The caldera opened before me like the inside of a crystalline cloud. Circular, perfect, with walls that rose toward stars visible through the open top. But the walls themselves—they weren't stone. They were solidified dragon flame, frozen mid-dance in shades of silver and white and storm-gray. They pulsed with inner light, alive somehow, breathing with the mountain's slow rhythm.
At the center, taking up maybe a quarter of the space, sat a nest that defied description. Cloud-stuff formed its base—actual clouds, compressed and shaped but somehow still soft, still yielding. Woven through them were crystals of frozen wind, clear as diamond but warm to my new senses, humming with magic that recognized their master.
"I was born here," Caelus said quietly, his voice carrying weight that made the walls pulse brighter. "When dragons first came into being, this is where I opened my eyes for the first time. Where I learned to be myself."
He turned to face me fully, and in his storm-gray eyes I saw vulnerability that the centuries hadn't worn away.
"And here is where I want to make you fully mine. Where sky meets earth, where my power is strongest." His hand came up to cup my face, thumb tracing my cheekbone with infinite tenderness. "So the mountain itself bears witness to our joining. So the elements know what we've built, what we've chosen, what we'll be to each other forever."
The romance of it crashed into me like a wave. Not taking me to his chambers, not even to the Nursery where we'd built so much trust and care. But here, to his most sacred space. The place where he'd been born. Wanting the mountain, the sky, the ancient power that had made him to see us seal our bond.
I reached up to cover his hand with mine, pressed it more firmly against my face. "Then show me. Show me what forever looks like."
He led me to the nest with gentle pressure at the small of my back, and when my feet touched cloud-stuff for the first time, I understood why he'd spent centuries perfecting it. The surface yielded like the finest down but held firm enough to support weight, warm without being hot, soft enough to sink into without feeling trapped. Crystals of frozen wind were woven through in patterns that caught starlight from above and threw it back in prismatic sparkles.
"Sit," Caelus said, guiding me down with hands that trembled slightly despite his control. Through the bond, I felt the enormity of this moment for him—an eternity of waiting condensed into right now, into me sitting in the nest where he'd been born, about to become his in every way that mattered.
He knelt before me, and the posture should have felt wrong—a Dragon Lord on his knees—but instead felt absolutely right. Service, not submission. Worship, not weakness.
His hands found the hem of my ceremonial dress, and he paused, storm-gray eyes meeting mine with a question that didn't need words. I nodded, and he began lifting the fabric with aching slowness, each inch revealed treated like uncovering sacred text. The dress whispered over my thighs, my hips, my stomach. Cool air hit heated skin, making me gasp, making me hyperaware of every place the fabric had been.
"Beautiful," he murmured when the dress cleared my ribs, exposing the undergarments I'd worn beneath. His fingers traced the edge of lace with barely-there pressure that somehow felt more intimate than firm touch. "Perfect. Mine."
The possessiveness in his voice made heat pool low in my belly. The dress continued upward, over my breasts—I felt his exhale hot against my skin, felt through the bond how seeing meaffected him—then over my head and gone, tossed aside to land somewhere in the nest.
His hands returned immediately, finding the clasp of my bra with practiced ease. It joined the dress, and then I was bare from the waist up except for the collar. His eyes went dark, pupils blown wide with want barely contained.
"Lift your hips," he said, voice rougher now, and I did, letting him slide my underwear down and away until I was completely naked except for the cloud-stuff collar that pulsed warm against my throat.
I should have felt exposed. Vulnerable. Virgin nervousness should have made me want to cover myself, to hide from his intense gaze. But instead I felt cherished. His eyes moved over me like he was memorizing every detail, every curve and angle and imperfection, finding beauty in all of it. Through the bond, his desire crashed into me in waves—not just physical want but emotional hunger, the desperate need to finally claim what had been his from the moment I'd fallen and he'd caught me.
"You're so beautiful," he said again, hands hovering near my skin but not quite touching yet. "I've imagined this for centuries—what my mate would look like, how she'd feel, if she'd trust me enough to be this bare. But imagination didn't come close."
His fingers finally made contact, landing on my shoulders, and the touch sent sparks racing across my transformed nervous system. He traced the cloud patterns that marked me as his—storm-gray and silver swirls that wrapped around my shoulders and down my arms, following paths only he could fully see with dragon sight.
"These are my claim," he said, tracking one particular spiral that curved around my bicep. "Written in magic older than words, saying you belong to me. That you chose to belong to me."
His hands moved lower, tracing patterns across my collarbone, down between my breasts. Each touch was reverent, worshipful, taking time to learn the landscape of my body. When his fingers found the marks that curved around my ribs, following the path down to my hip, I arched into the contact without thinking.
"And these," he continued, voice gone to whisky and smoke, "these say I belong to you. That I chose to be chosen. That I'm yours as much as you're mine."
The reciprocity in his words made my chest tight. Not just him claiming me, but mutual claiming. Mutual choosing. Mutual devotion.
"My turn," I said, reaching for his robes with hands that shook slightly from want more than nerves.
He let me undress him with the same careful slowness he'd shown me. The outer layers came away easily, revealing the simpler tunic beneath. I pulled it over his head and finally saw him properly—lean muscle carved from centuries of movement, silver-white skin that seemed to glow with inner light, the matching storm patterns that marked him as mine.
I traced them with wondering fingers, following cloud swirls across his chest, down his abdomen. His muscles jumped under my touch, his breath catching when I found particularly sensitive spots. The marks wrapped around his ribs just like mine, continued down to his hips, disappeared beneath the waistband of his remaining clothes.
"These say you're mine," I whispered, using his words back on him. "That you chose to be claimed. That we belong to each other."
I unfastened his pants with fumbling fingers—virgin nervousness showing now, making the simple task harder than it should be. But he waited patiently, helped when I got stuck,and then he was as bare as me, and I could see all of him in the starlight filtering through the caldera's open top.
Beautiful didn't cover it. Magnificent felt closer. Dragon-made-flesh, power contained in human form, every line and angle designed by forces that understood perfection. The bond marks continued down his thighs, wrapped around his calves, marked him as thoroughly as they marked me.
He laid me back in the nest with gentle insistence, positioning himself above me but holding his weight on his arms, not crushing, not taking yet. Just looking at me with eyes gone storm-dark with wanting.
For a long moment, we just existed like that—both naked, both wanting, both on the edge of something that couldn't be undone. Starlight painted us in silver. The caldera walls pulsed with ancient power. Wind whispered through the open top, carrying the scent of coming storms.
