My mates.
They would come for her. She knew this with the same certainty she knew her scales were blue and her fire was ice.
They would enter this cavern. They would lovingly inhale her wet arousal. And then they would claim her.
The thought should have terrified her.
Instead, her dragon body purred.
Darkness washed over as Sol's eyes fluttered closed.
And the newly born dragon slept.
Chapter forty-four
The Ripening
Sol
For Sol's first sleep as a dragon, she dreamed in colors that had no names.
Vast glacial blues that stretched beyond comprehension. Golds that burned like captured suns. Silvers that shimmered with the cold light of moons she had never seen. The colors moved through her—were her—and she floated in them without form, without fear, without the small cramped cage of a human body.
You are finally awake, something ancient whispered.You have always been here, sleeping beneath skin that was never meant to cage you for so long.
In the dream, she flew.
Not the awkward flailing of her first flight, but true flight—effortless, stunning, divine. Her wings carved through clouds. Her tail steered her through currents of wind that sang against her scales.
Below her, mountains bowed.
Above her, stars wheeled in greeting.
She was immense.
She was eternal.
She was a dragon.
And she was not alone.
Two shapes moved through the dream-sky beside her. One blazed gold and black, trailing fire that warmed the air around her wings. The other gleamed silver and shadow, breathing frost that matched her own.
Mates, the ancient voice purred.Yours. Claim them. Your ripening is here.
In the dream, she didn't fight it.
Korin reached her first.
His golden form blazed against the endless blue, scales rippling with inner fire as he curved his massive body around hers. She felt the heat of him—not burning, never burning, but warming her in places she hadn't known were cold.
His voice rumbled through her bones. "Little queen, we have waited so long."
And then Pyrran was there—behind her, above her, his silver form eclipsing the stars. Where Korin was heat, Pyrran was pressure.
Weight.
The cool certainty of moonlight on snow.
