EVE POV
Salem.
My dear old friend. My pain-in-the-ass companion. My sarcastic fur-coated headache. My… my family.
And he was dying.
Salem.
Salem.
My first companion. My emotional support menace.
Salem—who survived every disaster, every village, every cursed forest, every ridiculous stunt I pulled—and he was dying in my arms.
Bleeding. Too still. Too quiet.
He never shut up. The silence was already wrong.
"Salem, don't you dare," I hissed through tears I couldn't blink fast enough to stop. "You can't die. You haven't even met your kids yet!"
Gods. His kids.
His three dragonlings—my three chaotic little winged toddlers—were sleeping a few feet away, unaware that their father was bleeding out on my makeshift bed of leaves.
"You had THREE children," I said, wiping my face angrily. "And you didn't think to tell me ONCE in the entire three years you pretended to be a bratty cat?!"
He didn't move.
Not even a twitch of his stupid whisker.
Not even a faint sarcastic meow.
