Only obliteration.
The estate itself collapsed, massive chunks of stone breaking away as fire and dragon talons ripped it apart, burning it down to nothing but ruin.
Raven should have been horrified.
She wasn’t. She had never been protected before. Part of something bigger than herself.
Part ofhim.She reached down and wrapped her arms around the dragon’s neck, as much as she could. Not because she feared falling, but because she needed to be closer, needed him to know she accepted all of him, dragon and man. Magic and myth. Passion and destruction.
The world fell away as they flew farther away from the others. She could feel the dragon’s need to get her as far away from the attackers as possible, to make sure she was safe.
Vector’s wings stretched wide, catching the wind, lifting them higher, higher, higher until the ruins of the battlefield below became nothing but a distant memory.
They soared into the night, his massive form cutting through the air like a shadow, his powerful wings beating slow and steady, each stroke effortless, carrying them across the sky.
Raven’s heart pounded, but not from fear.
It was from wonder.
She had expected to be cold—exposed, trembling from the sheer height, the cutting winds, the thin air.
But she wasn’t.
She was warm.
A gentle, invisible heat wrapped around her, a cocoon of protection, as if she were nestled inside the very heart of him.
The wind should have been blinding, should have stung her eyes and stolen her breath.
But instead, it was soft, whispering against her skin like the lightest caress, like the hand of something ancient and unseen cradling her in the arms of the sky.
Dragon magic.
It protected her. Held her.
Kept her safe.
Not even the wind could tear her from his back. Nor gravity. Cold. Nothing could touch her when she was with him.
She tightened her grip against the smooth ridges of his back, pressing closer, feeling the slow, steady power of his muscles beneath her.
And then she looked down.
Her breath caught.
The city stretched below them, an endless sea of golden lights, winding streets and glowing highways weaving through the darkness like veins of shimmering gold.
Beyond the city, the land rolled in endless waves of midnight blue, silver rivers snaking through hills and valleys, shimmering like stardust caught in motion.
Mountains rose in the distance, their peaks kissed by moonlight, stretching toward the heavens as if they could touch the very stars.
And above them?—
The sky.
The real sky.
Not the sky as she had known it, the sky glimpsed through car windows and city skylines.
