The others piled into a truck behind us, and we pulled out of the parking lot in a tight convoy. The bayou was only about fifteen minutes from the Lodge. Fifteen minutes of open road where anything could happen.
No one spoke on the drive. The silence pressed in like a living thing, thick and suffocating. Selena stared out the window, her jaw set, her free hand resting on her thigh with her fingers slightly curled—ready. Valentin’s eyes flicked to the rearview mirror every few seconds, his knuckles pale against the steering wheel. Being followed wasn’t just a possibility. It was an expectation.
And once we entered the bayou, all hell could break loose. My stomach tightened, but I shoved the fear down where it couldn’t reach me. Fear was a luxury I couldn’t afford. Selena was counting on me. And this time, I wasn’t going to fail them.
Valentin parked in an empty gravel lot where the road gave way to cypress trees and murky water. Spanish moss hung from the branches like tattered curtains, swaying in a breeze that carried the thick, damp scent of decay and green.
I eased out of the SUV, every muscle coiled tight, and kept Selena close to my side. My gaze swept the tree line—thedense undergrowth, the dark spaces between the trunks where shadows pooled like ink. Perfect territory for an ambush.
Lucien’s truck rumbled up alongside us, gravel crunching beneath the tires. Doors opened. Boots hit the ground.
Raven climbed out last, a weathered backpack slung over one shoulder. Without hesitation, she unzipped the bag and started stripping—quick, efficient, no wasted movement. I looked away, giving her privacy, and fixed my eyes on the tree line until I heard the bag zip shut.
A low growl rumbled beside me—not from a threat in the tree line, but from Lucien. He stepped directly into my line of sight, broad shoulders squaring off like a wall, his eyes burning with a possessive warning that needed no words.
I held up a hand. Easy.
He didn’t have to worry. Raven was stunning, sure—anyone with eyes could see that. But she didn’t move me. Not the way Selena did. Ever since I’d tasted Selena’s blood, something had rewired inside me. Her scent, her pulse, the way her presence hummed against my skin like a low current—she was the only one who made my fangs ache. The only one who made me feel like I was starving and whole at the same time.
How could I ever have rejected her?
I glanced down at Selena, half-expecting jealousy. Instead, she arched a brow at me, the ghost of a smirk playing at the corner of her mouth. She knew. She wasn’t threatened. That confidence did something to me that Raven’s beauty never could.
Raven stepped clear of Lucien without so much as a backward glance, unbothered by her nakedness or anyone’s reaction to it. Then she shifted.
It started in her spine—a violent crack that echoed through the trees and sent birds scattering from the canopy. Selenaflinched beside me, and I pulled her closer, my arm tightening around her waist as we watched.
Her bones elongated with wet, grinding snaps. Muscles rippled and swelled beneath skin that darkened, thickened, and hardened into scales. Her fingers stretched into talons. Her jaw unhinged and pushed forward, teeth multiplying into razor-sharp rows. The transformation was brutal and mesmerizing—not graceful, not painless, but raw and powerful and undeniable.
Where Raven had stood seconds ago, a dragon now towered above us. Shimmering silver scales caught the moonlight and threw it back in fractured beams that danced across the cypress trees. She was enormous—her wingspan alone would have blotted out the sky if she’d unfurled them fully. A low rumble rolled from deep in her chest, vibrating through the ground beneath my boots.
Every time I saw Raven in this form, she stole the breath right out of my lungs. I’d seen other dragons in my lifetime—crimson ones that burned like living embers, deep greens that blended into ancient forests, even a black dragon whose scales had swallowed light like a void. But none of them compared to this. Silver was something else entirely. It was moonlight forged into muscle and bone. It was armor and elegance and raw, devastating power all wrapped into one creature.
Magnificent didn’t even cover it.
“Everyone on the dragon express,” Lucien said, his voice cutting through my awe. He jerked his chin toward his brother. “Darius and I will fly.”
Darius’s silver eyes gleamed, a slow grin spreading across his face. “Can you keep up? I can fly as fast as a dragon.”
“Is that a challenge?” Lucien clapped him on the back hard enough to make most men stumble, but Darius didn’t so much as shift his weight. Lucien reached into his jacket and produced a small blue vial, the liquid inside shimmering like captured sky.“Anton gave me something that helps me match her speed.” He uncorked it and downed the contents in one swallow, grimacing as it hit.
Anton. The ancient vampire who served as headmaster of Legacy Academy. Like Angelo, he hoarded magical artifacts and enchanted relics the way other men hoarded wealth. The difference was, Anton actually shared them when it mattered.
Raven lowered herself, her massive body settling against the ground with a grace that defied her size. Selena was rigid against me, her lips parted, eyes wide. She’d probably read about dragons in her textbooks at the Academy, but reading about one and standing ten feet from a living, breathing beast covered in silver scales were two very different things.
I loosened my arm from her waist and took her hand instead, steadying her as she climbed up the curve of Raven’s shoulder and settled between two ridges of silver scales.
I swung up behind her and the surface beneath me gave slightly—warm, surprisingly smooth, like sitting on a wide leather chair that happened to breathe. Each slow rise and fall of Raven’s ribs reminded me that this seat was alive and could incinerate us all if she chose to.
Not the most comforting thought. But at this point, a dragon was the least terrifying thing we were facing today.
Rose climbed up next, quiet and sure-footed. Alice followed, Darius catching her eye and holding it for a beat longer than necessary before he stepped back to give himself room to take flight. Valentin mounted last, settling at the rear with the calm authority of someone who’d ridden stranger things than dragons.
I slipped my arms around Selena’s waist, pulling her back against my chest. She fit against me like she’d been designed to. Her hand came down over mine, pressing my palm flatagainst her stomach, and something fierce and protective surged through me.
I wouldn’t let her fall. Not off this dragon. Not anywhere. Not ever.
Something moved in the bayou. My vampire sight caught it instantly—a dark shape sliding between the cypress trunks—too deliberate to be an animal, too fluid to be human. Then I saw the eyes. Twin points of burning red, glowing like hot coals pressed into the shadows.
