“Unless Nilak was carrying Auryn’s eggs, and he knew it.” Stesha looks up at Nilak. “Were you? Had the two of you already mated? Kane was angry that you were flying over his dragons at night. Were you secretly meeting Auryn in the dark?” Nilak must answer him, and Stesha turns to me. “She was. The two of them went flying together several times.”
I burst out laughing. “Nilak, queen of the flare, the most dutiful and responsible of all the dragons, has a taste for bad boys.”
Stesha is sunk deeply in thought, still struggling to get his head around this revelation. “It makes good breeding sense, tobring new blood into the flare. Nilak is doing her part to make Maledin’s dragons even stronger.”
“Maybe,” I muse, still smiling. “I think she just enjoys a big, fierce Alpha. And who can blame her?”
The black-scaled dragon with pretty yellow eyes patters over to me, and I gently play with her.
Stesha watches and reaches out a finger and strokes the hatching under its pretty chin, and then along her gleaming scales. “What a lovely little dragon.” He glances around. “All of them are perfect. Well done, Nilak.”
It’s been a long day, and I yawn. A moment later, the hatchling does as well. I settle down against Nilak with the hatchling curled up in my hair, and a moment later, it falls asleep. I smile as I stroke its scales. Our beautiful family is getting bigger.
I realize that Stesha is looking at me with a strange expression on his face. “Is something wrong?”
“The way you both yawned like that. You and the hatchling. I was suddenly struck by a memory.”
“What memory?”
He scoops up two of the hatchlings and sits down next to me, and the little pair play fight on his chest, as weak as kittens but determined to be the winner. “A long, long time ago, before your fifteenth birthday, I saw a very lovely rider-to-be sitting in the Flame Temple before the font. A fierce, pretty girl who wanted to be a rider more than anything in the world.”
He speaks in a low, soothing voice, and I smile as I see myself through his eyes. “But first she needed a dragon.”
“Indeed she did. I had noticed that among the young dragons, one had taken a fancy to her, and so I went and collected her and carried her to the Flame Temple. She ran straight to the girl sitting before the font, and they played together all afternoon.”
I breathe in sharply. “I remember that day.”
“Of course you do.”
“You brought her to me?” I ask, tears welling up in my eyes. “You knew she was my dragon?”
“I thought she probably was. I watched the two of you for hours that day. I couldn’t tear my eyes away. You were turning your heads to look at the same things. Moving at the same time. Yawning at the same time, just as you did with this one. I think this one is an Omega,aash’lin.”
I look down at the little dragon sleeping on my chest. I can hear what he’s saying, and what he’s not saying. That this dragon might be my dragon. One of Nilak’s precious hatchlings might choose me.
“I would like to bond with a dragon again one day,” I whisper, choosing my words carefully. It would be painful to get my hopes up again, like I did with Shar, only to have them dashed.
Several days later,both King Zabriel and Queen Isavelle visit Nilak’s hatchlings, proclaiming them seven of the most beautiful little dragons they have ever seen.
“Of course only Nilak could tame a heart as wild as Auryn’s,” Isavelle says, holding two of the hatchlings. She asks Stesha, “Are they mated now?”
“Nilak is not inclined to formally mate with anyone, and there’s no need to involve Kane and Auryn in this. As far as my dragon and I are concerned, Auryn’s part is done.”
Isavelle and I exchange an amused look, and I tell her in a loud whisper, “Another male wouldn’t dare come between those two. I am lucky that Nilak approves of me as Stesha’s mate.”
Zabriel laughs, and scoops up two of the biggest hatchlings.
“Nilak has always held you dear,” Stesha says, entirely missing the joke. “Remember that she offered herself to you for your very first ride.”
“I could never forget.”
“Congratulations, all of you,” Isavelle says, clasping her hands and gazing fondly at not only the hatchlings and Nilak, but at Stesha and me as well. Her eyes grow misty with tears. “How happy you all are. How close we came to having all this taken away from us. I never want to take these moments for granted.”
Zabriel drops a kiss onto his mate’s head. “You’re right,sha’lenla. Well done, Nilak. These hatchlings are the best additions to the flare since Scourge and Esmeral’s brood. And it does a king’s heart good to see two of his favorites mated.”
The king and queen aren’t Nilak’s only visitors in the following days. The flare and the dragonriders all pay their respects, and then visitors from farther afield arrive. Two Alpha dragons and their riders, Auryn with Kane, and Ragdyn with Rhan. They land on the dragongrounds as if they own the place.
Scourge roars a warning, and he’s flanked by the other Alpha dragons, ready to protect the flare. They spread their wings to obscure Nilak, for the dragons understand that she is the reason the wild flare has come to Lenhale.
