Page 28 of Dragons' Future

With a guttural cry, Cyril pushed this weight outward, every fiber in his body trembling with the effort. The rocks, the entire collapsing ceiling, twisted into a vertical plane that hurled itself toward the priests.

There was a single moment when Juan, his mouth still open and spewing its venom, realized what was happening. His eyes—all the priests’ eyes—widened with terror so potent that Cyril could smell it even in the midst of his assault.

Terror and piss. And then, blood and debris as the hailstorm of jagged missiles hit its mark.

The priests’ shouts, the ones they’d had time to make, died beneath the rumbling thuds of impact. Dust filled the air, a thick fog that stung Cyril's eyes and coated his throat. Then there was utter silence, broken only by the tiny musical trickle of gravel bouncing off the entombment.

“Good gods,” Ettienne whispered. And was that awe in his father’s eyes? Pride even? Or just disappointment that Cyril had failed to channel all this power in the previous centuries?

Cyril said nothing. He just stood there, his chest heaving until Kit pulled him gently along toward the right corridor. To the door that Cyril knew held the dragons’ future.

“It’s locked,” said Ettienne.

“It isn’t.” Brushing past the king, Kit pushed open the door. “Not for me.” Reaching back, she interlaced her fingers through Cyril’s numb ones. The pair of them walked together into the circular chamber, ready to face whatever hold it had on Cyril’s mate.

CHAPTER 17

Kit

The circular chamber is just as I remember it. Fresh earthy scent, flower beds and walls painted with a soft iridescent sheen. It’s warm and well lit, the rays of sun spilling into it from the skylight in the high ceiling.

“Rutting stars.” Cyril has his sword out, but his taut muscles are shaking. The way Ettienne is looking at him, with a mix of respect and too open concern, makes me worried. “A greenhouse in the middle of a cold stone stronghold?”

“Not a greenhouse,” Ettienne surveys the room quickly, then bars the door from the inside. “A nursery.”

He is right, I realize. Looking at the dark crate with the five eggs inside, I finally recognize this place for what it is—a perverted nursery designed to keep its charges in stasis. Trapped forever in that crate. Alive and feeling, but not living. Not growing.

I step forward toward the dark wooden crate with the dragon eggs. The lullaby in my head recedes in favor of the lub dub, lub dub heartbeats echoing from inside. If the connection to the eggs felt strong when I was here last in my human form, now it's magnified to a primal potency. Each synchronized beat of their little hearts feels like a gentle tap against my soul, drawing me closer. The air around the crate thrums.

“Do you feel it?” I ask the males. The dragon inside me screams with the need to protect and nurture the eggs’ fragile little lives. Which, granted, is a little weird.

“If by it you mean a looming disaster, then yes.” Ettienne stalks around the room, using his sword to move the flower vines aside and check behind them. “The magic in this room is unnatural.”

“I do,” Cyril’s voice is soft but the emotions flowing through our mating bond are anything but quiet. “I can feel them now. They are afraid. They need us.” He extends his hand toward the crate.

“Be careful,” I warn. “You have to avoid?—”

Too late. Cyril has already touched one of the runes. He pulls back sharply, cradling his arm.

“- the symbols,” I finish with a sympathetic wince. “I think some of the marks are a binding spell. Like the one that once held me in human form.” I placed my hand on the polished wood, carefully avoiding the runes. “See, I told you I’d come back.” I tell the eggs.

They seem to grab onto the connection between us with desperate little claws.

"Yes, congratulations on promises kept,” Ettienne says. “Unless you wish to now die together, less cooing and more action please. Do your new charges happen to know a way out?”

“It doesn’t work that way,” I tell him.

“Pity.”

I raise my face toward the skylight above. "Is this room large enough for you to shift and fly us out?"

Ettienne gives me a dirty look but surveys the chamber with an experienced eye. “No, not for me. A smaller dragon might be able to.”

Smaller dragon meaning me. Except I can’t shift. Or do much of anything.

"I can do it," says Cyril, his strong voice hiding the fatigue that I can see in the strain of his shoulders. The dust and grit of the passageways clings to his sweat slickened skin in large swaths, making him look like a spotted predator—especially when he moves.

“You can’t,” says Ettienne.

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