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“And stealing from dragons, from what she told me,” Lusca added.

Skadi was already walking around the edges of the room, probably pilfering the gemstones I’d left here for emergencies. I watched him pluck a large yellow diamond from behind a slab of dried mud I’d put there to hide it, and tuck it under his arm with a sly smile.

“Put it back,” I called out. He snarled and pretended to return the gem. The moment had broken the feeling of doom, though.

The somber mood completely dissipated after the cask was opened, and my mates decided to play one of their favorite games: “Embarrass Rada.”

“Lusca, tell the one about the pirates who stole her knickers,” Lachlan suggested.

“I could tell about the time she accidentally poisoned Vilkurn and convinced him it was a Mirrenese spy who’d done it,” Serak suggested, more relaxed than I’d seen him in weeks.

Or acting more relaxed. I let them be silly and annoying and soaked in as much of the joy as I could, while we waited for whatever would happen.

But nothing did, except Lusca getting drunk for the first time in his long life. Apparently, being in the middle of nothing but dry land on all sides knocked his tolerance down to nothing. He was a funny drunk, singing and giggling and kissing my neck until he fell asleep suddenly, only saving himself a broken neck because Kellin was there to catch him.

Lachlan was next to go, followed by Kellin, then Goran. When the cave was filled with the scent of whiskey and the sound of snoring, Serak and Skadi approached me together.

Serak sank to his knees beside me on an old bear fur. It should have smelled like mold and dust, but somehow it still held the aromas of mint and rain. My first, truncated heat, that I’d run from. “What can we do to ease your worry?” he asked.

“And our suffering,” Skadi added. When I raised an eyebrow, he huffed. “The scent of your anxiety offends me. It gives me… what did the seal man call it? Heartburn.”

“Carry Lex to the real cave?” I whispered, picking up the fur. “This is where Goran and I made love. When my first heat started, I ran. That’s where I met the Goddess.”

“Of course.” The two stood, silently lifted Lex’s stone coffin, then followed me down a winding passageway that led even deeper into the mountain. It was pitch black in these tunnels, but Serak’s and Skadi’s eyes glowed in shades of blue that made the walls glitter as we walked.

Eventually, we emerged into another, smaller cavern. In the center of the floor sat a still pool of water. There was no crack in the ceiling to let in the moonlight. We were cut off from Her sight here as much as anyone in the world could be.

I laid down the fur and motioned for them to join me. When they did, I held both of their hands and lifted them to press a kiss to their wrists, first Serak, then Skadi.

“Ratter? Are you sure?”

“I’m not sure what’s ahead for me. This might be the last time I get to choose who and when I make love, without my body forcing me to a decision. Yes, I’m sure. If you don’t mind sharing?”

Skadi grunted and stood. I thought he might be leaving, but he shucked off his clothing instead. Serak did the same, though he folded his neatly and kneeled to help me undress.

Then for the first time, cut off from the rest of the world, my two dragons worshipped me in darkness. I couldn’t see whose hands or tongue was on me, but of course I knew.

Skadi’s touch held the bite and cold slide of snow and ice, and Serak’s the fire he’d been given by Edan. I shivered and gasped, not sure if the feeling of such wildly different temperatures was titillating or torture, but after a moment and a murmur, they began to work together. One nipple was encased in wet heat, and one with a cold tongue, both wrapping around the tips to tease them until I cried out for more.

Forked tongues. I didn’t have time to ask Serak why his was forked as well, because they had both shifted lower and all my thoughts dissolved in the darkness.

One hot hand held my right thigh, and a cold grip encircled my left as my lovers spread me wide in the darkness. Then they added their tongues, tracing identical patterns on my inner thighs, down to my ass and up and around the top of my mound. Finally, finally, they met in the middle, and two tongues worked at my clit until I came, gasping into the silence.

I hadn’t finished coming when those tongues entered me, together, impossibly long. Then one withdrew and moved to my ass… No. That was a tail. “Skadi!” I gasped as the icy end pressed at my back entrance.

“She calls my name in her lust, little brother. You are falling behind.”

“The hell I am,” Serak snarled and moved over me, his hot cock pressing at my entrance, his hands gripping my hips. “In time, Snowflake.” Then he plunged into me, just as Skadi’s tongue flicked at my clit, and his tail swelled, cold and thick, in my ass.

They snarled, they roared, they fucked me harder than I thought I could stand. But somehow, every thrust seemed to feed power into me, and my own responded.

The cavern exploded into light, showers of blue, red, and gold sparks glittering all around us as they both came hard. My own body shuddered and quaked with an orgasm that was somehow more than sexual.

I panted in the darkness, but held my breath when I realized only I was panting.

Only I was breathing.

And the blue and red sparks had faded, leaving only the gold.