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I’m transfixed. After being inside my Mate last night, my dragon is subdued … for now.
She stretches her wings, and a strange purring sound vibrates up my throat. Her head tilts in my direction, her gold-ringed purple eyes sparkling down at me. Her dragon’s voice is just a hint deeper than her human one with an edge behind it. “What’s wrong?”
I shake my head, my locs swaying over my upper back. My shadows curl out from my skin, engulfing me in darkness before my dragon form tingles across my skin. Stretching my own wings, they double her span. My shadows trail from each wing as I flap them slowly, and a trail of shadows follow the flicking of my tail.
Tatha’s eyes are on me, and my chest puffs out at her attention. The purple of her scales deepens with her flush, and her wings fold gracefully along her back. The ground shakes under my feet as I take the few steps to close the distance between us. My head dips, caressing my cheek to hers. Her scent of fire, cinnamon, and earth is stronger, and there’s a hint of heavy smoke under it.
My tail wraps around her back leg, and her scales flutter with her shiver. My dragon fire roars through my veins, and curls of smoke plume from my nostrils. We need to get airborne. Now. Before I take her right here in the grass outside the border of the castle gardens.
I shake my head, forcing my tail to unwind from her leg. My tongue flicks out a few times, tasting the air, learning the currents, but I’m nearly overwhelmed by the taste of her scent in my mouth.
Bunching the muscles of my back legs, I spring up, flapping my giant wings in great strokes, my shadows following me into the sky like streamers of smoke.
Tatha releases a feminine growl as she launches up behind me. When I glance back, she’s spinning and dancing through the trails of my shadows, and a rumbling laugh tumbles from my chest.
I find a fast moving current that’s pulling north, so I set my wings under the tug of the air and glide back and forth. My shadows curl, twist, and flutter in my wake, like they are as eager to dance with Tatha as she is to dance with them. I find myself looking back more and more, ignoring where I’m going to take in the glorious scene behind me.
After a while, Tatha breaks through the smoky trail of my shadows, shooting her small body under mine, then quickly banking right to float up at my side. Her fangs are long, and every lethal, pointed tooth gleams at me when she smiles. My heart stutters at the site, and I go hard with wanting her. My body tilts toward her, and the top of my wing caresses the underside of hers. We stay like that for a moment, and I absorb her warmth, her beauty, her grace, calming my dragon down from the claiming urge.
We’ve dropped slightly, so I shift away from her and flap my wings in lazy strokes. She pumps her wings to keep up. Every flap of my wings takes two of hers, so I keep my pace moderate. I’m in no rush to end this first flight with my Mate.
We fly for hours, occasionally brushing our wings together as we head north. Her Mountain grows larger as the day dies. The sun paints the snow-capped peaks a deep orange, then a pale pink, followed by a soft lilac that cools to a deep blue.
I fall back, letting her take the lead. She puts a little extra swish to her tail, and I nearly drool at the sight of her swaying hips as she angles between the two highest peaks. Pulling her wings in just slightly, her speed picks up, and she arrows through the twists and turns between the mountains. My jaw clenches as I pull my wings in closer. I’m so much larger than her. This is going to be a tight fit.
Adrenaline courses through me as I keep an eye on the flash of amethyst before me. My body angles hard with every sharp turn, and the wind tears at my scales. I bank left, but cut it too close, and a scraping pain scratches along the top of my rear foot as it drags against snow, ice, and rock. A groan sounds behind me as a small avalanche collapses toward the ground far below.
“Shit!”
The wind carries my curse away as I bank hard to the right, nearly crashing into the mountain as the purple streak of Tatha disappears around another bend.
Finally, I take a deep breath as the space around us opens slightly. She pulls up, slowing her screaming pace. Focusing beyond her, the gigantic carved opening to the Mountain clan’s home looms before us. It’s been centuries since I’ve been here, and it’s no less awe-inspiring than the last time. Columns carved into the side of the mountain stand ten-dragons tall. Twisting bodies of dragons climb up the stone in intricate carvings. The mouth of the cave—though it feels wrong to call such a place a cave—arches open, and there’s two guards posted at the edges of the entrance.
Tatha barks twice, slowing her pace even more. A moment later, the dragon on our right shoots a column of fire that lasts three seconds. I assume that’s the signal to proceed, because Tatha dives in a lazy circle until her talons grip the ledge.
She strides far enough in to give me room to land. The sharp crack of rocks breaking free and tumbling down the side of the mountain echo loudly as I touch down. I immediately fold in my wings to keep from hitting the guards. As vast as the entrance is, I’m the largest dragon of all the dragon clans. I don’t know if I have my parents to thank for my size and strength, or if the gods blessed me for some reason. Either way, I’m thankful for my unusual prowess. It’s helped me take and keep the throne, and now I will use my size and power for the ultimate purpose—protecting my Mate.
The guards lower their heads to the ground as I pass, and I dip my head in acknowledgment. My tongue flicks out, picking up Tatha’s taste in the crisp mountain air. I follow her swaying hips and swishing tail deeper into her home.
The smooth rock ceiling towers overhead. The space is so large, even I could take flight in here comfortably. We move deeper into the cave, and as the fading light of the day dims, flickering torchlight takes its place. From the corner of my eye, I catch the occasional flash of raw gems and crystals embedded in the smooth rock walls. Carvings of dragons decorate the walls as well, the crystals flashing in their eyes and scales as if the artist carved the reliefs around the gems. My front foot drops slightly, and when I glance down, I see I’ve stepped into a fossilized claw print.
I follow Tatha around a gently turning corner, and a large common space opens before us. A circle of soft moonlight spills onto the floor from a vent shaft high above. Several dragons pause, their movements frozen for a moment as they realize who I am. Each head bows low, and they back away as I pass through the space. I nod at each … a gray, a sapphire blue, a vibrant red, and a bronze almost identical to Syphe.
When the pale moonlight hits Tatha, her amethyst scales turn blue for a moment and I suck in a deep breath.
She’s magnificent.
But my heart squeezes with pain as her head drops as she leads me down a narrow shaft. I can taste her sorrow as we draw closer to where her father must be.
She moves with ease, but no matter how tightly I tuck in my wings, the edges still scrape against the walls. To keep the panic from closing in, I keep my eyes trained on Tatha. The memories of the dark tunnels under the Unseelie castle threaten to close my throat. That day, my goal was to rescue the captured youngling from the dark fae, and Raelyn’s younger brother led our rescue mission into the bowels of the tunnels deep underground the Unseelie realm. Things had not ended well.
Panic grips my chest, so to distract myself, I think of that youngling, wondering if Tatha will ever want children. It’s too soon to talk of such things, but regardless, the matter is completely out of my hands beyond having a conversation with her about it. Females can hold viable sperm from multiple partners for up to a year, able to sterilize that sperm at any time. Or, she can choose when and from which partner to procreate with. The power lies completely with the females—as it should be.
My wandering thoughts of Tatha’s stomach swelling with my young keeps the fear at bay until the tight space opens into another large room. Torchlight flickers around the edges, leaving the center dark, but my dragon sight penetrates the shadows easily. Tatha crosses the room, her head low, her tail dragging behind her, her wings limp. Beautiful paintings of the mountain spread along the floor, and a small pool ripples to our left, fed by the steady drip of water down the wall from somewhere outside.
My snout scrunches as a heavy scent takes over the clean mountain air and dryness of the caves. This new scent even overpowers Tatha’s earthy essence.
Sickness. Death.
