It’s a hunting technique passed down through bloodlines older than civilization. Our white faces mimic the sun-bleached skulls of dragons long dead, scattered in caves and mountain crevices across the world. Prey animals learned to fear those skulls, learned to avoid the places where dragon bones lay. But they also learned that skulls meant the predator was gone.
Dead.
No longer a threat.
They never learned to fear the skulls that blinked.
A dragon hunting in darkness becomes invisible, nothing but scales and shadow and patience. Only the skull shows, pale and still as death, and anything that wanders close sees only the remains of a predator past. A relic. A warning that danger once lived here but lives no longer.
By the time they realize the skull is attached to a living, breathing hunter, it’s already too late.
My mother told me stories of the ancient black dragons who would wait in caves for weeks, motionless, their white faces theonly thing visible in the dark. Entire herds would shelter in those caves during storms, believing them empty save for old bones. The dragons would wait until the herd settled. Until they slept. And then the skulls would move, and the darkness would come alive with teeth and fire.
Now I use the same ancient camouflage not to hunt, but to hide.
My wing unfurls and drapes over my stomach, the membrane thin enough to feel the warmth radiating from my body. Beneath the leathery fold, I sense it—that small, dense weight low in my belly. Warm and undeniable.
The implant failed.
I feel the egg forming within me. There’s only one, from what I can sense—a single sphere of developing life, no larger than my dragon’s clenched fist but growing with each passing hour. The shell hasn’t hardened yet; I feel it shifting, malleable, still taking shape around the precious life inside. It could belong to any of my five mates. The thought should terrify me. Instead, my dragoness purrs contentedly in the back of my mind, the vibration resonating through my chest, rattling loose stones near my head. She’s quite pleased with herself.
I wasn’t ready for this. I thought I had more time.
My mother has my brothers and sisters due to hatch in the coming weeks. How am I supposed to help protect her and the hatchlings when I have one of my own, months behind hers? The weight of it presses down on me, heavier than my own scales.
I reach for the bonds with my mates—those golden threads of connection I feel constantly, pulsing with their emotions, their presence—and I dampen them. One by one, I wrap each bond in shadow, muffling the warmth until they’re barely whispers atthe edge of my awareness. The silence that follows is deafening. Lonely. But necessary.
They can’t know where I am. Not yet. Not until the egg is laid and I can think clearly again.
From what my father told me, a black dragoness guarding a clutch—or even a single egg—is the most dangerous creature in existence. I believe him now. The protective instinct doesn’t feel like an emotion. It feels like a second skeleton beneath my scales, iron-hard and immovable. It feels like madness wrapped in purpose.
I close my eyes and breathe in deeply, expanding my ribs until they ache, drawing the warm, humid air deep into my lungs. I search inward, trying to sense how many eggs I carry. The awareness settles like a stone dropping into still water.
One.
One is more than I wanted at this point in my life. But everything happens for a reason, and I will love my hatchling fiercely. Savagely. With every drop of acid in my blood.
Three days.
That’s how long it will be before I lay my egg. I know this the same way I know how to breathe, how to fly, how to kill. The knowledge is instinctual, branded into my very DNA. Three days of the egg forming, hardening, preparing to enter the world. Three days of my body redirecting every ounce of energy toward the life growing inside me.
Three days of hiding.
I will not move from this nest. I will not eat. I will not drink. The volcanic sand will keep me warm; the darkness will keep mehidden, and the stone walls will keep me safe. Anyone who tries to enter will face a skull in the shadows—ancient, patient, and very much alive. Anyone foolish enough to come closer will learn why black dragons were once called death incarnate.
The warmth seeps deeper into my bones. The sand molds to my body like an embrace. The absolute darkness wraps around me like a cocoon, and I let myself sink into it, become part of it. In this moment, I am not Raven. I am not a daughter or a mate or a sister. I am something far older. Something primal.
I am a black dragoness preparing to bring new life into the world, and nothing—nothing—will threaten what is mine.
I exhale slowly; the breath leaving me in a long, low rumble that stirs the sand around my snout. Then I raise my scales.
Every single one lifts from my hide, each sharp point standing on edge like a thousand black blades. The sensation prickles across my entire body—a full-body shiver that doesn’t stop, every nerve ending alive and waiting. Nothing can touch me now without being shredded. Nothing can reach my egg without going through an armor of razors.
In the darkness, I am invisible.
Only my skull floats in the void, white and still and waiting.
My dragoness’s voice echoes in my mind, no longer a whisper but a relentless beat. A war drum pounding in the dark.
