“Dragons don’t exist,” she says, but there’s less certainty in it now. “They’re stories. Myths parents use to scare children.”
“And yet,” I reply evenly, “you’ve seen your own magic flatten trees and sprout rock from the earth.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
She opens her mouth then clamps it shut, considering her answer.
“It just is,” she snaps. “Magic is one thing. You’re talking about creatures that breathe fire and fly and hoard virgins in towers.”
Ronyn huffs softly behind me. I silence him with a glance.
“We do breathe fire,” I say. “And we do fly. But we don’t hoard virgins.” A beat. “We hoard gold.”
Despite herself, her brow twitches. “This isn’t funny.”
“No,” I agree. “It isn’t.”
Her gaze sharpens again, desperate now. “If you were dragons, I would have felt it. I sense magic. You would have feltwrong.” Her throat works as she swallows, and silence thickens between us.
“And yet,” I continue, softer now, “your magic didn’t destroy us.”
Her fingers curl slightly in the furs. “It should have,” she whispers.
“Why? Haven’t we fed you, clothed you, and kept you safe from your enemies?”
Her eyes lift slowly to mine again, searching still, but now for more than cracks in the story. For proof that she hasn’t missed something monumental.
“You’re telling me,” she says carefully, “that three dragons have… discovered me in this cave.”
“Yes.”
“And that I’m supposed to believe I’m what? Special? Chosen?”
“Yes. Fated.”
She blinks.
That word settles differently.
“Show me,” she says, voice hoarse.
Fully shifting would overwhelm her, but I let the truth of what I am surface enough to prove my second form. Scales bloom over my arms and legs, dark and ridged, catching the firelight. My tail unfurls behind me, heavy enough to sweep loose rocks across the floor of the cave as I curve it before me. Heat rolls off my skin in controlled waves as my wings partially emerge; their vastness hinted at in shadow and muscle rather than fully revealed. Ridged horns curl from my skull.
My eyes blaze silver.
For a heartbeat, it seems like the cave holds its breath.
Aura scrambles backward on the bed, fear flashing bright and raw, hands clutching the furs as if they might anchor her. I stop immediately, freezing where I stand.
“You have nothing to fear from us,” I say, keeping my voice calm. “Not now. Not ever.”
Her laugh is sharp and broken. “You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes,” I say. “Because the goddess herself carved this path. Because the alpha dragon in me bows to her with absolute certainty and now bows to you.”
I lower my head and kneel, fixing my gaze to the rock beneath me, unaware of Aura’s response to my moment of deference. She is our mate and our queen. I am alpha, but she will know my worship.
