Page 66 of Betrayed By Dragons

She swallows hard. Utterly serious, she tells me, "I think you need to burn."

* * *

EMBER

I can't breathe. I stand there, my palm extended toward my mate, waiting to see what he'll do.

Rafe looks incredible and terrible. He's not quite drunk, but he's not quite sober, either, and his impaired state has brought out the maudlin portion of him that he usually hides behind his wit and his charm. I've always sensed it, though, buried deep beneath his easy-going exterior.

Will he give in to it? Or will he raise yet another wall?

As the seconds tick by, my strength threatens to crumble. The last two days have bled into one another. Neither of us has really slept. We've traveled hundreds of miles. Been turned on by the Stone Kingdom and reprimanded by the Fire King. Rafe is a raw bundle of nerves, and I'm not much better.

My suspicions about King Aeden's new advisor weigh on my chest. I blink, and I can feel the dark energy of the Shadow Dragon lurking in this very castle, but I've had to keep his presence a secret. After we left the king's study, Rafe ran away from me. I couldn't tell Jianyu before discussing it with Rafe; the instant I told him, Jianyu would have been up in arms, starting his own war against the Fire King, and none of us can afford that right now.

Doubts seep into my heart. Will Rafe even believe me when I tell him?

I draw in a rough breath and let it out slowly.

Staring into Rafe's eyes, forcing myself to keep my palm outstretched toward him, I put all thoughts of Shadow Dragons aside. For the moment, my mate needs me. Whatever danger lurks here in the Fire Kingdom can wait. At least for a little while.

Refocusing on the present, I project all the solidity and belief that I have left into my connection with Rafe. Something in his face crumples, and my heart contracts, real pain stabbing through me at the thought of him rejecting this overture. Of him rejecting me.

My hand starts to fall.

But then determination fills his golden eyes. He reaches out and takes my hand in his, but instead of a conflagration--instead of all the power and fire of our bond igniting, there's wind and cool skin. Scales and claws.

His crimson dragon bursts from his body in a wild, exhilarating rush. I barely have time to gasp before I'm being lifted into an enormous hand-claw that deposits me on his back. I hold on for dear life as he swoops off the balcony. His huge wings explode forth, veering us off, away from The Crimson City. We glide over plains of red earth and scattered brush until we come to field of black rock flowing down from the old, dormant volcano of Mount Lasair. Huge cairns dot the charred landscape, which comes to an abrupt end at the shore of a vast blue lake.

Rafe's dragon alights beside the water, near one of the cairns. The pile of black stone is even bigger up close, rising twenty feet in the air. It's old, too, with hints of moss growing on the edges, interrupted by scorch marks and gouges.

I slide down off his back. With a rippling of muscle and a crack of bone, he slips back into his human skin.

I gaze around in wonder.

"This--" I bite the inside of my lip, uncertain. "This is it, isn't it?" Turning, I look to my mate. "Where the whelps Emerge?"

"Since the beginning of time," he confirms.

The energy of the place seeps into me. I can feel residual heat in the ground, like it's flowing somewhere deep beneath my feet. The echoes of newborn dragon screeches vibrate in my ears, and my own, still-hidden dragon raises her head.

My throat grates as I swallow. "And you brought me here..."

"There's nowhere safer in the kingdom to let your fire burn."

His eyes flicker with brilliant flame, but there's still a tremor to his hand as he raises it. His doubt is an energy radiating between us.

My heart clenches painfully. He was so hurt when he found out that Jianyu and I could do Earth Dragon magic together. If he and I can't summon a flame, it'll tear him apart.

My belief in our bond is absolute. But there's a part of me that fears that if we fail, it might tear us apart.

I lift my hand to mirror his, my palm open and my fingers splayed. Before I can make contact, though, he asks, "Tell me how you did it. With him."

"I...I don't know." That's the honest truth. It took us both my surprise, that first time we summoned a wall of rock from a slab of stone. "We just felt...really connected, I guess. And we needed cover."

My face heats. We were about to make love in an open field beside a sacred temple.

But the statement is still true. The next time we called on our shared power, we needed cover of a different kind; we were being shot at by the Stone Kingdom's royal guard. The fact that our magic worked felt like a miracle. Without it, I don't know how we would have escaped.

---