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“I definitely am now,” I said, resting my arms over his and hugging them to me.
“They really do get the best of all possible weather here, don’t they?” Marco said, sauntering up beside us. The feline alpha ran a hand through his spiky black hair and gave a shudder to match his mildly sarcastic tone. “Coldandwet.”
“Poor kitty,” I said with an arch of my eyebrow, and he laughed.
“Just as long as none of it touches my darling princesses,” he said more tenderly, giving my cheek a peck and my belly a brief caress.
West had ambled over at my other side, his lean arms loosely folded over his chest. “I think our dragon shifter can withstand a slight chill.” The canine alpha’s dark green eyes softened as he studied my face. “As long as you’re comfortable?”
I swatted him. “I’mfine.” But as irritating as the constant check-ins could be as the end of these nine months approached, I couldn’t deny that the way my four mates had been doting on me brought a flutter of pleasure into my chest more often than not.
We didn’t often get to spend this much time all together, rather than each handling his own kin’s business while I traveled wherever I was needed most. For the next five days—the four leading up to Christmas and Christmas itself—they were all mine. Barring any emergencies, of course.
The wolf shifter’s gaze traveled over the crowd of avian kin, the twinkling lights around us catching on the silver strands in his auburn hair. “Should we be heading out?”
“Soon,” I said. “I think if you leave when we set off, you’ll get there right in time to meet us.”
Nate’s embrace tightened. “Are you sure the flight won’t be too much of a strain when—”
I turned to shoot him a look before he could even finish expressing that worry, and he hung his head apologetically. The alpha of the disparate kin still needed occasional reminders to rein in his over-protective nature. I rumpled his thick brown hair and bobbed up on my toes to press a kiss to his lips.
“I’m a dragon,” I said gently. “I’m made to fly. And our daughter is too.”
Aaron joined us, his pale cheeks and the tips of his ears flushed from the cold. “That’s everyone,” he said. “The last stragglers just came in. Do you want to give the directions, Serenity?”
“Yes.” I gave Marco and West a quick kiss for good measure. “I’ll see you three in a bit.”
Aaron’s staff had set up a platform at the edge of the courtyard, similar to the one I’d stood on to meet this kin group when he’d first introduced me as his mate. A hush spread through the crowd as we climbed up on to it. The avian shifters turned to see what I would say.
“Joyful greetings to you all, avian kin!” I said, pitching my voice to carry. “It’s been an honor to work with you and for you over the last year, and I think after all the challenges we’ve overcome, every one of you deserves a fantastic celebration. What’s here is only the beginning. We’re creatures of flight, and I’d like the chance to fly with you all. Please shift with me and follow my lead to the main site of the festivities. There are warm clothes waiting for you there.”
Eyes glimmered with interest, and curious murmurs carried through the crowd. I shed my jacket and knelt down in the dress I’d picked precisely because I didn’t care if it got ripped to shreds. My mates had raised a rather strong objection to the idea of me stripping down totally naked in this weather.
The shift flowed through me as naturally as breathing. My body expanded, my neck lengthened, and hard scales sprang to the surface of my skin beneath the scraps of falling fabric. Fire smoldered in my throat. Vast wings flared from my arched back. And deep in my now much larger belly, my daughter somehow seemed to snuggle even closer to me, as if eagerly anticipating the ride.
All across the courtyard, hawks and falcons, seagulls and pelicans, sparrows and doves emerged from crumpling clothing. I launched myself off the platform toward the darkened sky, and a flurry of wings followed me.
Aaron, his golden feathers gleaming as brightly as his hair did, soared up over the estate right beside me. I reveled for a moment in the sensation of the wind buffeting my wings. Then I swooped over the forests to the south with a vast flock of avian kin surrounding me. The sound of all those wing beats carried through the air around me like a sort of music, and a grin stretched my dragon lips.
The broad field I’d picked out lay just a few minutes’ flight from the estate, still within the property that belonged to the avian alpha. As it came into view, my breath caught.
Aaron and the people he’d asked to help had set up the lights exactly as I’d sketched them—and they shone even more spectacularly than I’d imagined. Strands of them hung between posts set up across the field in interlocking lines, forming a pattern like a vast sparkling snowflake, one you could only fully appreciate from far above.
I glided over it and circled around, wanting to drink in the sight for as long as I could. The avian kin followed me, keeping up with my leisurely pace. Right now, we might as well be the same kind of being, united by this act of propelling ourselves through the air and the love of the feelings that came with flying.
My wings flapped easily against the damp air. These days, I could hold my dragon form for hours at a time without the faintest prickle of fatigue. But hundreds of bird shifters were wheeling over the field with me, and their feathered bodies didn’t come with quite the same inner heat source.
I drifted through one last circuit of the field, and then I dove down to the grass at the end by the lodge.
That building’s windows were already beaming with light. Stacks of clothes arranged by size stood on tables on either side of the door, which stood open wafting heat and the scents of the feast awaiting us.
My three mates whose animal forms didn’t come with wings were waiting for me. I shifted as I dropped the last short distance, landing on the wooden boards of the porch with my human feet, and Marco wrapped a thick velvet dress around me. Nate was ready with a long wool coat to drape over that. West tugged a scarf around my neck and gave me a tender smile I’d never seen him offer to anyone but me.
“This is some light show, Sparks,” he said.
The avian kin had descended all around us. After they’d dressed on the porch with the ease of people who had to make quick changes on a regular basis, we poured into the broad open room on the other side of the doorway. I scooped roast beef and mashed potatoes and carrots drenched in butter onto my plate and then headed back outside to eat under the lights.
The display was pretty spectacular even from below, if I did say so myself. I meandered deeper into the field, swiveling on my feet between bites and taking in the sparkling patterns all around me, even brighter against the stark black of the sky. The music Aaron had suggested was playing—the first lilting tune in an album recorded by a band composed of avian shifters. The speakers around the field pitched the spirited melody across the entire open space.
