I rounded the corner of the formation, and my breath catches. Fragments of stone litter the black sand beach—jagged chunks of broken stalagmites scattered like the aftermath of an explosion. By the look of it, Raven broke the side open with brute force.
I swim to the back side of the island, moving through water that grows warmer with each stroke. The acrid bite of her acid stings my nose, mingled with the scent of burnt stone. Scorch marks streak the rocks, the edges melted smooth where she carved her entrance.
And there, in the absolute darkness of the hollow she created, I see it.
A giant white dragon skull.
It hovers in the void, disembodied, pale as bleached bone against the impenetrable black. For one heart-stopping moment, I think it’s a corpse—some ancient dragon long dead, nothing but remains.
Then it turns.
A sapphire eye catches the faint light, glowing like a cold blue flame in the darkness. The skull shifts, and I realize with dawning horror that the rest of her is there—invisible in the shadows, her black scales swallowed by the void. Only that ghostly white face is visible, ancient and terrible.
“Raven?” My voice comes out as barely a whisper, cracked and thin.
The skull rises. A growl rolls out of the darkness, so low I feel it vibrate through the water more than hear it. It rumbles up through my bones, settles in my teeth, sends every instinct I possess screaming at me to run.
I know that look in her eyes. The dragoness is in the driver’s seat. Raven is gone—buried somewhere beneath that primal, protective fury.
I blink out of existence a heartbeat before she can strike.
The in-between swallows me, cold and empty, and I hold myself there for one shuddering breath before snapping back into reality on the shore. My knees buckle the moment my feet hit sand. I collapse onto the beach, shaking so hard my teeth chatter, water streaming off my body in rivulets.
“What happened?” Corvus is at my side in an instant, wrapping a towel around my shoulders. The fabric is rough against my skin, grounding.
“Oh, you’re more right than you know, Thauglor.” I can barely get the words out. My voice sounds distant and strange. “She’s out there. In a nest she made herself.” I pull the towel tighter, trying to stop the trembling. “Looks like she broke the stalagmites and curled up in the middle. All I saw was the white of her skull and the glow of her blue eyes.”
I meet Thauglor’s gaze, and I see my fear reflected back at me.
“Her dragoness is in the driver’s seat.”
The words fell into silence. Heavy. Final.
“So, what do we do?” Hemlocke breaks first, pacing the shoreline like a caged animal.
Thauglor pulls out his phone, fingers moving across the screen. “Being a true wyrm dragoness, she’ll lay her egg—or eggs—in about two days.” His phone dings several times in rapid succession. His eyes scan the messages, and I watch them widen. “Mina just reminded me how Raven reacted to the last clutch she had when Raven was little.” He looks back toward the island, his expression grim. “She damn near torched all of us for getting near her mother.”
“How do we feed her?” Finlay’s voice is tight with worry as he looks from the stone fortress back to Thauglor.
“Keir can try dropping a deer outside of the opening.” Thauglor suggests, but even he doesn’t sound convinced.
I shake my head, still shivering despite the warm air. “I have no way of holding it as my hound. Can we get Ziggy to try? He has tentacles.”
“What about Orpheus?” Hemlocke stops pacing, his dark eyes sharp. “Do you think she’ll attack her twin?”
My brows rise. Hope—fragile and desperate—sparked in my chest.
Before Thauglor can answer, I’m already moving.
I blink out of the cavern; the world folding around me, and find Orpheus in his chambers. He’s barely awake, black hair mussed, confusion clouding his features.
“Raven is on eggs. Or about to lay.” The words tumbled out of me in a rush. “We need to see if you can get close. Use the twin bond thing.”
He opens his mouth to respond, but I don’t give him the chance. I grab his arm and blink us back into the cavern before he can draw breath.
“Who got my sister pregnant?” His voice is a snarl as he takes in the gathered group, his gold eyes flashing with barely contained fury. Then his gaze locked on the stone fortress rising from the center of the hot spring, and his anger shifts to something else. Something softer. Worried.
“We don’t know.” Corvus runs a hand through his silver hair, still pacing. “But what we do know is we need to figure out how to check on her without getting torched.”
