He pulled me on to his lap and nibbled on my shoulder. “Before we go back to bed, I have something else in mind. Something else that will help you relax.”
My spirits lifted immediately. “What is it?”
“You’ll have to come and see.”
He set me down and stood, displaying his well-muscled body, then he took my hand, helping me off the bed. By the time my feet touched the floor, we were both fully dressed—pants and shirts and shoes, something practical.
I glanced down at myself and smiled. “Pants. Is that a clue to what we’ll be doing?”
“Maybe.” Wolfe winked at me and smiled wider.
I should have been nervous. Instead, I felt giddy. With him, even uncertainty felt like the beginning of something good.
“Come.” He tugged on my hand and led me outside.
We stepped onto the sand. I looked around, trying to guess where he was taking me but I couldn’t see anything. “Where are we going, Wolfe?”
He pointed upward, toward the sky.
And as soon as he did, a shadow swept over the sand, sudden and enormous, swallowing the sunlight in one slow pass. Then Pyrion and Hedion descended, their wings carving through the air.
I gasped and my gaze snapped back to Wolfe. “Are we flying?”
I’d been desperate to do this, but I knew it hadn’t been the right time. There had been so much else to worry about. When Wolfe nodded, excitement bubbled inside me.
The dragons came down out of the sky with terrifying grace, vast bodies cutting through the light, and wings stretching wider than the beach house roofline.
When their claws met the shore, the ground trembled. Sand skittered across the beach in sharp little spirals, and the shutters behind us rattled in their frames as if the house itself braced.
Hedion turned his great head toward me, one slow blink heavy with awareness, then a low rumble rolled from his chest. Pyrion’s gaze locked on Wolfe, the tilt of her head reading like a vow:I’m ready.
I glanced at Wolfe. “Oh Gods. I want to fly… but I don’t remember how.” I laughed.
He gave me a reassuring shrug. “You don’t need to remember. It’ll feel natural for you the moment you’re flying. Also, neither of them will allow you to fall. They protected you before, but now that we are mates, they’ll treat you no different from me.”
“Then… I’m excited to go.”
“Let me help you up.”
Wolfe led me to Hedion.
The dragon lowered himself just enough for me to climb. Wolfe lifted me onto the dragon’s back and it was amazing. The feeling on just sitting on the back of such a magnificent creature was so much more than what I’d described in my journal.
There was a set of leather straps at his neck. I gripped it with one hand and with my other, I pressed my palm against the warm curve of Hedion’s scales. The texture was rough beneathmy fingers, solid and alive, heat pulsing faintly through the ridges.
Wolfe mounted Pyrion and looked over at me. “Ready?” he called out.
I nodded, even though my heart was racing.
With a powerful surge, Hedion launched upward. My stomach dropped violently, stealing the air from my lungs, and a startled laugh tore free before I could stop it. The beach fell away beneath us in a rush of gold and white.
Wind roared past my ears, whipping my hair back, and as we became airborne I tasted freedom again.
Across the open air, Wolfe and Pyrion joined us.
I grinned at Wolfe, breathless.
And in that moment, high above the world, I realized something unexpected—I wasn’t afraid anymore.
