Rider of the Midnight Dragon (Mated by Flame #4)

1. Aurora

AURORA

I never dreamed of flying until my brother died.

I nursed him through the fever that took him.

It refused to take me, though I was with him night and day by the end.

I had hoped we might go together into the long night—we had entered the world together as twins, after all and should leave it in the same way—but I never even felt the slightest bit unwell.

Our father had ended himself the year before and so when Auren was gone, I had no one.

Death is cruel sometimes, to take the ones we love and leave us to our loneliness.

After Auren passed the dreams began. I lived through the days in a haze of grief but all night, every night, I was soaring and diving, flying through the air on the back of a dragon—a dragon with golden scales who could exist only in my dreams.

I say that because there have been no pure gold dragons in centuries but also because there are no female dragon riders. Those of the female sex simply aren’t compatible with dragons, so it made no sense that the flying dreams would come to me.

But they came anyway—those dreams that only males with the right bloodlines can have. Those who possess the blood of the ancient Dragon Riders who freed our lands from the Madlings long ago.

Auren had just begun having the dreams before the fever started—he spoke to me of them and I remember fearing that I would lose him when the Academy came calling.

And then I lost him anyway—only to the fever instead.

In the dreams, I knew just what to do—how to guide the vast beast under me, which ducked and rolled and soared through the sky on wings so wide I couldn’t see their tips as they stretched out on either side, skimming the clouds.

But how could that be? The dreams made no sense. I’m a woman—incompatible with dragonkind—why would they come to me?

I had no answers, but the dreams didn’t stop. I didn’t begin to understand the implications until a knock came on the front door a month later…