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“Oh, Kaitlyn—you were amazing!” she breathed. “You saved us!”
“Jalli is right—we owe you our lives,” Ari’s mother said, also reaching out to pat my nose. “Thank you, my daughter. And forgive me for doubting my son’s choice. You are, indeed, the perfect female to be his L’lorna.”
My heart swelled and I wanted to demure and tell her I couldn’t have done anything if Saint hadn’t come back at just the right moment with more Drakes to join the battle. But again words didn’t come easily in this form.
“Wel-come,” I rumbled and snorted gently at both of them.
Then I cupped the air currents with my wings and glided into the night, knowing that all would be well. Already I could feel Ari’s triumph as the traitors fell beneath his claws and jaws. They were winning the battle below and the attempted coup had ended in defeat.
I would land a safe distance from the palace, just to be sure and shelter Ari’s mother and Jalli with my wings until the dawn came and we got definite word the battle was over. Then I would fly them back and return to my human form. Though I wasn’t quite sure how to go about this, I knew instinctively it was possible—and Ari and I would start our new lives together.
Our new lives might not look too different from our old lives from the outside—unless someone saw us both change into Drakes, of course.
We would probably go back to Nocturne Academy, because I didn’t feel ready to leave there yet. And we would sit in class and take notes and tests and worry about final exams and moan over the awful food at the Dining Hall and I would sleep in the Norm Dorm and be with my Coven-mates. But on the inside, there was a deep and fundamental change and it wasn’t just the fact that I could now turn into a Drake at will.
Drake Flame cannot Harm her
Drake Fire will but warm her.
She cannot be Burned
When her Lesson is Learned
The words of the Blind Crone returned to me. My lesson had been learned and it wasn’t anything to do with becoming a Drake—it was about loving myself and letting Ari love me in turn. For only in those last desperate moments when I was sure I would lose him had I understood how very much he cared for me and allowed myself to open and receive his love.
I had been changed completely by my time in the Sky Lands and I would never be the same—but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Sometimes change hurts but sometimes it heals. In the past hour the wounds of my past had finally been burned away as my scars turned to scales. I still missed my parents and my old life—I always would. But I wouldn’t let what I had lost define me anymore. From now on, I was looking towards the future.
With a loud roar, I cupped the cool wind in my wings and flew onwards into the night, a new creature…a new Kaitlyn, forever.
Kaitlyn
Epilogue
“So…let me get this straight. You’re not a Vampire anymore—now you’re a Drake?” Emma looked at me uncertainly as she sat beside me at our table in the Dining Hall. Ari and I had come back from the Sky Lands sooner than expected and hadn’t even missed a single day of class. It was kind of incredible to think how fast things had happened—I felt so different inside and yet seemingly hardly anything had changed at Nocturne Academy.
“Yup, I’m a Drake. Can’t you tell?” Proudly, I shook back my hair, displaying the left side of my face.
My scars were gone—they had been replaced by the gorgeous bronze-rose scales of my new form.
I would call it “my Drake” the way Ari and the other Drakes did, except my new form wasn’t really a separate personality sharing my body like it was with them—it was just me when I shifted into a dragon. Which was why Ari had told me he was positive I was going to get burned alive during the Trial of Flame. He’d never heard of anyone just being able to shift into a dragon form without having a whole different personality to go with it.
Of course, nobody had ever heard of a female Drake either, so I was kind of making things up as I went along.
The gorgeous, gleaming scales that covered everywhere I had once had scars proclaimed my new status. I no longer had to drink blood to survive—though Ari had confessed he kind of missed me biting him. I could eat normal human food—well, Drake food, anyway—which consisted of a lot more red meat than the usual daily recommended allowance called for.
My left eye and ear, which had been melted by The Fire that took my parents, were also healed—although the left eye was a different color from my turquoise right eye. The left was golden now—the same color as my eyes in Drake form—the same color as Ari’s Drake. It was fitting, since we were a Blood-Bonded couple.
