Chapter 28 - Lily

“I’m not sure if you can hear me, but I’ve been able to hear you for a while,” I strain my mind, hoping to get the message through to Draco, keeping my eyes locked to his amber depths. Mesmerized by that stare, I have to will myself to remain composed and not get lost in the trance of his gaze.

“I’m immortal now,” I reveal, catching the exact moment his eyes fly open with wonder and his lips lift into a feeble smile.

“You are?!” he gasps in awe as he instinctively reaches a hand toward my belly. I step closer, allowing him to cradle the slight mound that had been there all along because of my fuller figure.

“I am,” I concede with a sly smile, unable to pull my gaze away from the way his eyes glow luminously, his gleeful smile touching the corners of his eyes. I can’t resist lifting a hand and cradling his cheek, the stubble grazing my fingers but feeling alluringly familiar.

It feels like coming home.

“H-how?” Draco breathes in disbelief.

“I don’t know,” I giggle, whispering low enough so that only Draco can hear me. “I just woke up feeling fine, considering the accident. And all my injuries are healed already.”

Draco’s lips part on a gasp as he slowly shakes his head and turns toward the front. Three men are seated on the stage, but Draco addresses the one in the middle.

“Father…” he begins, much to my surprise.

The man with dark hair and a well-kept beard appears to be only in his early thirties. But he’s Draco’s father. It makes me wonder if I’ll look like I’m twenty-three forever.

“It worked,” he announces. “She is immortal.”

The shock in his voice almost sounds as if he’s not entirely convinced. But when he turns toward the crowd I’d even forgotten existed, he coerces me to turn with an arm around my shoulder.

All of my attention had been harvested solely on Draco, and I hadn’t realized how many sat in the hall. The benches are full of dragon men and women, all young with everlasting beauty glowing on their skin.

When Draco slips his hand into mine, I feel a surge of extraordinary power rush through me. As if I’d just been plugged into a voltage point, it flows through me like a current. When I glance down at our interlaced hands, I notice a ball of lilac light swirling around our hands.

That light seems to have a life of its own as it pulses and shoots electric awareness up my arm. Breathing slowly, I lift my eyes to meet Draco’s when he smiles at me.

Though he doesn’t say a word to me to explain what’s happening, I feel it long before he announces it to the hall full of dragon shifters. I feel it in my very core, an innate sense of being created solely for this reason, as if I was born for it.

As if I had been waiting my whole life for this very moment.

“Lily Turner is my mate,” he announces to the crowd, squeezing gently on my hand. “She is a human, made immortal through the seed of the dragonspirit.” He glances over his shoulder and smiles at the three men seated on the stage. “The Council was right in choosing her as my mate. You see, she is my fa—”

“Draco!” I yelp when I’m suddenly lifted off my feet, rising toward the ceiling of the hall. Further and further up, my vision blurs with the speed at which I’m flying. I can barely make out who my captor is, only feeling scales under my fingers where I’m fighting to peel off the vice grip around my waist.

Crash! We crash through the ceiling, spearing out into the sunlight with a flap of large, dragon wings. Only when we’re hovering above the hall, do I trace the arms that have me bound to a dragon I do not recognize with red scales and horns of silver.

“Skarlett!” Draco roars mentally as his dragon sets into motion, gliding through the hole in the roof.

The dragon that had whisked me off my feet and out of the building roars thunderously before soaring higher up. She flaps her wings only once, sending us toward the clouds. I look down to see Draco giving chase, his dragon brows furrowed with determination.

“Skarlett! I command you to stop!” Draco bellows furiously. His telepathic voice is so menacing, that even I get a chilling shiver down my spine.

But the dragon, Skarlett, doesn’t heed her Alpha’s command.

She finally stops, circling the mountain peak with screeches reverberating from her chest. She stares down at me with reptilian eyes of hot, red anger. She has me in her clutches, forced to face her. I glance over my shoulder to see Draco keeping a cautious distance, floating a few meters below us.

When Skarlett turns her attention to him, she breathes out a puff of temperamental smoke from flared nostrils.

“I cannot accept defeat, Alpha Draco!” she cries out with sadness in her voice.

Though I’ve never met her, a pang of sympathy grips my chest. I relegate it to carrying the Alpha’s child. That’s the only reason I would feel remorse while my life is seemingly in danger.

And why I don’t feel an ounce of fear as she threatens my life.

Keeping my eyes trained on her, I see the tears surfacing in her dragon eyes. I hear the sounds of wings flapping as other dragons join us in the air, but I’m suddenly compelled to feel sorry for her.

“I’ve loved you too long to let this human be your mate.”

“There is nothing you can do, Skarlett,” Draco admits. “She is my fated mate.”

Draco’s revelation holds a magnitude of profound meaning that just makes so much sense to me. Though I know little about the world of dragon shifters, all the puzzle pieces suddenly fit together.

It’s why I’d dreamt about him long before I met him. Or why I’d been drawn to him from the very beginning.

Fated…

It was destiny that crossed our paths, regardless of how twisted it may have seemed in the beginning. And even if I’d only just heard the term ‘fated mates,’ I know what it implies.

That’s why I’ve been able to hear his voice in my mind. It’s why I can hear hers.

“I don’t believe you!” Skarlett roars, still circling the mountain. I feel the presence of the other dragons looming below us as she breathes out fire through the gritted, sharp teeth of the dragon.

“Skarlett…” I gently coerce through the telepathic mind link. “It’s me, the human. Can you hear me?”

Skarlett abruptly stops her circling, turning her pointed muzzle down at me. Her eyes widened with shock, and the curved scales above her eyes knitted.

“You?”

“Yes, me,” I nod. “I don’t know what history you share with your Alpha, but I know he wouldn’t have hurt you intentionally.”

Behind me, Draco wheezes in agreement.

“He’s hurt me nonetheless!” she crows. “It is I that should have been Lady Dragon!”

“It’s impossible now, Skarlett!” Draco wails. “She is fated to be my mate!” He tells her again.

“Then she will die!” Skarlett roars as she turns her face to me, lips peeling over her teeth as she snarls. The heat of the fumes of her breath alone prickles my skin. And I know what she’s about to do.

She’s going to set me on fire.

“Skarlett!” I command mentally, a surge of impulsive strength rushing through me. The kind of strength I’d felt when Draco held my hand in the hall is evident now, even without his physical touch. And when the red dragon turns horror-stricken eyes on me, I know that my command works.

The dragonspirit growing inside me gives me that feeling of invincible might, like I am a force to be reckoned with even as a human.

I’d never felt so powerful before. And now that I have a taste of it, I know what I am capable of.

“You will listen to me now,” I order the red dragon. Her eyes begin to swirl with white streaks as she stops circling the mountain. Simply levitating in the air, she becomes entranced by my voice. Not because she wasn’t expecting a human to be able to speak to her telepathically, but because my voice becomes hypnotic.

“Let. Me. Go,” I command fiercely but gently enough to maintain the hold I have on her. She nods with a whimper before the tendrils of her claws loosen around my waist.

“Draco…” I call out to him mentally just as Skarlett releases me from her clutches. I close my eyes, surrendering to the fall and trusting whatever fate has in the cards for me. After all, it was fate that led me to him.

And it’s fate that leads me back to him.

Just as I’d anticipated, Draco swiftly catches me in the warmth of his familiar arms. I smile before opening my eyes, the floral sweetness of his essence surrounding me.

Above us, Skarlett shrieks when she snaps out of the daze and realizes she’d let me go. Draco’s siblings rush upward to block her path to Draco and me.

“Don’t let her get away,” he tells the others. He immediately sets off toward the castle behind the mountain. Leaving Skarlett behind while anger grows inside him.

I feel it through the pores between his layered scales. That red-hot anger, boiling inside like the fire he breathes on command. It’s feverish as he glides toward the castle, dominating his very being as he sets my feet down on the balcony of his room.

“Draco!” I call out once I’ve gathered my footing. He’s about to turn to fly out back to Skarlett, only pausing when I call out to him.

He whimpers, pointed ears flapping down as he drops his head over the balcony rails. He huffs, throwing a whiff of smoke into the surrounding air like fog. When it clears, I take a bold step forward and reach out to cup his cheek. His eyelids close momentarily as he relishes the comfort and ease of my touch.

“Don’t do it,” I beseech passionately, stroking his cheek.

He opens his eyes bashfully, surprised at my request. It’s only because I’ve made out his intentions, and I don’t want him to go through with it.

“Her only crime was loving you, Draco.”

He whimpers in response, turning his face away from my touch. “She planned on killing you, Lily. I cannot allow her to get away.”

I can’t respond to him mentally, not without sending the same message to the others. I’m not sure how to keep the telepathic communication private. I haven’t figured out that part yet, so I use my voice instead. “Please, Draco,” I plead, getting onto my tiptoes to reach high enough to touch his cheek again. “Don’t kill her.”

He turns back slowly, nestling into my touch as he whinnies and closes his eyes. He huffs a ragged breath before his voice rings out in my mind, “Do not kill Skarlett. Capture her. She will be sent into exile.”

Draco transforms into human form without warning, landing on the balcony while he embraces me simultaneously. Sighing with relief, I close my eyes and melt into his arms.

“I don’t know what you are, but you just tamed a beast,” he marvels before pressing a kiss at the top of my head.

“I’m just a measly human,” I contend with a playful giggle.

“Oh, you’re more than that, Lily Turner.” He pulls away only to place a tender hand on my belly. “You’re an immortal now, and you’re my fated mate,” he smiles as he hooks a finger under my chin and draws me in for a passionate kiss.