The moment our blood touched, the contract ignited.
Not burned—ignited, like the very concept of fire had been invented in that instant. Silver-white flame engulfed the vellum, but instead of consuming it, the fire was writing itself into the fabric of reality. I felt the Pact snap into place like a key turning in a lock I hadn't known existed in my chest. Suddenly Caelus's authority wasn't just emotional but tangible—I could feel it in my bones, in my blood, in the spaces between my thoughts.
The collar around my throat solidified with a sensation like coming home. Warm cloud-stuff became real, present, permanent. Not tight enough to restrict breathing but impossible to ignore—a constant reminder that I was claimed, protected, owned in ways that went beyond simple possession.
Through the bond, amplified by the Pact, I felt Caelus's satisfaction roll through me like thunder. The ritual was complete. I was his, he was mine, and nothing in any realm could undo what we'd just sealed.
The flame died, leaving the contract somehow both ash and whole, disappeared and eternal. The Dragon Lords stepped backfrom their cardinal points, the ritual circle breaking as magic settled into permanence.
The transformation didn't announce itself with warning—it simply arrived, like lightning finding ground through my body. One moment I stood in the ceremonial chamber, collar warm against my throat, Pact freshly sealed. The next, my bones caught fire from the inside out.
The pain was so sudden, so complete, that I couldn't even scream. My knees buckled, body folding in on itself as every cell suddenly remembered it was supposed to be something else, something more, something that could contain dragon magic without dissolving.
Caelus caught me before I hit stone, his arms closing around me as he lowered us both to the chamber floor. Through the bond, I felt his anguish at my pain mixing with fierce determination to see me through it. His robes pooled around us, creating a cocoon of silver and white while my body began unmaking itself.
"I've got you, little one," he murmured against my hair, his voice the only solid thing in a world suddenly gone liquid with agony. "Let it happen. Let yourself be remade. You're safe. You're mine. I won't let you fall."
The other Dragon Lords hadn't moved from their cardinal points—I could feel them through my exploding senses, pouring power into the ritual space, keeping it stable while I came apart. Their mates watched with knowing eyes, and through my pain I caught Lark's whisper: "I remember. We all remember."
They'd survived this. I would too. I had to believe that even as my bones began restructuring themselves with sounds I could hear from inside my own body—creaking, grinding, rebuilding. Human bones were too fragile for what I was becoming. They needed to be able to withstand forces that would shatter mortal frames.
I'd thought I understood pain. Thought the mark's corruption had taught me what agony meant. But this was different—not the cold violation of void magic but the brilliant agony of becoming. Every nerve ending fired at once as they rewired themselves, expanding into ranges humans couldn't perceive.
My muscles tore—I could feel each fiber snapping, dissolving, then reweaving itself with strength borrowed from storm and wind. The human body was never meant to move the way dragons moved, to be capable of the speed and grace that Caelus possessed even in human form. So my muscles had to die and be reborn, each strand reconstructed to hold power that would have torn my original body apart.
"Breathe," Caelus commanded when I'd forgotten how, his voice cutting through the pain with authority the Pact made impossible to ignore. "In through your nose, out through your mouth. Match me."
His chest rose and fell against my back in steady rhythm, and my body obeyed even as it revolutionized itself. Breathing helped, gave me something to focus on besides the feeling of my blood literally burning in my veins.
Because it was burning—transforming from simple human blood into something that could carry dragon magic, could heal wounds that would kill mortals, could survive temperature extremes that would freeze or cook human tissue.
The cloud patterns on my skin spread further with each heartbeat, claiming more territory, marking me as belonging to wind and storm. Where the Unnamed's mark had once corrupted, trying to hollow me out for possession, these new patterns filled me with belonging. They didn't erase who I was—they amplified it, took the core of my nature and gave it power to manifest.
My senses exploded outward all at once, and the overwhelming input nearly shattered my mind.
Suddenly I could taste the individual mineral content of the air, each particle distinct on my tongue. Could feel pressure systems forming hundreds of miles away, their patterns as clear as if I was seeing them on a map. Could hear frequencies beyond human range—the ultrasonic communication between the Dragon Lords that sounded like harmonized thunder, the subsonic rumble of the mountain's geological processes.
Colors burst into existence that didn't have names because human eyes couldn't see them. Ultraviolet patterns danced across Kara's skin. Infrared heat signatures painted everyone in the room in different shades of warmth. The electromagnetic spectrum opened up like a flower blooming in fast-forward, showing me energy patterns I hadn't known existed.
"Too much," I gasped, or tried to. The words came out as something between human speech and the harmonic resonance dragons used.
"Focus on me," Caelus said, his hand coming up to cup my face, forcing my attention to narrow. "Just me. My voice, my heartbeat, our bond. Let everything else fade to background. You can sort through it all later—right now, just survive it."
I locked onto him like he was the only solid thing in a world gone strange. His heartbeat became my anchor, the bond between us my guide through the sensory chaos. Slowly, agonizingly, my body found its new equilibrium.
The pain peaked in a moment of transcendent agony where I felt myself turned inside out, every atom repositioned, every cell remade. I was dying and being born simultaneously, ending and beginning, human and more-than-human occupying the same space until—
Stillness.
Silence.
Completion.
I collapsed against Caelus, my new body trembling with exhaustion but whole. Complete. Transformed.
The cloud patterns on my skin glowed with soft inner light, no longer just marking me as bonded but as changed. I could feel how they connected to Caelus's power, creating conduits for wind magic I could now channel in small ways. Not like him—I'd never be a Dragon Lord—but enough that I'd never be powerless again.
"Is it done?" I asked, and my voice had harmonics now, subtle undertones that resonated with the chamber's stone.
