Page 1 of Betrayed By Dragons

Chapter One

EMBER

“Again." High Priestess Fang's voice rings loudly in the secret basement chamber where we're practicing.

I wipe sweat off my brow. It doesn't matter that the stone walls radiate coolness--and powerful Stone Dragon magic. The effort of trying to summon and channel my own magical abilities has left me trembling and damp.

Meanwhile, the Shadow Queen's Bracer is still basically just a sparkly bangle, for all the actual magic it's been able to produce.

Exhaling hard, I take the stance High Priestess Fang taught me. Left foot back and right foot forward. A strong grounding from the earth. Back straight, chin high, arms lifted. As I struggle to focus, my wrist prickles.

"Good," High Priestess Fang murmurs. "Now envision the enemy. Feel the threat they pose. Imagine the sense of safety you felt the first time you used the protection spell."

My brow crinkles. The enemy is invisible. Faceless and nameless. The threat they pose unknown.

I try all the same, flashing back to the peace summit between the Fire and Stone Kingdoms. It's hard to believe that it was only a week and a half ago that I, my friends and my mates imagined we could negotiate a peace between the two great nations of dragons.

Only to have our hopes and dreams literally explode in our faces.

Mere moments after my mates--Prince Jianyu of the Stone Kingdom and Prince Rafe of the Fire Kingdom--resolved to put petty disputes aside and dig deep for a solution, an unidentified saboteur planted a bomb in the conference room. Dozens of dragons from both sides were injured.

My best friend Amy and I probably would have been killed. We're weirdos in the dragon world--shifters who can't seem to manage to actually shift, despite both coming of age years prior. No matter how many times we've each stood before the revealing flames of the Emergence ceremony, we've remained stubbornly human. Fragile.

Except that by some miracle, flying backward with the force of the blast, I felt warmth bloom on my wrist. The Shadow Queen's Bracer, a mysterious and legendary artifact of the vanquished Shadow Dragon Kingdom, had chosen me mere days earlier. It had snapped itself to my arm and shown me a vision of darkness and light.

And in my moment of deepest peril, it pulsed with raw power. A violet bubble of energy erupted from the smooth black metal, surrounding me, and at my bidding, it encompassed Amy, too. Its magic saved us.

I just wish I had any freaking clue how.

As if she can sense the way I'm wavering, High Priestess Fang reminds me, "Think of those you want to protect."

Well, that's easy, at least.

Amy, with her pink hair and spell books and her kind, generous heart. After my father disappeared and my mother abandoned me... After Prince Storm of the Air Kingdom ruthlessly fucked me for years and then fucked me over and kicked me out... After I landed in the unclaimed territory of Unity, homeless and lost... She took me in. No questions asked.

My mates. Not that they need protecting. I've only known them for a week and a half, but they are the missing pieces of my soul.

Rowdy Rafe, whose bluster hides a vulnerable center.

Reserved Jianyu, whose stone exterior rarely reveals the fiery rage beneath.

Except to me.

I would die for them. I'd kill for them.

Power flares around me, and with all my will, I summon it forward. I try to imagine the protective bubble that surrounded me and Amy when we were literally about to die. I can feel it in my fingertips. An aura of darkness and purple light forms in the very center of me. It flickers, real but fragile, and I try to expand it outward. For an instant, it begins to bloom--

Only to collapse.

I stagger backward, spent. It's all I can do to stumble into a stone seat set into the wall before my knees give out. I hold up a hand, begging for a moment.

Disappointment threatens to swamp me. Even as I'm trying to catch my breath from the exertion, I'm bracing myself, too. Across the room, High Priestess Fang is silent, but I can hear the gears turning. Her reproach weighs on my chest.

My exhalation comes out watery and harsh.

High Priestess Fang was the first person to recognize the Shadow Queen's Bracer for what it was; hell, she was the first one beside Amy's mother, Rhiannon, to recognize it as anything more than a cool piece of jewelry. She agreed to train me to harness its powers, and for the past week she's been doing precisely that. Every morning--under the guise of bringing me up to speed on Stone Kingdom traditions, preparing me for my role as Crown Prince Jianyu's mate--she's been trying to teach me.

So far, I have nothing to show for her tutelage save a few sad purple sparks.

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