Chapter 16
Standing at the edge of a cliff atop Black Mountain, I stared at the vast sea as it disappeared into the horizon. The absolute beauty of endless water in the midday sun stole a couple beats of my heart.
I never imagined I’d see anything like it, not after I was taken captive by the Sky Demons.
I never thought I’d become something changed, something new and better, or that I’d be looking forward to a future when I’d thought for so long I’d never have one.
But here with salt in the air and the gentle crash of waves against the sheer drop of this mountainside, hope was in every beat of my heart.
I yearned for the promise of tomorrow.
Power tickled across my flesh. I’d discovered the sensation shortly after Onyx bit me.
It was foreign but somehow familiar, like it’d always been meant for me.
I couldn’t explain it, but after Onyx and I had sex the first time—which was only the start of a long night because we couldn’t keep our hands off each other—I knew deep down that I was always meant to be his.
He’d saved me in so many ways, and for the first time since I became a Rebel, I listened to my heart instead of my head.
It felt right to choose a future with him.
I didn’t want to fight it anymore. I wanted to embrace the feeling the demon gave me and trust the promises he made.
It might be a dream, but if so, I never wanted to wake up.
My fingers absently traced the fully healed bite mark on my neck.
Onyx’s vow, his promise—his mate claim, as he called it.
The healed bite glowed silver whenever I caught its reflection, and it was on full display in the outfit he’d chosen for me.
Onyx wanted them to see the bond we’d forged the night before, and I was plenty happy to make sure they did.
I might not know what it all meant, but one thing was clear: I didn’t see a future without Onyx. If surrendering myself to him was the price I paid for the freedom of my people and an opportunity to claim vengeance against the leaders we trusted, I wouldn’t regret it.
My shoulders were left bare aside from a black pendant hanging from a chain, the heavy metal stopping above my cleavage. It was carved into the same insignia as the dagger he’d first given me.
Onyx had worn this necklace every day since I first laid eyes on him, but he’d made me wear it shortly before we left, saying it was extra insurance.
With the smile it gave him to see me wearing it, I couldn’t find it in me to argue.
If I were honest, I’d wear whatever he asked, not because I thought it was my duty, but because I wanted to be marked by him in every way I could.
The corset top he spent far too long picking out of the insufficient collection of clothes Blade packed was a tight fit on my chest, but it didn’t hinder movement like I feared it would.
I did, however, wonder why Blade packed clothes for me at all, when originally only Onyx was meant to go.
Had he known his brother would take me? I might’ve underestimated his cleverness, or Iris had a hand in it.
The latter seemed more likely.
Even the dagger I’d left in Onyx’s room was packed. The sight of it gave me a great surge of affection and relief—the leader’s first kindness despite knowing I might be an assassin. It proved he was my ally from the start.
What I learned was that his insignia was a warning to anyone who crossed me. Protection in his absence, though I never knew it. Which explained why so many dragons were visibly staggered by the sight of me holding it, and it was just another reason to trust him.
Onyx explained that the dagger was made of a special metal dragons were vulnerable to, and if done right, I could penetrate the spots where their scales were the thinnest to disable the shift and paralyze them. Perhaps even cause them to bleed out.
I’d attached the dagger to my hip, happy to be in a pair of pants rather than a transparent skirt. Onyx insisted on it. From the way he spoke, he expected a fight today and didn’t want me left vulnerable.
My dragon had been on edge since the two calls he took that morning on the device Iris called a mobile—communication from before the Fall, I was told.
One call was from his brother, Blade, whose voice I’d easily hear over one of Onyx’s storms. But Onyx stole away before I could overhear what the call was about. The other came an hour later, from someone I didn’t recognize by name, but the voice sounded familiar for some reason.
All I did know was that Onyx clearly respected him. It was in his tone when he greeted the mysterious Rook. The call was short and in a language I didn’t understand. After, he was quickly back on the phone with Blade, his name the only recognizable word in the exchange.
Still, I trusted there was a reason he’d left me in the dark. Because the second we bonded, I no longer doubted Onyx’s intentions. His determination to right the wrongs sang through my head and body. Without truly understanding how, I knew he’d keep his promise and honor every word.
Demon magic was a truly wonderous thing.
Funny to think that only a few weeks ago I’d sworn to kill him and his kind, to disturb their peace and stoke war. I never imagined my captor would one day become my salvation. My future. Now I’d be fighting by his side, and not because I was duty-bound.
Because I wanted to.
The sex might be otherworldly, but my sudden faith in him went beyond that.
I’d never been so confident in something.
It felt right to choose Onyx. His mark meant something.
Even if trusting him was a mistake, it was one I’d never regret.
I would’ve died for less had he not chosen to spare me, and I believed every word the leader said.
After he marked me, I wasn’t afraid of tomorrow.
Onyx spent all morning showing me how to disable a dragon shifter in their human and partial forms. He said it’d take time for me to get control of the abilities our bond granted me, but we’d be connected through a mind link.
Like with his brothers, he could speak directly inside my head in his human form and I into his.
I sensed his influence in my mind. No matter what happened today, he’d be there at my side.
The air changed. Electricity moved across my skin when the other dragons arrived. They hadn’t come in dragon form; they appeared in partial transformation with their wings carrying them on the wind. The ground shuddered with each impact. Seven in total.
The strange-looking dragons were covered in armor, their features visibly different from Onyx and the Sky Demons.
I hadn’t expected it, but while it’d make getting to their vulnerable spots tougher, it wasn’t impossible.
Onyx assured me that the areas he taught were universally effective against any dragon shifter as he called them.
As they landed one after the other, instead of hyper-focused on the presence of another dragon leader and his guards I hadn’t seen at the weird dragon leader meeting, I was transfixed to the human they brought with them.
The leader, who I noticed immediately because he wore a crown of gems and gold, held her close to his chest. But it wasn’t out of care or devotion; it was out of possessive demand and expectation he kept her close.
Nothing like the way Onyx held me. She was his property, nothing more. His toy. His possession.
His slave.
The attractive male’s pale eyes, short platinum-blonde hair, and powerful physique covered in light blue scales barely registered when the human’s eyes lifted and stayed with mine. The sight of her was a memory come to life. My present and past collided in a single, solitary moment.
The gorgeous green that had haunted my dreams for seventeen years was right there in front of me. I was physically staggered by it, frozen to the floor, rigid and in shock. Her eyes stole the air in my lungs, and I forgot how to breathe.
The other woman’s gaze went wide, stricken by the sight of me. Recognition dawned in the slow-sweeping glance she offered my lithe frame, as if she, too, couldn’t believe what she was seeing. As if I’d haunted her dreams for just as long as she had mine. And maybe I had.
The light blue dress she wore danced in the wind as the pale-haired leader put her down, and not at all gently.
She nearly toppled over, but the dragon next to the leader swept in to save her.
His eyes met hers briefly, a look that resonated in my chest, before she straightened and lifted her chin.
The fierce wind hit her with force, but she stood without faltering again.
She was older now—thirty-three by my count—and still as beautiful as I remembered her being. Still a terrifying beauty no mortal could compare to.
Her strawberry-blonde hair was braided and falling around pale shoulders.
I had several inches on her now. I remembered her being so much taller than I was, but now she barely reached my shoulder.
She was still uncomfortably thin, but her body was much curvier than before.
Nothing like it’d looked at sixteen. One fact remained—she was alive. She wasn’t dead. She was here.
Emotion crawled into my throat. I couldn’t find the words, couldn’t assign a feeling to what it was like standing in front of her after all these years. Joy? Fear? Heartbreak? Rage? Injustice? Hope?
Tears threatened to fall, but I kept them in check. Her being here was another confirmation of what Onyx had told me about Jona and the others. What Iris insinuated about Desert Roseland. Worse, her being with them meant…
Her eyes were on me. Disbelief, heartache, and concern flitted across her expression. She was scared. The strength of her rising fear reached her gentle gaze. Her lips pursed as her eyes did another sweep of my body, taking me in the same way I was her.
A tear broke away from her eye and trailed down her cheek, but she didn’t speak. She didn’t need to. The look she gave me said enough. It was one that spoke of years of guilt and regret.
She saw another slave. A woman sentenced to the same fate as her. Something told me she never considered one day I might be in the same position as her. Maybe she was fed lies, too, from the leaders pretending to be Rebels.
I read the confusion and betrayal on her face as she stood next to the strange-looking dragon leader, smaller than she’d ever been at sixteen and street trash.
My eyes dropped to the huge metal choker around her neck, then down her body where bruises in different stages of healing covered her perfectly pale skin—proof that she’d sacrificed everything seventeen years ago, and if I had to guess, to avoid me suffering a similar fate.
Oh, Luna…
Onyx’s eyes cut down to me, hearing the name through our mind link. His lips thinned before returning to the dragons flanking the pale-haired one.
Your sister? his deep baritone asked inside my head.
I peered up at him, and our eyes met for a heated second. Yes. Which means…
Desert Roseland is working with another dragon faction, and someone in the Sky Demons has betrayed their oath, he finished, confirming my line of thought.