Chapter 18

Chapter

Eighteen

EMBER

B y all rights, I shouldn't sleep a wink that night. Dark swirls of magic hover just at the edges of my vision. My dragon is high in my chest, rattling the cages of my ribs, demanding to be let out. Her power unnerves me, both exciting and terrifying me by turns. My "destiny" to unite dragonkind and bring light to shadow feels impossibly close--and yet still utterly, ridiculously impossible.

That said, it's been a hell of a day. We infiltrated a hostile foreign kingdom, kidnapped a prince, and narrowly escaped an attack by Air and Shadow Dragon soldiers. I bonded with my final mate, then got absolutely railed by all four of them.

I'm exhausted .

So I pass out in a naked, sweaty pile of delicious men, surrounded by the safety of their scents, filled to the brim with their essence. My blood scintillates with the intensified magic of our bonds, and I lose myself to a dreamless sleep.

I wake to bright morning light and to Storm lightly snoring in my ear. I lie utterly still, taking just a moment to revel in waking up naked beside him for the first time ever, despite years of being together in secret. Blinking open my eyes, I gaze at his face, relaxed in sleep. My heart pangs--regretting all the missed opportunities from our past. Remembering the way he hurt me. But also accepting of the fact that we get another chance. That we're bonded forever now, deep in our souls.

The bonds to all four of my mates glow, pulling at the inside of my chest. Rafe and Malik are passed out next to Storm. Other than the fact that Rafe is drooling a little, they both look perfectly sexy and gorgeous and relaxed. My heart clenches with gratitude. I wondered how our little group would handle adding a new member. So far at least, it seems to be going pretty well.

On my other side, Jianyu clears his throat.

The man has always been an early riser. He's sitting up in bed, dressed in boxer briefs, which is a shame, but probably practical. As I trail my gaze up his bare chest, I flex inside, delicious soreness reminding me about how hard my men took me the night before--as if I could forget. But I push my desire out of my mind, at least for now.

Jianyu holds up my phone and gives it a little waggle. Squinting at the screen, I crane my neck to read it.

Fifty-three unread messages.

"Amy wants you to meet her for breakfast," he whispers, deadpan. "Sorry, I didn't mean to look, but the twentieth time it buzzed, I put it on Do Not Disturb." A fond smile curls his lips, and he reaches out to brush his knuckles down my cheek. "You needed your rest."

Damn right I did.

I kiss his palm in thanks and relax back into my pillow. "Tell her to give us thirty minutes."

In the end, it takes us an hour, but can anybody blame me?

Amy gives me a knowing smirk as I saunter into the cafe next to her mother's magic shop, flanked by all four of my mates. "Looks like someone had a good night."

Is there any point denying it? I just got spit-roasted by two guys--twice. I tried my best to fix my hair, but I gave up and decided to embrace my freshly-mated glow.

Rolling my eyes, I grin and brush my hands against Storm's and Malik's. As they head to the counter to order about fifteen breakfast sandwiches, I slip into the seat next to Amy's. "Don't be envious."

"Oh, believe me." She glances at Sister Grace, who's sitting at another of the half-dozen tables our gang has commandeered. "I'm not."

Brynn returns from the counter with a carefully balanced tray full of coffees, pastries and bagels. "Good morning."

She passes out orders, including an iced latte just for me, and I could kiss her. "Thanks."

"No problem." She sits down on the other side of me. "Now, come on. Spill all the details."

I pick up my latte and take a sip. Something tells me I'm going to need a lot more coffee than even this.

Amy drifts away from the conversation a bit as I fill Brynn in on everything that's happened to me since I left the Air Kingdom. I give her a vaguely sanitized version of the events, but I'm still basically permanently blushing.

"Wow," she says, her eyes wide as saucers by the time I'm done.

"Yeah. It's been...a lot."

"And it's not over," Amy chimes in, returning her attention to us.

My stomach does a rough flip-flop, and I instinctively glance down the table at my mates. My bond to them is stronger than ever, rippling with magic and life and light.

My dragon is stronger, too, her breath still hot in my chest, her wings flapping within my lungs. I can scarcely breathe, she takes up so much room.

All that time I spent, wishing I could summon her. Now, suddenly, she's ready to go, ignited by my connection with my mates. And now I'm the one jangling with nerves. Dragging my feet.

Brynn shakes her head, unwilling to move on quite yet. "I still don't understand what happened with Storm, though. I mean, A) how could you hide that from me for literal years?"

"Sorry." I cringe. "I wanted to tell you, I swear."

"No--I don't mean, like, How dare you. More, literally, How? "

A laugh escapes me. "Believe me, it wasn't easy."

"But also, B) why didn't you connect with him as your fated mate back then?"

Chewing on the inside of my lip, I fiddle with the paper straw slowly dissolving into my coffee. "I don't know, exactly."

Only that's not entirely true. My bracer tingles against my wrist, and I let go of my straw to trace a finger along the edge.

"But you suspect," Amy intuits.

"It does seem like an awful big coincidence that this thing found me." I hold up my wrist. "And then dragon princes basically started falling into my lap."

Amy taps her chin. "You're not wrong."

"Ever since I put the bracer on," I continue, "I felt something unlock inside me. When I talked to my parents' spirits, they said I would need help from my mates to access my dragon. And every time I connect with a new mate, my dragon feels closer."

An unconscious shiver travels up my spine. My dragon can hear me talking about her.

I swallow, my throat suddenly dry despite all the coffee I've been pouring down it. "I think the bracer's magic awoke the Shadow Dragon inside me. It's not the same as Emerging, but it was close enough for me to recognize my true mate."

What would have happened if I'd had the bracer from the beginning? Would Storm and I have bonded at age eighteen?

Would I have been ready for him then?

I've gone through so much in my time away. I'm stronger now. More confident. I have powers I'm still trying to understand. But everything about being with him now feels balanced in a way it didn't, back when he was a prince and I was basically dragonkind's definition of nothing.

I curl my hand around the bracer protectively. The more I learn about its magic, the more it scares me. But without it, would I still be that scared, broken, defective girl that Storm was able to throw away? The one he said was nothing?

Intellectually, I know I'm stronger than that. I've grown so much.

But in my heart, I can't help but clutch the humming metal closer. I still wish I could figure out how to remove the thing--at least for a little while. I'd like to take a shower and wash my arm, if nothing else. But secretly, I'm also kind of glad I can't. No one--not even King Erembour himself--can take its magic from me.

Lowering her voice, Amy glances down the table, as if checking that everybody else is engrossed before meeting my gaze once more. "Speaking of Emerging..."

My heart rises into my throat. I nod to encourage her to go on.

"While you were dealing with all of your mate drama, my mom and I looked over some of that stuff you stole from the Citadel." She shivers and lifts a hand to fiddle with one of her necklaces.

"Yeah?"

"First off, a bunch of it was creepy as fuck. Like, my mom had to reassure me repeatedly that she doesn't sacrifice goats or draw sigils in crushed beetle goop."

"Ew."

"Right?" She shudders again, more melodramatic this time, but no less real. "But there was also stuff that was kind of like what she did with you and Grace the other day. With the locket."

My hand goes automatically to the pendant still hanging from my neck. Two portals barely drained a fraction of its magic, leaving it crackling with the soft buzz of untapped power.

"You mean combining witch magic and dragon magic," I surmise.

"Wait--what?" Brynn scrunches up her brows, as confused as the rest of us were when Rhiannon first suggested the idea.

"Exactly," Amy says. "Apparently the Shadow Dragon Emergence rites depend on a witch and a Shadow Dragon working together to create 'dark flames'."

Eagerness and wariness twine together in my gut. "Do you think you could do it?"

"Me?" Amy's eyes widen. "No way. I mean, I can barely get my magic to work at all."

"Amy's half Shadow Dragon and half witch," I tell Brynn.

"For now," Amy mutters.

I jerk around, almost spilling what's left of my coffee in the process. "Hold on--"

"It's nothing." Amy waves a hand dismissively, but I'm not fooled.

"It doesn't sound like nothing."

"It's just a ritual I found in one of those creepy scrolls." She twists her lip distastefully. "One of the ones that does contain crushed beetle goop, unfortunately."

"You want to do a Shadow Dragon ritual?" Brynn asks, trying to keep up.

"No," I say.

"Maybe," Amy admits at the same time. She narrows her eyes at me. "And don't pretend you're all anti-Shadow-Dragon rituals. You jumped on the locket thing pretty quickly, and you seemed more than a little interested in me trying their Emergence rites."

"That's different."

"Different than me trying to reach my full potential as a witch?"

I lower my voice to a hissing whisper. "By cutting out your dragon half."

Just the idea makes my skin crawl, a nauseating revulsion twisting behind my ribs. My dragon is even more disturbed. Her great wings flap in open agitation, and the taste of cinders floods the back of my mouth.

Brynn recoils, too. "That's a thing you can do?"

"Maybe," Amy says, tucking her hair behind her ears with practiced nonchalance. "To be fair, the Shadow Dragon scrolls seemed to view it more as punishment than progress, but it all jives with what Grace was telling me about the Sisters."

The Sisters--aka, a group of disciples of the Grand Stone Temple, who've sought to remove dragon blood from their line in pursuit of witchly powers.

Brynn puts a hand to her chest. "But that's just... wrong ."

That's how I feel, too, but a warning in Amy's gaze keeps my criticism in my throat. "Amy..."

"Look, I get it. It sounds severe, and it is." She blinks, and there's a suspicious shine to her eyes. "But not all of us half-breeds who can't seem to shift end up encountering prophetic magical artifacts and finding four hot mates to boink."

"Hey--"

Amy holds up her hand to stop me from interrupting. "Not that there's anything wrong with that. But it's just not all roses and sex and mystical powers for me. I feel the magic in my blood. If I can't shift into a dragon, shouldn't I be able to pursue a different way to let it out?"

My own guilt and hypocrisy tear at my chest. "It's not all roses and happiness for me, either."

"Oh, really?" Amy crosses her arms.

I suck in a harsh breath, glancing around. I meet Malik's gaze from across the room. Jianyu's attention is subtly directed my way as well. They can feel my agitation, but I try my best to smooth out my rough edges.

"It's great," I admit. "Ninety-five percent of it is...amazing."

Amy raises her brows. "And the other five percent?"

Huffing out a breath, I throw my hands up in the air. "I mean, I did get kidnapped and blown up a couple of times."

"Who hasn't?" Amy asks, rolling her eyes.

"And I'm...like, supposed to be some big uniter of the warring dragon kingdoms. Bringing light to shadow."

"Still not hearing a sob story here."

"It's just a lot of pressure," I blurt out, "and on top of it all, I'm a--"

"Yeah?" The subtle tilt to Amy's head is a challenge, and yes, she has a point. She knows what I'm about to say.

I put it out there anyway. "I'm a freaking Shadow Dragon. The boogeyman of all the dragon stories. My dad was one, and your mom is, too, and you and Jett, and yes, clearly none of you are evil. But I met the real Shadow Dragons." A shiver passes through me, darkness hovering just at the edges of my vision. "They're terrifying . And that blood--that evil--" My voice creeps higher in pitch, panic threatening to spiral inside of me. "What if it's in me? The magic I've been able to summon--the real nature of the dragon inside me... They scare the shit out of me."

Brynn reaches out and takes me by the hand, her voice soft and full of reassurances. "Ember. Sweetie. I've known you for almost your entire life. There is nothing evil about you."

My eyes sting, and I let out an echo of a laugh. "How can you be so sure?"

"Years of experience," she promises.

Amy takes my other hand. "I've only known you for a couple of months. But I'm with her. You're good to the core."

"I want to believe that..."

"Then do." Brynn gives my palm a gentle, reassuring squeeze.

Letting go, Amy makes a dismissive sound in her throat. "And besides, how dare you imply that the freaky dudes in the Citadel are the 'real Shadow dragons'? As far as I'm concerned, they're the power-mad, world-dominating assholes giving all the other Shadow Dragons a bad name."

I scrub at my eyes, the prickling in them receding. "Well, when you put it that way..."

"There's no other way to put it." Freya's gotten up and come over to stand behind me without my noticing.

I look up and realize basically everybody in our group is staring at me, my mates included. A hot flush rises on my cheeks. For fuck's sake, I thought I was confessing some deep-seated fears to my best friends, but apparently I was declaring them to the entire cafe.

"Hear hear," Rafe says, staring at me with eyes that burn with conviction.

Malik and Jianyu nod, and Storm agrees, "What she said."

I knew I had my mates' support, but there's something about them declaring it now. About having my best friends literally holding my hands and batting away all of these secret fears that have plagued me. My stomach does a fierce dip, and a warmth that's more than dragonfire fills my chest.

"That said." Freya has her phone in hand, and she holds it up. "A patrol has encountered a group of Shadow Dragons at the border to Unity."

There goes my warm glow. I push back my chair, and so do my mates, their dragons rising, fight and magic in their eyes.

But Freya shakes her head and lifts her palm to stop them. She fixes her gaze on me. "Apparently, they're friends of yours."