I swallowed hard and pressed my palm back against the warm scales.
There you are.His voice again, flooding my mind like sunlight through a window.Touch is the bridge. When you’re connected to me physically, you’ll always hear me. Even like this.
“Oh my God.” My voice came out strangled. I pressed both hands flat against him now, greedy for it, for the intimacy of hearing him without sound. “This is—Theron, this is insane.”
I know.There was warmth in the thought, amusement threaded through it like gold wire.It overwhelmed me too, the first time my father explained it. But it’s part of the bond. Part of us.
“Can you hear me? Like, my thoughts?” The idea was simultaneously thrilling and mortifying. If he could hear every thought I’d ever had about him—
No.A ripple of what felt like laughter moved through my mind.Only what you direct at me. Your private thoughts are your own. I’ll never take that from you.
Relief and something like disappointment warred in my chest. I pressed my forehead against his scales, feeling the vibration of his song humming through my bones. “I have about a thousand questions.”
I know. And I’ll answer every single one.A pause, and then something shifted in the tone of his thoughts—playful, almost boyish in a way I’d never heard from Theron Kincaid out loud.But first—do you trust me?
I pulled back enough to look up at him. Those massive copper-gray eyes watched me, and even in this form—sixty feet of dragon, scales and wings and fire—I could see him. My Theron.The man who burned breakfast and held me like I was glass and coached hockey like it was warfare.
“With everything,” I said.
He shifted his body, lowering one shoulder toward the ground, and I realized what he was offering. A wing extended, creating a ramp of sorts—membrane stretched taut over bone, strong enough to hold my weight.
Climb up. Hold on to the ridge at the base of my neck. The scales there are rougher—easier to grip.
My legs were shaking as I climbed. The wing membrane was surprisingly firm beneath my feet, warm and slightly textured, and I scrambled up to the broad plateau of his back. The ridge he’d mentioned ran along his spine—raised scales, almost like a natural saddle, and I wedged my fingers between them and held on.
Good. Lean forward. Press your chest against me.
I did, flattening myself along his neck, my cheek against scales that radiated heat. My hands gripped the ridge so hard my knuckles went white.
I won’t let you fall,he said, and the certainty in his voice—in his thought—was absolute.I will never let you fall.
His wings spread. The span of them blocked out the sky, casting me in shadow that smelled like metal and fire and something ancient. Muscles bunched beneath me, coiling with power I could feel through every point of contact.
“Okay,” I breathed. “Okay, I’m ready.”
He launched.
The ground dropped away so fast my stomach flipped into my throat, and I pressed my face against his neck and held on with everything I had. Wind roared around us—cold, sharp, exactly as he’d warned—and I felt his wings catch the air with a sound like a sail snapping taut. One beat. Two. And then we were climbing.
Open your eyes,he said gently.
I did.
And the world was so beautiful I forgot how to breathe.
Denver spread out below us like a map—the grid of streets, the glitter of glass towers catching the street lights, the snake of the Platte River cutting through it all. And beyond the city, the Rockies. Endless peaks draped in snow, ridgelines sharp as knife edges against the impossibly clear moonlit sky. The air was thin and cold and tasted like freedom.
“Oh my God,” I whispered, and the wind stole the words before they could go anywhere. But Theron heard me anyway—felt me, through the bond, through the place where my hands gripped his scales.
This is what I am,he said, and there was something raw in the thought. Vulnerable. Like he was laying himself bare in the most literal way possible.This is what I’ve been hiding from you.
I pressed my face against his neck, tears streaming sideways from the wind. “It’s incredible. You’re incredible.”
You’re not afraid.
“No.” And I wasn’t. Not even a little. Not of the height or the speed or the impossible reality of riding a dragon over the Rocky Mountains. I was terrified of a hundred things—of losing my family, of centuries stretching ahead of me, of being worthy of something this extraordinary. But afraid of him? Never. “I’m not afraid of you. I never will be.”
He banked left, and the world tilted, and I held on tighter and laughed—actually laughed, wild and breathless, the sound ripped away by the wind but echoing through my chest like something breaking free.
