If I could get one hand free—
Behind her, I catch the sound of footsteps and deeper voices echoing from a nearby room.
She notices me looking and smiles, but there’s something dangerous behind it.
“My mates,” she says. “They are preparing a meal for you. Restoring their strength.”
“Your mates?” I repeat.
She turns toward the doorway. “Brax. Tael. Loriek. They are strong dragons. Powerful. Virile. They deserve offspring that I cannot produce, but you will. You will make them fathers and secure their line for centuries to come.”
My stomach drops so violently, I almost gag.
The three come in, barefoot and bare-chested, wearing dark silks. Each one looks like the perfect dragon. Brax is tall, with dark skin and sharp cheekbones, his silver piercings shining in the candlelight. Tael is all muscle and has bronze eyes, watching me like a predator. Loriek, the tallest, has pale hair and a smile that makes it seem like he already knows my secrets.
They bow, but it’s layered with false respect.
“Is she ready?” Brax asks, his black eyes glinting with anticipation that makes my skin crawl.
My entire body recoils.
I drag backward across the bed until the tether snaps tight and jerks me forward again.
A sound escapes me, half snarl, half plea.
“Not yet.” The female dragon’s eyes narrow, as though his eagerness has angered her.
I cannot understand how a woman could want her mates to be with another. The idea of Kelan, Ronyn, and Darial taking another female makes me want to tear them limb from limb.
“My name is Lythian,” she says. She crosses the room and lifts my chin with one claw-tipped finger.
I try to jerk away, but she’s too fast.
Her grip tightens.
My pulse slams in my ears.
“I was the last fertile dragon female… until the goddess stripped me of my magic and marked you.”
I jerk my face away. “Don’t touch me—”
“Those three half-wild males should never have tasted your power,” she says sharply. “Kelan, Ronyn, and Darial… they bound your magic. They claimed what wasn’t theirs to claim.”
“They are my mates. They protected me.”
Lythian smiles again, coldly. “Did they? Or did they trap you and use you to test their ideas?”
My chest tightens. “You don’t know anything about them.”
She shrugs. “Perhaps not. Maybe they didn’t know what you are. The prophecy passed from mother to daughter. Maybe they didn’t know that filling you with dragon seed would be their chance to claim the mother of another generation of dragons.”
Anger cuts through my fear.
I surge forward against the tether with everything I have.
The silk burns into my skin.
The cuff holds.
