“Thank you,” I say. “For taking care of her when I couldn’t. For loving her. It’s clear that she’s happy and home.”
“You won’t try to take her?” she asks quietly, needing to confirm despite my assurances.
“No,” I swear. “I won’t.”
“And your dragons?”
Kelan’s voice is firm. “We wouldn’t wound our mate by violating her will.”
Ronyn’s gaze burns fiercely. “Your daughter is safe where she is, and we will always be on hand to ensure her safety.”
Scarlet looks at Nixon. He studies me for a long moment, then nods once.
“She stays here,” Nixon says. “But you can visit. As a goddess-mother, or whatever you called it. Children need love, and the more love the better. You will always be welcome here to contribute to Ahya’s life.”
Relief floods me so quickly, my knees nearly buckle. Ronyn’s hand tightens at my back, supporting me before I fall.
“Thank you,” I breathe.
Ahya waves at me from Scarlet’s arms.
I wave back, smiling through tears.
As Kelan and Ronyn stand beside me and get ready to shift back into their dragon forms, I realize something inside me has changed. The ache is still there—I’m sure I’ll always feel it when I leave her—but the guilt is gone.
I’m leaving her safe in a life I couldn’t give her, with people who will help her become the best wolf-bear shifter she can be. I’m expanding her world, knowing I’ll still be part of it and our bond will remain strong.
When I take to the sky with my dragon mates, I look back once at the small cabin nestled in the trees.
Scarlet stands in the doorway, Nixon behind her, Ahya in her arms, waving at the dragons overhead.
Two families now; one wolf, one dragon.
And somewhere between them, a little girl with magic in her veins, watched over and loved by all.
38
KELAN
The eggs begin to tremble in the moments before dawn. Darial is the first to sense it. He is curled around them in the nesting room we built beside our bedroom. A thick mattress is topped by so many furs that his half-shifted dragon body is almost hidden. His golden scales shimmer faintly, and his wings tremble as he allows controlled heat to flow from his body.
They’re moving, he murmurs through our mental connection.
I’m there in seconds, followed by Ronyn and Aura, who scrubs the sleep from her eyes with her fist, glancing round, uncertain of why she’s been dragged from her bed.
The black egg cracks first.
A thin line fractures one scalloped ridge, glowing faintly from within. The shell isn't brittle like a bird’s. It is layered and scaled, black as cooled lava. It pulses as something inside shifts. I kneel beside it, barely breathing.
The gold egg shudders next. Then the scarlet.
The air thickens with that familiar, sacred hum we felt the first time Aura’s magic unfurled in full.
Aura gasps as she realizes what’s about to happen. At the size the eggs have reached, we suspected our offspring were close to emerging.
The crack widens.
A small hand punches through the black shell, then the shell splits in two with a wet, crystalline sound, collapsing outward. In its place lies a tiny, furious, utterly human-looking dark-haired infant.
