"Come in," I called, sitting up in bed and pulling the blankets higher.
The door opened to reveal Meredith, but she wasn't alone. Behind her stood three women I recognized but had barely spoken to—Kara with her fire marks glowing faintly in the morning light, Mira whose frost patterns caught the sun like prisms, and Lark clutching her rag doll with one hand while the other traced nervous patterns in the air.
"We're here to help," Kara added, and her voice was soft, gentle. "This doesn't normally happen—most bonding ceremonies are private affairs between mates. But after what you've been through, we need to be absolutely certain the Unnamed has no lingering influence."
They ushered me from bed with gentle insistence, wrapping me in a robe that felt like wearing mist. Together we moved through corridors I hadn't seen before, climbing stairs that spiraled up and up until we reached a chamber I hadn't known existed.
The preparation room took my breath away. Circular, with windows on all sides showing nothing but sky and clouds. In the center sat a pool carved from white stone, steam rising from water that smelled like rain and lightning. And hanging from a stand near the window—
"The dress," Mira said softly, following my gaze.
It wasn't white. Nothing about dragon ceremonies followed human traditions, I was learning. Instead, it was the silver-gray of storm clouds just before they released their burden, simple in design but made from fabric that seemed to shift and flow even while hanging still. The kind of dress that would be beautiful but also practical—easy to remove when the transformation came.
"Into the water," Lark said, setting her doll carefully on a cushion. "The cleansing comes first."
They helped me into the pool, the water exactly the right temperature—warm enough to relax muscles, cool enough to sharpen awareness. As I sank into it, each bride took a positionaround the edge, their hands moving through the water in patterns that made it shimmer with their different magics.
"The transformation hurts," Kara said as she worked soap through my hair with surprisingly gentle fingers. "But it's the good kind of pain—the kind that means you're becoming something more. Your body will feel like it's breaking apart because it is. Every cell restructuring itself to hold dragon magic."
Her honesty was brutal but necessary. I needed to know what was coming, needed to prepare for it mentally even if physical preparation was impossible.
"Don't fight it," Mira added, her frost-touched hands cool against my shoulders as she helped rinse the soap away. "Let Caelus guide you through. Trust him with every part of yourself. The bond will be your anchor when everything else feels like it's dissolving."
She spoke from experience, I realized. Each of them had been through this—had been human, then transformed, remade into something that could stand beside a Dragon Lord as an equal.
"When you come out the other side, you'll be different. Stronger. But still you." Lark's voice was quiet but certain. "Remember that when it feels like you're being unmade. The core of who you are doesn't change. It just gets . . . more. Fuller. Like you've been living as a sketch and suddenly you're painted in full color."
They lifted me from the water, dried me with towels so soft they felt like clouds themselves. The dress slipped over my head like it had been waiting for me, the fabric settling against my skin with a rightness that made me shiver. It fit perfectly—how, when no one had taken measurements?
"Ah," Kara said, catching my confusion. "The dress knows who it's for."
They sat me before a mirror, and I watched my transformation begin even before the ceremony. Mira painted my bond marks with silver dust that made them glow from within, the cloud patterns seeming to move and shift across my skin. Lark braided my hair with fingers that knew exactly how much tension to use, weaving in tiny crystals that caught light and threw it back in rainbow sparkles.
"Almost ready," Mira said, and I heard something careful in her tone. "There's one more thing."
She produced a box from somewhere—dark wood carved with symbols I didn't recognize. Inside, nestled on silver cloth, lay something impossible. A collar made of cloud-stuff, translucent and shifting, somehow solid and ethereal at once. Even looking at it, I could feel the power radiating from it, the centuries of work that had gone into its creation.
"He made this for you centuries ago," Mira explained quietly, lifting it with reverent care. "He said it was his life’s work."
The collar was warm in my hands despite being made of solidified air. I could feel Caelus in it—his patience, his devotion, his absolute certainty that someday I would exist and would choose to wear this symbol of his claim.
"It's not just decoration," Kara added, her voice serious. "It's a symbol of his protection, his ownership. After the ceremony, after it solidifies around your throat, you'll wear it always. Every Dragon Lord, every magical being, everyone who sees you will know you belong to him."
The weight of that settled into my bones. Not just accepting Caelus as my mate, my Daddy, my dominant. But wearing proof of it always, a visible sign that I'd submitted to his authority, accepted his protection, chosen to be his.
"I understand," I said, and my voice came out steadier than I'd expected.
The collar pulsed once in my hands, recognizing my acceptance, waiting for Caelus to complete what it represented. Soon. So soon now.
The brides surrounded me in a circle of feminine power, each one transformed, each one claimed, each one stronger for having walked through fire and ice and stone to reach the other side.
"Ready?" Meredith asked.
I looked at my reflection—glowing bond marks, crystal-threaded hair, storm-gray dress that moved like weather itself. In my hands, the impossible collar waited to become real.
"Ready," I said, and meant it down to my bones.
Theceremonialchamberopenedbefore me like a throat waiting to swallow—carved from the mountain's heart, circular and perfect, with the sky visible through an opening above that let in light and wind and the weight of witness. The stone beneath my bare feet thrummed with power old enough that my new senses could taste its age like copper on my tongue. Four Dragon Lords stood at cardinal points, and their combined presence made the air itself feel dense.
