But for a second, my runes flare hot beneath the cloak.
She steps back and raises her hand, pointing to a huge mural on the far wall. It glows softly, as if there’s a light inside it.
Dragons of all colors swirl in flight around a central figure of a woman draped in fire and runes. Her stomach isround with pregnancy. Beneath her feet, eggs crack open, and dragonlings spill out, ringed in divine flame.
“It has been told,” Lythian says, “that when dragon blood ran thin, and our females fell barren, the goddess would send a vessel. A fertile one. A conduit. She would awaken the sleeping womb of dragonkind in a human woman.”
She looks at me with an intense stare. “You are that vessel.”
My heart pounds like thunder.
“I won’t—”
“You don’t have to decide now,” she says sweetly. “You’ll eat. Rest. Heal. Then we’ll begin the preparations for the ritual. When you’re ready, you’ll receive each of my mates, one by one. And you will give birth to the future.”
A wave of terror hits me so hard I almost pass out.
My hands shake. My throat burns. But I lift my chin anyway.
“I would rather die.”
The words come out hoarse but laced with deadly menace.
For the first time, something besides dark control flickers in her eyes: annoyance, calculation, menace.
I lay frozen as the tether binding my wrists burns cold on my skin. The cloak glows with hidden enchantment, and across my body, my runes flare in opposition as though to remind anyone who I belong to.
Kelan.
Ronyn.
Darial.
They will come.
They will find me.
And until they do, I will not break.
28
RONYN
The wind howls past my wings, as below, the world blurs into endless forest, dark lakes, and jagged mountains. We’ve flown for hours, searching for any sign of Aura’s magic, but there’s nothing. Hours spent in anger and exhaustion, scouring old hiding places, confronting those who once served us, fought us, or owed us blood debts.
We’ve found nothing.
No trail. No scent. No glimpse of reddish-brown hair, golden skin, and glowing runes or terrified, defiant eyes.
Aura is gone, and every passing hour increases our hopelessness. Losing our mate has made my dragon vicious and unstable.
I dive without warning, fire spilling from my throat as I level an old ruin perched on a cliff. Darial screams in my mind.That place is empty! Don’t waste your energy.I don’t care. I tear through the roof and torch what’s inside. Releasing my fury is the only way to keep myself sane.
Kelan lands hard beside me, shifting in a flash ofobsidian flame. “Get control of yourself,” he snarls. “You’re wasting strength.”
I shift too, relieved to be a man again, and leash my dragon’s rage. “She could be anywhere,” I growl, my voice ragged from too much roaring and not enough sleep. “We should be tearing down every city—”
“We checked all the old dragon enclaves,” Darial says, joining us in his human form, his face pale and eyes bruised with exhaustion.
