11. Ella

I meanderedthrough the lush gardens surrounding Keldor”s lair, my fingers trailing over the velvety, alien flora with a sense of childlike wonder. The vibrant blooms and foliage swayed in a gentle breeze. It was all so breathtakingly beautiful, yet utterly removed from anything remotely resembling the plant life on Earth.

Pausing beside a towering fuchsia plant, I traced the delicate, gemlike petals with an exploratory caress. The iridescent blooms fairly danced beneath my fingertips, as if responding to my touch. A sweetly exotic fragrance wafted through the air with each caress, raising delicious frissons of pure sensation along my scales. Even thinking those words still took me a moment to wrap my head around.

So many changes! Yet nestled in the back of my thoughts lingered a faint, persistent twinge of...not regret, per se, but a yearning for something my transformation had seemingly overlooked.

”You seem pensive this morning, my Ella.”

Keldor”s deep, resonant timbre sliced through my thoughts. I turned to find my mate observing me with those piercing amber eyes that seemed to stare straight into me. His wings were furled against his back, the glossy obsidian membranes shimmering like a breathtaking tapestry of pure, primal majesty.

Wings...

The faint yearning blossomed into a full-fledged ache of pure feminine petulance. How was it fair that Keldor got to remain adorned with those magnificent appendages in all their razor-edged glory, while I had been relegated to a pair of decidedly mundane arms and legs?

Keldor must have sensed the shift in my demeanor, for his brow furrowed slightly as that intense amber gaze searched mine with a hint of concern. ”What troubles you, my mate? You seem...unsettled.”

I worried my lower lip, hesitating as I tried to determine how best to voice my admittedly frivolous wishes. This was hardly the gravest issue facing us in our newfound reality, yet it niggled at me in a way I couldn”t quite shake. If anyone could understand my yearnings, it was Keldor - my mate, my eternal dragon prince.

”I...” I began, faltering slightly before pressing onward with a resolute exhalation. ”Keldor, please don”t take this the wrong way, but...I had rather hoped that the changes to my body might include a certain...enhancement, if you will.”

He arched one smooth brow ridge in silent prompting, that banked smolder in his gaze now dancing with hints of undisguised amusement. As if he could somehow sense the frivolous nature of my lament, yet found it endearing all the same. Damn him and his insufferable masculine confidence - of course, he would be thoroughly entertained by my moment of sheer feminine pique.

Squaring my shoulders, I lifted my chin in a show of faux indignance and blurted, ”Wings, Keldor! I was rather hoping this whole metamorphosis would include a pair of wings like yours! You know, so I could actually fly instead of being a perpetual...passenger, I suppose.”

The words came tumbling out in a rush, my cheeks flushing with a hint of residual embarrassment even as the ache of yearning lanced through me anew. Because honestly, what could be more sublime than soaring high in the sky?

For a suspended heartbeat, Keldor stared at me, his expression unreadable. Then, the corners of those full lips curved into a roguish grin of pure masculine amusement. Before I could so much as draw another breath, my mate threw back his head and released a peal of rich, resonant laughter that reverberated through the very life force thrumming within the alien garden.

”Oh, my daring Ella,” he rumbled once his mirth had subsided into husky tremors. ”Only you could bemoan the lack of a seemingly trivial appendage with such impish outrage. You are captivating in your uniqueness, my mate - a true delight.”

I couldn”t quite smother the impish grin tugging at my own lips as Keldor closed the distance between us in one sinuous sweep. His large, calloused palms came up to cradle my face, those wicked talons raising delicious frissons along my sensitized scales.

”Do not be so hasty to dismiss the notion, sweetling,” he murmured, his smoldering gaze holding me immobile in its blazing grip. ”Your metamorphosis is still so new, so raw and unfurling. There may yet be...enhancements still blossoming deep inside you.”

He leaned in until his lips hovered a mere hairsbreadth from mine, his next words fanning across my skin in a scorching caress of pure, unshakable promise.

”But for now, my mate, would you perhaps indulge me by allowing this draconic form of mine to properly introduce itself? I believe my...other half, shall we say...is most eager to bask in your radiant presence at long last.”

I blinked, momentarily stunned by both his words and the undercurrent of wicked promise laced into that rich timbre. When the implication dawned, my brows shot upward in a comical display of surprise.

”You...you have another form?” I asked, unable to disguise the undercurrent of awe tingeing my words. ”Like, aside from this magnificent body I”ve become rather intimately acquainted with?”

That roguish grin stretched into a full-blown smirk of pure masculine satisfaction. ”Indeed, I do, sweetling. A form befitting my draconic heritage - one I have been quite eager for you to properly...appreciate, shall we say?”

With those heated words lingering like a brand against my sensitized skin, Keldor stepped back and spread his magnificent wings in one slow, sinuous sweep. An ethereal luminescence began to blaze along the leading edges of those iridescent appendages, raising shimmers of incandescent light that danced across the garden in rapturous waves. I could only gape, transfixed, as that Keldor changed before my eyes. When the maelstrom at last subsided, I very nearly forgot how to draw breath.

Towering before me in all his breathtaking, awe-inspiring glory was the most magnificent creature I had ever seen. Keldor”s new form was immense, his serpentine body lined with sleek, sinewy muscle and adorned with a mosaic of glossy obsidian scales that glowed. Each one shimmered and danced, refracting the ambient light into a kaleidoscope of iridescent, ever-shifting hues that dazzled the senses.

Massive wings unfurled from his sinewy back, the razor-edged appendages easily spanning four times my height in both directions. The iridescent membranes shimmered with an otherworldly luster, each gossamer-thin ridge and whorl glistening as if lit by an inner radiance. They looked ethereal, more befitting a creature spun from cosmic stardust than anything bound by mortal flesh and bone. Even the scar which graced Keldor”s wing was evident in this version of my mate.

It was Keldor”s eyes that held me immobile in their blazing grip - those smoldering amber depths now adorned with a slit-pupiled gaze of preternatural intensity. As our gazes locked and held, I was awestruck. Ancient, unknowable, and spellbinding in their splendor, those eyes looked deep into my soul.

”Magnificent,” I breathed in an awed exhalation, my mind struggling to process the vision before me. This was Keldor in his truest, most primal form - a dragon warrior whose radiant majesty defied all comprehension.

A low, rumbling chuckle that seemed to reverberate through the very earth itself emanated from the dragon”s impressive maw. The deep timbre raised delicious frissons along every inch of my skin.

Slowly, almost reverently, I drifted closer until I could reach out and trace the elegant whorls adorning his chiseled features. The glossy obsidian scales fairly thrummed with primal power beneath my exploratory caress, their sleek surfaces warm and supple like burnished velvet.

”You are breathtaking, my Keldor,” I murmured, transfixed. ”Like something out of a storybook.”

That rumbling chuckle intensified into a resonant peal of genuine amusement that vibrated the very air around us.

Keldor”s rich, resonant laughter faded into a rumbling purr of clear satisfaction as his massive draconic form began to coil itself around me in an elegant, sinuous spiral. I gasped, reaching out to steady myself against the sinewy contours of his frame as his sheer, staggering immensity engulfed me in a breathtaking canopy of sleek, undulating scales and primal majesty. The moment my hands made contact with those glossy obsidian ridges, the dragon exhaled a tremulous sigh of pure, rapturous relief.

”Oh...” The breathless exhalation escaped me in an awed rasp.

Keldor rumbled in clear satisfaction, the tip of his powerful tail curling around my waist in an intimate embrace as he angled that impressive head down toward me. Those smoldering amber depths held me immobile in their blazing grip, ancient and spellbinding.

Then, with a sinuous undulation of his serpentine body, the dragon lowered himself until he was crouched mere inches from where I stood. An unmistakable invitation, one that raised a breathless surge of pure yearning and childlike wonder within me.

I drifted closer until I could reach out and caress the elegant ridges lining the leading edge of one wing. The ethereal appendage fairly thrummed with primal power beneath my exploratory touch, each iridescent membrane blazing with an otherworldly incandescence that made my eyes ache with sublime wonderment.

When I glanced back at Keldor, I found his slit-pupiled gaze trained on me with an intensity that should have scorched me from the inside out. Yet all I felt was a profound sense of belonging and certainty flood through my being.

With a breathless inhalation, I gathered my courage and clambered up onto Keldor”s back, straddling the powerful ridge between his wings. I leaned forward and wound my arms around the sinewy contours of his neck, reveling in the scorching heat that seemed to radiate from his very core in pulsing waves.

Keldor turned his head slightly, angling that piercing amber gaze back toward me in silent query. As if ensuring I was properly anchored before we embarked on our journey.

I offered him a tremulous smile, my entire being suffused with a bone-deep thrill of pure, unrestrained exhilaration and rapturous wonderment. ”I”m ready, my dragon,” I whispered in a breathy rasp laced with naked yearning. ”Fly with me.”

Keldor”s only response was a low, rumbling purr of clear satisfaction that resonated straight into my core. Then, with a flex of those sinewy haunches, he launched us skyward in an explosive burst of preternatural strength and majesty.

I gasped aloud as the ground fell away beneath us in a dizzying rush, the wind whipping through my hair as we climbed higher and higher into the heavens themselves. Instinctively, I tightened my grip around Keldor”s neck, clinging to him with the desperation of a lifeline as the ground shrank into insignificance.

When at last the dragon leveled off his trajectory, we soared in a graceful, undulating glide high above the landscape. I could only gape in breathless awe, struggling to fully absorb the vistas sprawling out to the endless horizon in every direction.

A tremulous laugh of pure, unbridled euphoria escaped my lips as the full magnitude of the moment crashed over me in a breathtaking rush.

From such dizzying heights, it was easy to forget the harsh, unforgiving origins of Reazus Prime far below. Up here, adrift among the clouds and endless azure, the planet itself was a breathtaking vista of rugged, unspoiled beauty sprawling to the curved horizon in every direction. Utterly sublime in its primal, untamed splendor.