Chapter 13
Finlay
Dinner went amazingly—beyondany expectation I dared to hope. Raven is so highly intelligent that I’m genuinely amazed. I thought her mother was the smartest female I’d ever met in nine hundred years of living. Boy, was I wrong. Raven’s mind moves like quicksilver, making connections I don’t see coming, asking questions that cut straight to the heart of complex matters.
The owner of the restaurant is an old friend of mine—Cassian, another phoenix from my birth flock who escaped the curse through sheer luck. He prepared traditional dishes of our people with loving care, and Raven tried every single one without hesitation. My heart swells with emotion watching the way my mate accepts our customs so quickly, so completely, asking thoughtful questions about ingredients and preparation methods.
When the food was first placed on the table, she paused and looked at me with those intelligent sapphire eyes. She mentioned that Hemlocke’s people had a tradition of the male offering the female food first, then feeding her. Who knew blackunicorns had so much in common with phoenixes? The parallel makes me smile.
We exchanged bites of food in the traditional manner—me offering her the choicest morsels; her feeding me in return—and enjoyed wonderful conversation that ranged from philosophy to politics to the intricacies of cross-species relationships. Her laugh is musical, and the way her eyes light up when she’s excited about a topic makes my chest tight with affection.
Now Raven’s eyes move to the world outside the restaurant’s floor-to-ceiling windows. Night has fallen completely while we ate, and the world has been swallowed up in darkness’s embrace. Only the restaurant’s warm lights and the distant stars provide any illumination.
“What’s on your mind?” I reach out and touch her hand where it rests on the white tablecloth, feeling her skin warm beneath my fingers.
“I’d invite you to spend the night with me, but Malivore would be up in flames.” She smiles ruefully, looking at me with heat in her eyes before turning back to the window. The implication in her words makes my body respond immediately, desire pooling low in my belly.
“The Lake of Eternity isn’t far from here. It’s where I led you when you were on your rampage after escaping captivity.” I offer her a soft smile, my heart pounding as I make this offer. All I can do is put the ball in her court and see if she accepts what I’m really asking.
“How’s your eyesight at night?” Raven asks, and I look down at the table, suddenly embarrassed by this particular limitation.
“Not great, if I’m being honest with myself.” One of the few weaknesses phoenixes have—we’re creatures of daylight and fire, not shadow and darkness.
She reaches out and holds my hand more firmly, her grip reassuring and confident. “I can find it again. My eyesight at night is as good as during the daytime—dragon eyes are built for hunting in any conditions.” She stands, pulling me gently to my feet, and leads me back down to the shoreline. The sand is cool now beneath our feet, and the sound of waves creates a rhythmic backdrop.
Watching Raven shift is the most incredible thing I’ve ever witnessed in all my centuries. It amazes me how such a gigantic beast—easily the size of Shadowcarve—fits into her relatively small human body. The shimmer of raw power I see move over her emerging scales is intense, visible to my phoenix sight as waves of energy that make the air itself distort.
She turns her great-horned head to look at me, and the white bone-like face staring down at me should belong to a dragon much older than my mate. The skull dragon designation is earned, not given lightly. It helps that her father is a great wyrm dragon from a pure, ancient bloodline—the combined genetic weight creating something unprecedented.
Raven lays down with surprising grace for something so massive and turns her enormous head to look at me. Then she raises one taloned forelimb and gently touches the area just behind her horn ridge—indicating where she wants me to sit.
I move to climb up her foreleg, using her scales as handholds. The black scales are warm beneath my palms and harder than steel. I walk carefully up her long neck to the spot behind her horn ridge. There, nestled behind the protective bone plate, isa dished-out area—a natural saddle perfectly sized for a rider. When I’m finally seated, settling into the hollow with my legs on either side, she rocks smoothly to her feet.
The world feels so much smaller from up here; the perspective is dizzying and exhilarating. She rumbles briefly—a deep vibration I feel through my entire body—warning me she’s about to take off.
Within seconds, she launches up into the air with powerful beats of her massive wings. The force of takeoff presses me back against her neck, and then we’re banking hard to the right. Somehow she’s flying incredibly fast through the pitch-black night with perfect confidence, navigating by senses I can’t even comprehend. The wind whips past us, cold and sharp, but her body heat keeps me warm.
Every beat of her wings brings us closer to the Lake of Eternity. I can feel it as we approach—that sacred pull on my phoenix’s soul, the call of holy ground. Raven circles the ridges of the mountains that protect the lake like a natural amphitheater, getting her bearings.
I stand up carefully in the saddle of her neck, trusting her to keep me safe, and take a running leap off her back. The fall lasts only a heartbeat before I ignite mid-air, my body erupting into living flame. My phoenix form explodes into existence—not the small form I use for travel, but my full glory. I spread wings of pure fire that span thirty feet, and my flames light up the entire bowl that houses the sacred waters below. The illumination reveals ancient stone walls and crystal-clear water that reflects my fire like a mirror.
Raven shifts back to human form and glides down to the small rocky beach in the center of the lake, her black wings carryingher with practiced ease. I fly close to the surface of the water, my wing tips skimming the glassy surface and creating ripples of steam. When I approach Raven, she stands there on the shore staring up at me in open awe, her sapphire eyes wide and her mouth slightly open.
I hover before her, letting her take in how my phoenix truly looks—not the controlled form I show in public, but the full manifestation of what I am. Flames dance across my body in patterns of orange, red, and white-hot gold. My eyes burn with internal fire, and my feathers moves like living flame.
In a heartbeat, I shift back to human form and stand before her, both of us breathing hard. My skin still radiates warmth from the transformation.
“Welcome to the Lake of Eternity.” My voice comes out rougher than I intend, thick with emotion and desire. “It is the cradle where my kind need to go to take a mate outside of our species. The sacred waters protect our mates from when we ignite during... completion.”
I watch her eyes, and they’ve shifted to her dragon’s sapphire gaze—no longer the lighter blue of her human form but the deep, intense color that speaks of her beast being very close to the surface. The sapphire seems to burn in her gaze, and I can feel the heat radiating from her dragoness even from where I stand several feet away.
“We need to be in the water,” I whisper, searching her eyes for understanding of what I’m really asking. For consent. For acceptance.
“Okay,” Raven says the word simply, without hesitation, and steps away from me. Her hands find the zipper on the back of herdress with steady fingers. The sound of it sliding down—metal teeth separating one by one—echoes in the profound silence of the lake, seeming impossibly loud.
Her dress falls to the sandy beach in a whisper of fabric, pooling at her feet. It’s followed quickly by her black lace thong and strapless bra, each piece discarded without shame or hesitation. She spreads her wings several times—stretching the muscles, preparing—then steps into the water without looking back.
She walks into its inky depths fearlessly; the water rising her calves, her thighs, her hips. The moonlight catches on her wet skin, making her glow as if she’s made of pearl and obsidian.
