Chapter 8 #3
But with the changes came exhaustion so complete it felt like drowning in velvet. Every atom of my being had been asked to transform, to dance, to become something unprecedented. My knees buckled without warning, and I would have collapsed if Sereis hadn't caught me.
His arms around me felt like safety itself.
I could feel his own transformation through our joined skin—smaller changes than mine but significant.
New frost patterns had appeared on his chest, exactly matching mine in design if not placement.
A silver ring now circled his pale irises, marking him as bonded, taken, claimed as surely as I was.
"The Pact," I managed to whisper, looking at the table.
The dragon vellum was gone. Not burned—simply erased from existence, its purpose served.
The mixed blood that had signed our names was gone too, absorbed into reality itself.
But our palms, when we finally separated them, bore marks that would never fade.
Mine was a silver snowflake so intricate it hurt to examine closely.
His was the same design but inverted, negative space where I had positive, shadow where I had light.
"It's done," he said, and I heard wonder in his voice. Sereis, who had lived millennia, who had seen empires rise and fall, sounded wonderstruck by what we'd accomplished. "You're mine now, completely. And I—"
"Yours," I finished, because the bond was bidirectional. He belonged to me as surely as I to him, bound by magic that predated human civilization.
My legs gave out entirely then, the exhaustion too complete to fight.
But he was there, had always been there it seemed, scooping me up with the kind of careful strength that made me feel precious rather than weak.
My head fell against his shoulder, and I breathed in his scent—winter pine and aurora light and something indefinably him.
"I know what you need, Little One," he said with a soft growl that vibrated through his chest into mine. The title carried different weight now—not just an endearment but a role, a promise, a recognition of what we'd become to each other.
I could only nod against his shoulder, too exhausted for words, trusting him to know what came next. The transformation had settled into my bones like deep winter cold, final and complete and absolutely irreversible. I was his. He was mine.
T he Nursery embraced us with warmth that shouldn't have been possible in a palace made of ice, but possibility had become negotiable since my transformation.
Sereis carried me through the entrance that had widened to accommodate us both, the walls literally breathing aside to allow their master passage.
My exhausted mind catalogued the differences through a haze—the ice here was softer somehow, clouded with trapped air that made it look like frozen silk.
The temperature was perfect against my oversensitized skin, neither the sharp cold of winter nor the oppressive warmth of thermal vents.
He settled me among the cloud-silk cushions with the kind of care reserved for spun glass or first snow.
My limbs felt disconnected from my will, too heavy to move properly, so I just let him arrange me.
The cushions cradled me like water made solid, adjusting to support every exhausted muscle.
A whimper escaped when he pulled away, and my hand made a clumsy grab for his sleeve.
"Shh, little one. I'm not leaving," he murmured, tucking something soft against my side.
My fingers found it without conscious thought—the stuffed dragon I'd claimed before, the one that looked like him.
Black scales with oil-slick iridescence, weighted perfectly for holding.
I pulled it against my chest with both arms, burying my face in its soft belly.
Words had abandoned me entirely. The exhaustion went beyond physical—the transformation had taken everything I had, leaving me floating in a space where language felt impossibly complex.
But Sereis understood. He always understood, reading my grabby hands and tiny sounds like a language all their own.
A cup appeared in my vision—carved from what looked like crystallized moonlight, sized for smaller hands than mine usually felt like.
The warm milk inside smelled of honey and vanilla and something else, something that made my mouth water with need I couldn't articulate.
He helped me sit up enough to drink, his hand supporting the cup when mine shook too badly to hold it steady.
"Slowly," he instructed when I tried to gulp. "Small sips."
The milk tasted like comfort itself, warming me from the inside in ways that had nothing to do with temperature. Each sip seemed to restore something the transformation had taken, not energy exactly but substance, as if I'd been worn transparent and was now being filled back in.
"Pajamas next," he said, and I realized I was still wearing the formal dress, now wrinkled and twisted from being carried. My hands made vague plucking motions at the fabric, but the fine motor control required for buttons and clasps was beyond me.
He undressed me with clinical efficiency, no trace of sexuality in his touch despite our bond.
This was caretaking, pure and simple. The pajamas he'd manifested were impossibly soft—some kind of fabric that felt like wearing clouds, pale blue with tiny silver stars that actually twinkled with their own light.
The top had no buttons, just pulled over my head, and the pants had an elastic waist that required no complex fastening.
Once dressed, I reached for the toys with hands that felt clumsy as mittens.
He understood this too, bringing them to me one at a time.
The dolls were more than toys—they were aurora light given form and purpose, their faces painted with such detail that each had its own personality.
The girl doll with dark hair did look like me, down to the frost patterns painted on her tiny arms. The white-haired male figure in shimmering robes was obviously Sereis, though the doll somehow looked less forbidding than its inspiration.
The dragon dolls made my breath catch. Five of them, each one a perfect miniature of the Dragon Lords I'd seen in their true forms. Red for Davoren with his magma scales, silver for Caelus's wind-form, brown for Garruk's mountain body, black for Morgrith's shadows, pale blue for Zephyron's storms. They were weighted to stand properly, their wings positioned to suggest flight even while still.
Without really planning it, my hands began arranging them.
The dragons formed a circle at first, facing outward like they were protecting something.
Then I added another figure—a wooden doll I designated as the villain, though it had no features to mark it as anyone specific.
The bad man, my exhausted mind labeled it.
The one who wanted to break everything apart.
I had the villain doll attack, sweeping it through the dragon formation.
They scattered, unable to coordinate. The red dragon flew one way, the silver another.
They bumped into each other when they tried to regroup, their wings tangling.
The villain knocked them down one by one while they struggled to work together.
My brow furrowed as I tried again. This time the dragons started separated, coming together only when the villain appeared.
But they still couldn't coordinate properly—the shadow dragon's darkness interfered with the storm dragon's lightning, the earth dragon's walls blocked the fire dragon's attacks.
The villain doll slipped between them, always escaping, always surviving to cause more chaos.
A frustrated sound escaped my throat, something between a whine and a growl. My hands moved faster, more desperately, trying different formations. But every time, the same result—the dragons' pride, their independence, their inability to truly trust each other let the villain escape.
When the wooden figure knocked over the girl doll for the third time, tears started sliding down my cheeks without permission.
The exhaustion made everything feel bigger, more immediate.
This wasn't just dolls anymore—this was real, this was Solmar out there somewhere planning more harm while the Dragon Lords struggled to maintain their fragile alliance.
"What's wrong, little one?" Sereis had been so quiet I'd almost forgotten he was there, but now he was right beside me, his presence solid and reassuring.
I tried to explain but the words came out jumbled, small.
Something about the bad man being too smart, the dragons being too proud.
What if they couldn't work together when it mattered?
What if people got hurt because centuries of isolation had made the Dragon Lords forget how to be allies?
What if Solmar had more plans, more tricks, more ways to turn them against each other?
He moved from chair to floor in one fluid motion that spoke of immortal grace, settling beside me among the scattered toys with his legs crossed beneath him.
Before I could react, his hands found my waist, lifting me like I weighed nothing—which, to him, I probably didn't—and deposited me in his lap.
His arms came around me, creating a fortress of flesh and bone and winter-scent that made the tears flow harder.
"Look," he said gently, his voice rumbling through his chest into my spine. With subtle magic that made the air shimmer, he took control of the dragon dolls. They moved more fluidly now, no longer limited by my clumsy fingers. "Watch what happens when they truly work together."
The red dragon—Davoren—moved first, breathing painted fire that corralled the villain doll into a specific area.
Not trying to destroy, just to control, to limit options.
The shadow dragon slipped around behind, blocking the escape route the villain would naturally seek.
When the wooden figure tried to dart sideways, the earth dragon was there, walls of imagined stone rising to create a maze with only one exit.
"See?" Sereis's breath stirred my hair as he spoke. "Davoren's fire doesn't have to incinerate. It can guide, can force choices. Morgrith's shadows don't interfere with Zephyron's storms when they're working toward the same goal—they create cover for the lightning to strike unseen."
The storm dragon proved his point, lightning crackling from the pale blue doll in a pattern that would have been visible from miles away—except the shadows swallowed the light, made the attack invisible until it hit.
The silver wind dragon circled above, creating downdrafts that made flight impossible, ensuring the villain remained grounded where the others could reach him.
"And when they combine their strengths .
. ." He had all five dragons move as one, their different powers layering rather than conflicting.
Fire and storm created superheated air that the wind dragon spun into a prison.
Earth and shadow made walls that couldn't be climbed or shadow-stepped through.
The villain doll had nowhere to go, no trick that could overcome five unified forces.
The wooden figure toppled over and stayed down.
"Solmar is clever, yes," Sereis continued, his arms tightening around me slightly. "But he's never faced Dragon Lords truly united. His plans, his manipulations, his stolen magic—they all required us to be enemies. Now that we're allies, every strategy he's developed is useless."
The truth of it soaked through my exhaustion like that warm milk, settling something anxious in my chest. I relaxed back against him, my weight sinking into his solid presence.
My hands had found the gaps between his shirt buttons without conscious thought, fingers seeking skin-to-skin contact that my transformed nervous system craved like air.
His chest under my palm was cool but not cold, smooth except for the new frost patterns that matched mine.
I could feel his heartbeat—slower than human normal, steady as winter's patience.
The contact sent little sparks through my exhaustion, not quite arousal but something adjacent, something that suggested my body was beginning to remember it had needs beyond sleep.
"Better?" he asked, his hand coming up to stroke my hair. His fingers found the aurora threads, following them from root to tip with gentle precision.
I nodded against his chest, turning slightly to press my face into his neck.
His scent was stronger there—winter pine and male and mine.
The last thought surprised me with its possessiveness, but it was true.
The Pact had made us each other's in ways human marriage could never achieve.
He was mine to touch, to claim, to need.
My position in his lap had started innocent—or as innocent as anything between us could be after what we'd shared.
But as littlespace gradually receded, pulled back by his comfort and the demonstration that my fears were manageable, I became aware of our bodies in different ways.
Of how my thighs spread across his lap. Of his hands on my waist, thumbs stroking through the cloud-soft pajamas.
Of the way each breath pressed my chest against his.
Without really deciding to, I shifted position. Instead of sitting sideways across his lap like a child seeking comfort, I turned to straddle him properly. My knees settled on either side of his hips, and the change in position pressed us together in ways that made us both inhale sharply.
"Mira," he said, and my name on his lips was half warning, half plea.
"I'm here," I replied, though it meant more than location. I was here, present, no longer floating in exhausted littlespace. I was here with him, aware of him, wanting him despite the bone-deep tiredness.
My hands moved from his chest to his shoulders, fingers tracing the frost patterns that disappeared beneath his collar.
His hands tightened on my waist, not pushing me away but not pulling me closer either.
Waiting, always waiting for me to choose, even now when the bond sang between us with need that had been building since our interrupted scene days ago.
"You're exhausted," he pointed out, but his voice had gone rough in ways that suggested his control was fighting a losing battle with desire.
"I am," I agreed, then deliberately rolled my hips against him, feeling evidence that he was far from unaffected. "But I'm also yours. And we both know what comes next."