Chapter 44 #2
She didn't remember choosing it. Didn't remember her bones shrinking, her scales retreating, her wings folding back into flesh that couldn't possibly contain them. The transformation must have happened while she slept—her exhausted body defaulting to the form it had worn for so many years.
But her dragon was still there.
She could feel it inside her now, coiled beneath her skin, waiting.
Patient.
A goddess curled inside a mortal shell.
Sol blinked, allowing her vision to adjust to dim golden light. She was no longer in the empty cavern, and she was definitely naked.
Where am I?
She took in the space and realized that she was lying on silk—cool and soft against her bare skin. The ceiling above her glittered with veins of gold running through black volcanic stone. Candles magically floated in the air around the room.
And even though it was a bedroom clearly carved within a mountain, treasure was still there. Gold coins spilling from chests. Ropes of pearls draped over ancient crowns. Gemstones the size of her fist scattered like carelessly tossed rocks.
Good. It is not empty.
The sight made something in her chest purr with satisfaction, even as her human mind tried to make sense of where she was.
Next, Sol's breath caught as she became aware of the bodies pressed against her. The warmth radiating from her left—a sun-soaked heat that seeped into her bones. The cooler presence on her right—not cold, but temperate, like shade on a summer day.
She turned her head slowly.
Korin.
He lay facing her, one muscular arm draped possessively across her waist, his golden eyes closed in sleep. Even at rest, he was devastating—all sharp cheekbones and full lips, his dark hair spilling across the pillow like ink.
His bare chiseled chest rose and fell with slow, even breaths, and Sol's gaze traced the planes of muscle, the golden skin that glittered faintly along his shoulders and down his arms, not fully hidden even in human form.
He’s my. . .mate.
Sol swallowed hard and turned her head the other way.
Pyrran.
To her shock, he was awake.
She tensed.
Those terrifying silver eyes watched her with an intensity that made her skin prickle—but there was no cruelty in them now.
No cold amusement.
Instead, she saw something that looked almost like. . . wonder.
“You’re awake, my queen." His voice was low and rough, as if he too had only recently surfaced from sleep. "How do you feel?"
Sol opened her mouth to answer—and realized she didn't know.
Her body ached in unfamiliar places. Her muscles felt wrung out and exhausted in ways she couldn't name. But beneath the fatigue, there was something else. A hum of power still thrumming through her veins. A heat pooling low in her belly that had nothing to do with temperature.
The dream rushed back to her.
The colors.
The flight.
The spiraling together in pleasure through clouds. . .
She swallowed and sat up. "I don't know how I feel."
Pyrran's lips curved—not quite a smile, but close. "You flew magnificently. For a first shift."
"I crashed into a mountain."
"Magnificently," he repeated, and this time there was definite amusement in his voice.
Sol didn't know what to do with this version of him. The Pyrran who had dropped her from the sky had been easy to hate.
This one—soft-voiced in the candlelight, watching her like she was something precious rather than something to be destroyed—felt far more dangerous. Like he was seconds from eating her up.
"You tried to kill me." Her words came out more quietly than she intended.
“I did.” Something flickered across his face. "I am sorry."
"I don’t accept your apology."
Pyrran blinked. "I was a fool. I will spend decades making it up.”
She frowned. “I thought I was going to die.”
“You are a dragon, my queen. It would take a lot more than a fall to kill you.”
Sol swallowed.
And then his eyes widened with excitement. "You're real, and you're ours."
The words landed like stones dropped into still water. Sol felt them ripple through her—through her human heart that wanted to reject them, and through her dragon heart that rose up purring in response.
Ours. Mates. Claim them.
Korin stirred beside her.
His arm tightened around her waist, pulling her closer against his chest. His eyes fluttered open—molten gold, still hazy with sleep—and when they found her face, they softened with something that made her chest ache.
"Little queen, you're awake." His voice was a warm rasp against her ear. He sat up and his lips brushed her temple—barely a kiss, more a nuzzle—and Sol felt her resolve crumbling like sugar in rain.
She was naked between two dragon kings who had hunted her across the sky.
She should be terrified.
She should be fighting.
She should be anything other than this—this melting, this wanting, this desperate ache building between her thighs as their heat pressed against her from both sides.
"How long was I asleep?" she asked, because she needed words, needed something to anchor her to reality before she drowned in sensation.
"Several hours," Korin answered. His hand traced idle patterns on her hip, leaving trails of warmth in its wake. "You shifted back on your own about an hour after we found you. We brought you here to rest."
"You stayed with me?"
"We will always stay with you," Pyrran said from her other side. His fingers found a strand of her hair, twisting it slowly around his knuckle. "You are ours now, little queen. Where else would we be?"
The possessiveness in his voice should have infuriated her.
It didn't.
It made the heat between her thighs pulse harder.
What is wrong with me?
But she knew the answer now. She had felt it in the sky when her dragon body had betrayed her—the wanting, the needing, the instinct older than thought that recognized these two males as hers.
She was a dragon, and dragons took what they wanted.
Sol lay back down and closed her eyes. Korin followed because soon she felt their heat pressing against her from both sides. She also felt the hum of power still thrumming beneath her skin and the last of her resistance crumbling into ash.
She whispered, "I don't understand any of this."
Korin leaned closer and brushed her jaw with his lips. "You don't have to understand it."
Pyrran's breath ghosted across her shoulder. "You just have to feel it."
Sol's eyes remained closed, but she finally allowed herself to feel everything. Korin's warmth radiating against her left side, his hand still tracing lazy patterns on her hip. Pyrran's cool presence on her right, his fingers still twisting slowly through her hair.
The silk beneath her bare skin.
The treasure glittering in the candlelight.
The impossible reality of being held between two dragon kings who looked at her like she was the most precious thing in their hoard.
And beneath it all—the dream. It pulsed through her memory like a second heartbeat. The feeling of them entering her at once.
The exquisite stretch.
The way their synchronized thrusts had driven her to heights she hadn't known existed.
Fire and frost meeting inside her, claiming her, completing her.
Her thighs pressed together involuntarily.
Stop thinking about it.
But she couldn't stop. Every time Korin's thumb brushed her hip bone, she remembered his claws gripping her haunches. Every time Pyrran's breath ghosted across her shoulder, she felt the phantom pressure of his cool thickness breaching her from behind.
"Little queen." Korin's voice was a warm rumble against her temple. "Your heart is racing."
Sol's eyes flew open.
Both of them were watching her now—Korin with tender amusement, Pyrran with something sharper.
Hungrier.
As if he could smell the arousal she was desperately trying to hide.
He probably can, she realized with horror. Dragons can smell everything.
"I'm fine." She cleared her throat. "Just. . .overwhelmed."
"Of course you are." Korin's hand stilled on her hip, and she didn't know if she was relieved or disappointed. "You've been through more in one day than most experience in a lifetime. Discovered your true nature. Transformed. Flew." A smile tugged at his lips. "Crashed into a mountain."
“Magnificently,” Pyrran added.
Against all logic, she grinned.
"You need time, queen." Pyrran’s silver eyes held hers, and she saw something shift in them—hunger giving way to something that looked almost like patience. "Time to understand what you are. What you're capable of."
"We will teach you," Korin said. "Everything. How to shift at will. How to fly without crashing. How to breathe ice that can freeze oceans and shatter mountains."
"How to hunt. How to eat," Pyrran murmured. "How to hoard. How to rule."
Sol's breath caught. "Rule?"
"You are our queen." Korin said it like it was the simplest truth in the world. "The dragon kingdom has been without one for centuries. Our people will need to meet you. To know you. To bow before you as they bow before us."
Queen.
The word should have terrified her.
A week ago, she'd been a Lowly with ice in her veins and a desperate hope of survival. Now she was lying naked between two ancient kings, being told she would rule a kingdom she hadn't known existed.
But the terror wouldn't come.
Instead, her dragon heart swelled with something that felt dangerously like rightness.
"There is much to learn," Pyrran said. "And we have centuries to teach you."
"Centuries?" Sol's voice cracked.
"Dragons are pretty much immortal, little queen. Not many things can kill us." Korin's smile was soft. "Did you think you would age and wither like the humans who raised you? You are eternal now. As we are. As you were always meant to be."
Immortal. Eternal. Centuries with them.
And somewhere far away, in a small cottage at the edge of a ruined kingdom, two humans who had found an egg in the forest would grow old and die without ever knowing what their daughter had become.
Sol's chest ached.
Mama. Papa.
Would she ever see them again?