Cass pulled me close outside the door of the mansion. “I just want you to myself for one more minute,” he murmured into my ear, then nibbled it. I giggled, closing my eyes and reveling in the sensation.
My mate. I have a mate. It was a strange thought, primal, unbidden, but powerful. It resonated through my mind, through my body. This wasn’t just chemistry. I felt connected to him now, on a deeper level. Like I could bare my soul to him, the same way I bared my body to him. As he ran his fingers over my shoulderblades and kissed along my neck, I felt no fear, no resistance. I wanted to bask in this glow forever.
I felt energized. I felt alive. I felt like I could fly. I felt strangely awake for having been up all night. I chalked it up to the excitement of new experiences and caught Cass in a deep, passionate kiss.
“Seriously? The nerd?”
Aric’s voice snapped us back to grim reality. I opened my eyes and shot Aric a death glare. He snorted and turned away, hands raised. “Who am I to judge your poor taste in men?”
“Asshole,” Cass and I chorused under our collective breath.
“We should fill everyone in on what I heard,” I sighed, turning to follow Aric to the study.
Cass caught my hand and gave it a squeeze. “You’re right. Even if I do want to carry you off to my room and continue where we left off.” His grin was infectious.
“Later. Definitely later.”
Chase and Galen sat on the sofa. Galen looked anxious. Chase had a veneer of calm, but I could feel waves of concern rolling off him from the doorway. Even Aric seemed keyed up. When I walked through the door, the tension eased off a notch, but not by much.
I stepped into the room and looked around. Cass slipped past me, his hand sliding across the small of my back as he passed. I smiled at him, then looked at Chase sternly.
“When were you going to tell me? Be honest.”
Chase furrowed his brow. “I can’t answer that for sure. I would have waited longer, I’ll admit that.” His hands gripped his knees as he pulled himself to his feet. “I didn’t think you were ready. I didn’t want to jeopardize everything we’d accomplished, everything you’d accomplished with us.” He stepped up to me, stopping close enough to reach out and touch me. He started to raise a hand, then stopped himself. He growled softly under his breath. “It was the wrong call. You’re stronger than that. I can’t ask you to forgive me, but I hope you’ll let me… let us continue helping you. At least until you can talk to the Elder Council. If we’ve lost your trust, then…”
I cut him off by stepping forward and grabbing his face with my hands, pulling him down into a kiss. His breath caught for a moment, then his arms wrapped around me and lifted me off the ground. He chuckled against my lips and deepened the kiss. I heard Galen let out a sigh of relief.
“Or… that works too,” he murmured, resting his forehead against mine.
“Just don’t let it happen again,” I intoned.
“Yes ma’am.” He set me down and stepped back, holding me at arm’s length. “So you said you had something to warn us about?”
I filled them in on where I’d been and what I’d overheard, about the docks, the supplies, the need for my essence and the priest’s ‘resources’.
“What’s all this essence stuff about, anyway?” I asked Cass. “You said you ‘didn’t think they could do it to dragons’…do what exactly?”
Cass steepled his fingers and rested his chin on them. “To extract a creature’s essence is, essentially, to draw out its soul and turn it into a fine powder. Everything that made that creature what it was, condensed into something that a sorcerer can use to gain its power.”
I goggled at him. “That sounds…awful.”
“It’s a pretty horrific process, yes. Dark magic, stuff that dragons won’t even contemplate going near.” He gave a slight head-shake. “Not that we’d have the same sort of use for such a thing anyway, but the essence of a creature is powerful stuff. You can fuel some serious magic with it.”
“And you can get this from anything?” I thought back to the shifters I’d seen with the Chosen. Dogs, pumas, gators.
“Anything with a soul.” Cass frowned. “They’ve never done it to humans, so it never occurred to us that they might be able to do it to other sentient creatures.”
I gave a shudder. Now they wanted to do it to me. Great.
“And that’s how they fuel their power?”
“Yes. That, and by drawing directly on the Great Serpent.” Cass looked at me intently. “Their power lies completely in darkness.”
I remembered my conversation with Galen in the park. A lump formed in my throat. “My power’s pretty dark, too. Shadows. And I can draw on the Great Serpent as well.” I cleared my throat. “Level with me. Are shadow dragons evil?”
Cass stood up and walked over to me. He gripped my shoulders gently and gazed deep into my eyes. “I promise you, you are not evil. There is darkness in shadow dragons, but there is also light. You are the balance between the two.” He glanced at Chase. Another unspoken exchange. Chase nodded. Cass continued. “With the death of the Shadow Queen… your mother, dragonkind lost something greater than just her. They lost the ability to shift into their full dragon forms. They lost the balance within themselves.” He caressed my cheek gently. “You are light. You are hope.”
“But the Great Serpent thing…” I began.
Cass shook his head. “None of us are really sure why the shadow dragons have that connection. And the shadow dragons rarely use it.”
“If I use it, I could wake it,” I recalled.
“Right.”
“So, how do I fuel my own magic?” I asked. “How do you?”
Cass’s hands slid down my arms to my hands. He led me over to a chair and sat me down. “There are other ways. For the elemental dragons, we draw on our elements. Fire dragons draw on their own inner fire, their passion. Ethereal dragons draw on their breathing. Water dragons draw on the flow of their blood. Earth dragons draw on the world around them and their connection to it.” His fingers laced through mine. “All of us draw on emotion, on our life forces, and on things that increase them. Stress. Fear. Love. Sex.”
I blushed.
Cass leaned in. “You feel it, don’t you? I know I do. I could run a marathon right now and not blink an eye. Do you feel the power in you?”
I nodded. My heart was still racing an hour later, like I’d downed a few pots of Kitty’s morning coffee. I felt sharp and awake even though I hadn’t sleapt in over a day. I felt like I could take on the world.
“Shift.” His voice was an urgent whisper. “You can do it.”
“I…” For once, I believed I could.
He pulled me to my feet and released my hands. I closed my eyes and felt for the knot in my chest. My dragon. I felt it there, no fear or pain needed, coiled and slumbering and waiting. I probed at it with my mind, pushing at it, pulling at it. Wings fluttered. The tail curled. I pushed harder.
Cass’s hands caressed my neck and slid down over my breasts. His lips pressed against mine. Gentle thumbs stroked at my nipples. “Shift,” he breathed. I pressed into him and moaned softly, heedless of the watching eyes around us. My dragon stirred again.
I felt hands slide around my hips, fingers reaching down, brushing fingertips over my mound. Chase pressed into me from behind, his lips pressed to the side of my neck. “Shift,” he murmured into my ear. The heat of his breath melted me into a dripping pool. My dragon shifted.
My fingers arched against Cass’s back, then tore through the fabric of his shirt as my nails turned to long, sharp talons. I could feel my arms lengthening, my forearms and biceps expanding. It didn’t hurt. It wasn’t scary. It felt like it was supposed to happen, like this was how my body was meant to be. My shoulders broadened. Cass and Chase stepped back, proud smiles on their faces as I felt scales start to form over my flesh.
“Are we gonna have to fuck-start her every time?” Aric whispered to Galen.
And with that, my transformation was over. I was back to skinny, pale Sia in the blink of an eye.
“Shit. Fuck. My bad.” Aric raised his hands as all three of his cohorts snarled viciously at him.
I slumped into a chair. I’d been so close.
“Asshole,” I growled.