I Married A Dragon (Prime Mating Agency)(23)

“I never meant to put you in danger, my Ejaya. I should have paid more attention. I promise never to be so negligent again. I—”

“Stop, Cedros,” I said, taking his face between my hands. “You weren’t negligent. I brought this upon myself by walking away while you were dealing with those people.”

A flash of anger crossed his alien features. “I should have told them to get lost and kept my focus on you,” he ground through his teeth. “Instead of looking at fruits and vegetables, I should have warned you about what to do if this happened.”

“Aww, sweetie, please stop berating yourself. You did nothing wrong. I don’t blame you for any of this,” I said in a gentle voice. “It was an accident. Thanks to you warning me about that possible occurrence, I didn’t panic when I inadvertently stepped into that rift. But more importantly, I didn’t freak out because I knew you would look for me and that you’d find me. And you did. You rescued me, Cedros. You brought me home, safe and sound.”

“Always, my Kaida. I will always come for you and save you,” he said fervently, before covering my face with kisses.

I started giggling. “It tickles!”

That didn’t stop him. After a while, he picked me up and carried me to the living area. He sat down on the massive couch and settled me in his lap.

“Should you ever be caught in another rift, do not move, unless you have a compass with you,” Cedros explained. “Tomorrow, I will not only teach you how to use it but also how to travel in the void—not that you should ever do so on your own. However, making sure you know how to find your way out by yourself will give me peace of mind. Had I not seen you enter that rift, you could have spent a long time on that rock, since you traveled so far.”

“Traveled far?” I exclaimed, stunned. “I didn’t! I barely walked five meters inside the void.”

Cedros smiled and caressed my hair. “Distances are different in the void. In there, each step you take is a little over five hundred meters in the real world. I found you over eighteen kilometers away from the market. Thankfully, you were still in the same phase as Oddran. But if you had shifted to another dimension of Dramnac, tracking you down would have been more challenging.”

“Oh wow! That’s crazy!” I said, bewildered. “I tried to step backward at first, hoping it would take me back out the way I came in, but the pathways only shifted around me.”

Cedros shook his head. “Once you’re in, there is no backing out, unless you have the power to open a doorway through the veil, like most Derakeens do. You were in an unstable rift. Therefore, its pathways kept shifting, leading to random destinations. Had you entered a stable rift, they wouldn’t have moved.”

“How did you find me? I heard your voice at one point, but it was coming from every direction at once,” I asked, fascinated.

He leaned in, his nose brushing against my neck, then inhaled deeply. It tickled, making me giggle again. He lifted his head back to look at me with a tender expression that did funny things to me.

“I followed your divine scent, my Ejaya. As a Shadow Lord, I can see any rift, where they are going, where they came from, and even what they were before they shifted in the case of unstable ones. Therefore, I explored each one where your scent was the strongest. But then it cut off, and I knew you had exited the void. My hearts nearly stopped in fear of where you might have landed.”

“On a freaking tiny rock with crazy winds looking to blow me off,” I said with a shudder.

His arms tightened possessively around me. “Never exit a rift unless you can see a substantial amount of solid ground through the window. We can fly, you can’t.”

“Believe me, that lesson has been properly learned,” I replied, refusing to think what might have happened had I stayed there much longer in that icy wind.

“Still, I found you by exiting in the general vicinity of where those unstable rifts would have led.”

“How many did you exit before you found me?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“Sixteen,” he replied.

“Damn, you’re fast!”

He puffed out his chest with pride. “I’m one of the greatest Shadow Lords of Dramnac. Of course, I’m fast, especially where saving you is concerned.”

“I’m still baffled how you orient yourself in there. It was just a bunch of shadowy corridors. Most of them looked the same, a few were wider, and some longer. Choosing which way to go felt like a leap of faith.”

He smiled with a commiserating look. “Actually, each path has a clear signature to guide you. Main pathways act almost like street signs for us. Unfortunately, as a human, you cannot feel the phases. But if you could, once you recognize it, you automatically know that the path left is destination X while the path right is location Y.”

My heart sank. “So I’ll forever get lost in there…”

He shook his head. “Maybe not. Like I mentioned, there is a compass we give our younglings and impaired Derakeens who cannot properly detect phases.”

“Oh right! You mentioned a compass!” I replied, my excitement resurfacing.

“Yes, it should hopefully work for you. We will try it in the morning, my Kaida. But should this ever happen to you again without a compass, please say still. If you had remained exactly where you were, I would have found you right away. Sometimes, the rift can be so brief that you can get kicked right out of it when the phase shift ends. Instead, it shifted with you. There are stones to exit a rift, but you have to be careful using them.”