“Ryse!” I gasped—his name a sound of pure, unadulterated pleasure on my lips. “Oh Goddess, yes—more! More!”
His only answer was a growl, but he gave me what I wanted. He set a relentless, pounding pace—each stroke reaching deeper than the last.
The rough mat scraped against my back as his lean hips slapped against my thighs, our skin slick with sweat. The room filled with the sounds of our joining—our ragged breaths…the slapping of skin on skin…my high, broken cries and his low, guttural groans.
And through it all, the mental connection with our dragons sang inside us both. I felt L’eesha’s joyous, furious speed as M’alex chased her through a canyon, felt the wind screaming past her wings. I felt M’alex’s triumphant roar as he finally caught her. And I felt their joining—a burst of celestial fire in the sky, at the exact moment Ryse buried himself to the hilt inside me and roared,
“Mine!”
Our dragons’ climax crashed into ours as M’alex bred L’eesha for the first time—a feedback loop of pure, shattering ecstasy.
My own release tore through me—wave after wave of convulsing pleasure so intense it bordered on pain.
Ryse held my hips as my inner walls spasmed around his shaft, and I felt him swell impossibly larger inside me as he reached the peak as well.
Hot pulses of his seed flooded me—each jet synced with the powerful beats of M’alex’s wings far above.
“Yes! Yes!” I cried and arched my back, my fingernails digging into his broad shoulders and scoring his back.
Ryse seemed to love it. He ground himself into me, spurting over and over, filling me until his seed ran down my thighs.
“Mine,” he growled again, looking into my eyes. “You’re mine now, Auri, and I’m never letting you go!”
I wrapped myself around him and held him close, clinging to him, wanting to be with him forever. And far above us, I felt our dragons clinging together too.
They were bonding—I knew somehow they were becoming one in a very real and permanent way that was irreversible. They would never be parted…and neither would Ryse and I.
It seemed to go on forever, this shared, quadruple pinnacle of power and love and bonding. It was pure beauty—utterly right in every way possible.
When it finally began to ebb, I felt boneless—tears of overwhelming pleasure and love leaking from the corners of my eyes.
“Hey, sweetheart—it’s all right. You’re all right.”
Ryse pulled out of me carefully and gathered me against his heaving chest. He rubbed his cheek against mine, the scales on his high cheekbone cool against my overheated skin. Our dragons’ emotions slowly faded from a roaring inferno to a contented, humming glow in the back of our minds and I knew they were resting too.
I was panting too much to speak, but Ryse didn’t seem to mind. He pressed a sweet, impossibly tender kiss to my sweat-damp temple.
My brave, perfect girl,” he whispered, his voice raw with emotion. “My Auri.”
I nuzzled into him, too spent for words, every nerve singing with a profound, exhausted satisfaction. The trial, the banishment, the fear—it was all still there, waiting outside the door. But in this quiet, dusty room, wrapped in Ryse and the echoing afterglow of our dragons’ first Mating Flight, I had never felt more found, more claimed, or more loved.
EPILOGUE
AURORA
“And now, I would like to proceed with the sentencing,” the Head Master said, lifting his chin and staring ominously around the auditorium where all the cadets and the faculty of the Academy were once more assembled.
I couldn’t believe I was back here again, still on trial after everything that had happened. Surely the bond that I had formed with Ryse and that L’eesha had formed with M’alex should have changed something—right?
But after Ryse and I finally got dressed and left the small exercise room, we were caught almost at once by the guards who were looking for us. Well, mostly for me—I was the one the Head Master wanted to get rid of.
The Mating Flight had been intense but this time, thanks to the forethought of the Head Healer, Professor Zephyr, most of the cadets who didn’t want to participate had been spared. They had taken the calming tincture she’d handed out to anyone who asked for it at once. So the cadets and Professors who stared back at me from the audience, didn’t look nearly as bad off as everyone had been after the previous Mating Flight.
And now, here we all were again, and I was about to be banished for the second time. And this time, there was no Mating Flight to save me.
“As I was saying before we were all interrupted during Aurora Lysandra’s trial,” the Head Master continued, “the accused has been found guilty of acts of High Treason, and she will be banished from the Academy and separated from her dragon forever as punishment.”
“what? what’s that? did he say he would separate us?” I heard L’eesha demand in my head. She had been watching the proceedings through my eyes, since she was far too large by now to get into the lower halls of the Academy.
