46. Lux

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

LUX

I 'd woken up with Jay's scent clinging to my skin and my dick painfully hard. My rut still hovered, and I made a rash decision. It wasn't until I was knocking on her door that I realized what I was doing. Fortunately, she hadn't been in. A cold shower later, I'd wrestled control of my brain from my cock, but still struggled to focus on anything other than Jay.

I brought Seven Wonders to her door at lunch, only to find her still out, which was odd, as she didn't really have anywhere to be. Then again, she might be exploring or shadowing Aria. My beast didn't like it. Every hour I spent away from Jay, he ate another chunk of the peace we'd found last night, bringing me dangerously close to losing myself to my rut.

Focusing on my students during my last two classes was almost impossible. The moment they left my charge, I rushed to Jay's door. After knocking politely, my dragon surged forward and pounded it once with our metal fist. The sound echoed down the brightly lit hall. The smell of marble and dust filled my heightened senses. Only the barest whiff of Jay hinted that she'd ever been here. Either she hadn't left the room at all, or she never came back to it.

Something was wrong.

The moment I admitted it, my dragon twisted inside of me. If the beast understood the concept of ‘I told you so,' he'd be throwing it in my face. Adrenaline flooded my system with pure violence. My ears shifted without my permission, and my tail shot out of my backside, tearing the fabric of my robes. I clenched my fists, fighting against my rut. Losing my mind to pure emotion couldn't happen here.

The sound of distant kids danced in my ears.

Time stopped. For a heartbeat, I floated on the edge of mindlessness before my dragon pushed my rational mind forward.

Find her now.

My metaphorical feet hit the ground, and time restarted with my rational mind still functioning.

Jay's stale scent drifted down the hall. I followed it, retracing her steps to a spot where she'd fallen to the ground. She'd fallen. My dragon raged. Her smell mixed with others, and my brief run-in with Doctor Raba became sharp in my mind.

My dragon demanded we find him, but I clung to my human logic. The doctor was our ally and had been for years. I'd just met Jay. We couldn't jump to conclusions. I needed more information.

Aria. The little girl had been fast friends with Jay. My feet moved without my direction, and my tail whipped back and forth so hard it dented the walls. I suddenly found myself looking down at Aria, her little body shaking as she peeked through her cracked door.

"Where is Jay." I didn't recognize my rough voice.

Aria's eyes became little saucers. "I haven't seen her all day." A tear ran down her face. "Do you think I did something wrong?"

I forced myself to breathe and knelt so I would be at the little girl's eye level. Aria shook harder. Scales ran up the back of my good hand and probably across my neck and face. My headdress pulled at my chin as my horns desperately tried to grow. Not to mention my tail, twitching out of my torn robes.

"Why do you think you did something wrong?" I said as evenly as possible to keep from scaring the kid further.

Aria squeezed two more tears out of her eyes before reaching out and gripping my robes. "I told Doctor Raba our secret…do you think she knows?"

Doctor Raba.

Shit.

Last night flashed across my memory. Jay's body snuggled next to mine as a dragon from each element worked together. My aggression manifested through the moves of a board game instead of base violence. My dragon liked it. Peace. Love. The family I never had.

Now it was gone.

The evening had been everything I dreamed of, with Jay at its center.

Now she was gone.

My heart thudded in my chest as realization hit me. I'd rather lose everything I built here than lose Jay.

"Even if she does, she would forgive you." I stood. "Jay's amazing like that."

The air rushed around me. Magic crackled. Aria shutting her door didn't even register as my rut rushed forward, destroying my rational mind. My dragon was done. I'd ignored him and my instincts for too long.

Anger boiled my blood. I needed something to fight or fuck, now. I raced down the hall only to have Jay's scent fill my nose. Like a bloodhound, I followed it. A few kids scattered from my path. One of my fellow priestesses took one look at me and ran in the other direction. I wanted a challenge, not easy prey.

Jay's trail led me outside, where the wind immediately erased it. My rage doubled, and I looked for any outlet. A flash of movement caught my eye, and I focused on a dragon already in the sky. Small, so probably female, rose gold scales covered her body, and she clutched something in her right claw.

Fight or fuck—this little dragon was mine.

For the first time in a year, I shifted. Pain lit up every nerve ending in my body as my human bones broke and grew. Tatters of torn white robes fluttered to the ground while my prosthetics landed with a thump. As fast as the pain came, it vanished, leaving my white-scaled dragon body standing strong. A crown of horns briefly weighed down my head before I remembered my strength and let out a stream of electric flame.

Although it was always awkward to balance as a dragon with only one back and one front leg, I'd spent my life doing it. My long-spiked tail whipped and counterbalanced my missing limbs. I called on my control of air, sending a gust of wind into the little rose gold dragon's face to slow her, and jumped off the platform with my wings spread wide.

Joy lifted my heart, briefly clearing the haze of my rut. I was flying again. As fast as it cleared, my rut rushed back in, and raw need took its place. My gaze tunneled onto the little rose gold dragon, now struggling with my magic slowing her. She banked hard to look for a new flight path. Her front legs remained balled like she was holding something.

A bad feeling flooded my dragon gut. Nothing else existed for miles; if she'd stolen something, it would have been from my temple. I pumped my wings, closing the gap between us at the speed of a rocket. A gust of air blew past me, carrying nothing with it. Not the rose gold dragon's smell or even a stray bird.

Wrong. It was wrong. And I was going to destroy it.

I let out another lightning-infused roar and sent a mini cyclone of air and cracking power at the dragon's left side. She dodged, tucking her wings into her back. For a moment, she floated before plummeting toward the mountain range below, nose first.

I tucked my wings and dove with more control. Foot by foot, I closed the gap. The rose gold dragon's wings snapped back out as she realized she couldn't run. Her high-pitched roar split the air. I landed on her back, my claws puncturing her soft membrane. She let out a pain-filled scream before swinging her head around to snap at my legs, forcing me to release her.

I bit at her neck, but she spun like a top away from me, and my jaws snapped closed on nothing.

"STOP!" A voice I recognized said. "You'll drop me!"

I couldn't remember why, but Doctor Raba's voice enraged me further. I snarled and lunged forward, forcing the rose gold dragon to get her claws up to defend herself. Her talons sprang open. A figure dropped. Doctor Raba screamed as he flailed, falling through the air.

Like someone opened a door, smells suddenly assaulted my nose. The rose gold dragon, the Doctor, and Jay. Jay, my mate. As if thinking her name made her real, she blinked into existence, her limp body plummeting towards the ground.

The rose gold dragon vanished from my mind.

Jay was falling.

Pain ripped into my side as the rose gold dragon used my moment of shock to claw me. She gracefully rolled backward and dove toward the doctor she'd dropped, who was falling much slower than Jay.

I completely ignored her.

The wind became a constant whistle against my ears as I raced after my mate. I couldn't lose her. Nothing else mattered. No one else mattered. In two days, she'd managed to turn my life upside down and made me believe in something more.

I called on my wind magic. Not even Earth's gravity could take her from me!