I leave them to the quiet and head inside to unpack our things and help Darial with the cooking. This will be our first vacation here with a woman, and there is no need to rush anything now that our mate is safe in our care.
Even as I think it, I consider the danger she faced in Blackwood. Am I reckless to believe they’re no longer a threat? And the dragons who circled on the horizon and who lingered outside the restaurant? We need to be watchful of any harm that might harm our mate.
But here in our remote cabin, nothing can touch us.
Or at least it seems that way until an alert pops up on my phone from our head of security. “Kelan, have you seen the photo that’s circulating?” Attached is the picture snapped at the restaurant. I growl, frustrated. It was always a risk to take her out in the human world. We are well known, and our pictures are featured regularly on the society pages. In an ideal world, I would have liked to keep Aura private, but Iwon’t cage her. She deserves to live her life to the fullest, and that has to involve some freedom, as long as she is safely with us.
20
AURA
The bathroom is warm, filled with cedar-scented steam. Golden wood panels line the walls, glowing softly in the lamplight. A frosted window lets in the pale shimmer of snowfall across the flagstone floor. The tub is the centerpiece, a deep sunken basin carved from polished black rock, large enough for me and at least one dragon man in mostly human form.
Iron hooks hold thick towels near the stone hearth, where a small fire crackles gently, taking the mountain chill from the air. A shelf beside the tub holds simple glass jars filled with bath salts, oils, and soaps that smell of pine and citrus. It isn’t as opulent as the penthouse, but still quietly luxurious in a way that’s more personal.
I savor a quiet moment alone as I sink into the bath.
Ever since I ran from my makeshift shelter at the sound of a twig snapping, my life has been a blur of extremes: defeat mixed with victory, weakness tangled with power, fear woven into devotion and desire. I haven’t had a singlequiet moment to process what’s happened or sort out my feelings. Even now, as I try to relax, my thoughts wander back to my dragon mates—their faces, their claws, wings, and scales, the flicker of forked tongues and heated looks. Ever since their first kisses and caresses, heat has settled between my thighs, pulsing with my heartbeat, reminding me that I’m not the same woman I was before.
I press my legs together, but it doesn’t help. Only one thing can ease this ache, or rather, three dragon men, each so skilled at making my body sing that I lose track of my senses, my mind spinning.
But I need to focus, because beneath the craving, the heat, and the rush they bring, something else is waking inside me.
My magic.
At first, I thought it was the memory of magic surging through me, sparked by leftover energy from pleasure. I was sure it came from being close to dragonfire.
But then I felt it more clearly, humming under my skin like it did when fear made me hide it. It moves through me like warmth under stone, gathering slowly and refusing to fade.
They told me they had contained my magic so it couldn’t be used. Binding it was supposed to keep me safe from myself, from others, and from what my power might become. For a while, I believed them.
But every time they take pleasure from me, every time they make me break apart and fill me with their fire, something inside me loosens. A thread of magic slips free. A pulse of power comes alive again.
It’s slow and subtle, but it’s happening.
And now, I look forward to the subtle flare under myskin when my body relaxes in their arms and our magic blends together.
Instead of fear, I’m filled with hope.
My magic is returning, like roots pushing through the earth.
Knowing this steadies me. It reminds me I’m not merely a body to be claimed or a vessel to be filled.
I'm powerful.
And even though my dragon mates wish to contain my magic, it is their bodies and their magic that call to mine.
I'm becoming whole again.
I stare at the surface of the bathwater. A faint shimmer of silver dances over my forearms, swirling with the runes still aglow from Kelan’s claiming and Ronyn’s attention. I bite my lower lip and raise one hand from the water, watching droplets trail down my wrist.
Then I take a risk.
I call my magic to my palm.
A small, pale violet light flares, fragile and swirling like mist above my skin.
My lips curve into a slow smile.
