Chapter 38

It takes an hour for that jittery, anxious sensation to subside; for Alcina to stop feeling like she's going to crawl out of her very skin.

Brendan sits with her the entire time, the two of them hunched over like two commas on the floor, side by side, Brendan's hand a grounding touch on Alcina's neck.

This foreign, out-of-body sensation that's taken over makes Alcina's blood pound to an alien rhythm, making her yearn for something she doesn't understand.

Each time Alcina feels the panic swell again, she focuses instead on the cadence of Brendan's breathing, the firm weight of his thumb against her own pulse.

Nearly an hour later, Alcina finally, finally feels herself coming down from the strange high.

And as she relaxes, as she feels the tension bleed from her spine and her knuckles loosen from the white-gripped grasp they have around her own robe, the dragons, too, relax, uncoiling loosely from her arms.

Until, eventually, they move from where they're curled tightly in her lap to t