being nice to you!” he shot back, pushing her by the shoulders.

“Why?” she demanded, pushing him again. “Out of pity? I do not need your pity!”

“I don’t pity you! I . . .”

“You . . . what?”

“I don’t know.” Celyn pushed her again. “You’re confusing the hell out of me!”

Celyn didn’t know what was happening to him. He was telling Elina the truth. He didn’t pity her. At all. But, instead, his heart ached for her. He’d known from the very beginning that no matter how good or bad things might have gone on this excursion into the Outerplains, when he went home, his mother would be there to praise or comfort him. Not attack him. Not come at him with weapons.

Even when his brother Fal continued to disappoint Ghleanna, she still loved him. “Always and forever,” she’d told all of them at one time or another. And she’d proved that devotion every day.

And it broke Celyn’s dragon heart to know that Elina had never known such love or acceptance from her own gargantuan-sized mother. A woman so big but with the tiniest heart known to gods or dragons.

But that wasn’t pity. It was empathy. His father had taught him about that. Taught Celyn and Brannie to have empathy for all living beings, often warning with a laugh, “Your royal cousins will need someone in their lives to have empathy, otherwise this world is lost, my little hatchlings.”

So while Elina thought he was just feeling bad for the pathetic human, he was instead understanding how devastated he would be if he ever received that kind of welcome home from his own mother.

But that wasn’t all of it. Something else was going on inside him right now. Something he didn’t understand or like very much.

Of course he felt protective of Elina. He’d been tasked with that position from the day he’d met her. Yet this was something else. Something stronger and rather unsettling.

Especially when he looked at her and Celyn realized that all he wanted to do was hug her close, stroke her hair, and tell her that everything was going to be all right.

Good gods! What was that? That wasn’t how the Cadwaladrs handled problems. They fixed them! Or went back and destroyed everything that had been causing the problem in the first place. What they didn’t do was sit around trying to soothe.

But every time Celyn looked into Elina’s face and saw that bandage, he immediately felt torn between bitter rage and . . . and . . . something else.

Something else he wasn’t about to try to name now. No. He was going to bury whatever that other feeling was. He was going to bury it right now and never let it see the light of day again.

Because whatever that new feeling was . . . he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one gods-damn bit.

“Why do you stare at me like that?” Elina asked him, her one eye narrowed in distrust.

“Look at you like what?”

“Like your travel-cow when he sees juicy apple he hopes you will give him for treat.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I . . . I . . .” Celyn jumped to his feet. “I’m going for a walk.”

“Fine. Go for walk.”

Celyn nodded and turned away from Elina, took several steps . . . but stopped.

He closed his eyes in desperation, trying to get control. But . . . he simply couldn’t. He couldn’t!

So he turned back around, leaned down so he was eye to eye with Elina, then gently took her face in his hands.

Celyn kissed her. Not rough as they both had seemed to enjoy when they’d been wrestling on their bedrolls at night. But gently. Because that’s what he needed right now. To know that she was alive and well and here. Even when she was being mean and angry and taking it all out on him.

When he finally pulled out of their kiss, Elina’s hands gripped his wrists, but she hadn’t tried to push him away. And she appeared just as confused as he felt.

“I’ll be back later,” he told her.

She said nothing in return until he’d stepped outside the alcove.

“Be careful,” she warned. “There may be some tribe patrols out there looking for us.”

“Thanks,” Celyn replied, nodding his head at her before he headed outside for a breath of fresh air.

“How could you let my sister ride out alone?” Elina demanded, yet again.

The two Kyvich who’d seen Kachka ride off earlier in the day stared blankly at Elina until Talwyn asked her friends, “Yeah. How could you?”

The pair now focused on the princess and together said, “Shut up.”

Ignoring the pain in her head, which had become unrelenting in the last few hours since Celyn had walked out after that confusing kiss and her sister had disappeared, Elina continued to pace around the large dining table.

Celyn finally strode in. “Guess what?” he asked, “I found the horses. They were grazing over in a patch of land not far from here. But I set them up in a nice place in the cave with some hay and a fresh stream of water that flows through the caverns, yet away from those terrifying animals Talwyn and her friends brought with them.”

Talwyn shrugged. “We like our terrifying animals.”

“I do not care!” Elina snapped. “Where is my sister?”

“I didn’t see her,” Celyn said. When Elina started to turn away in frustration, Celyn caught her arm. “I’m sure she’s fine. Your sister is quite . . . self-sufficient.”