Page 83 of Betrayed By Dragons

My love for Rafe and for Jianyu.

My love for the light and the gods and this world.

This vast, magical world.

I remember High Priestess Fang grazing the edges of my bracer with her fingertips. Some legends even say that it could tear through the fabric of space. That it could open portals to places halfway across the globe.

My eyes snap open.

And it's pure desperation filling my lungs now, but there's clarity to it. A sharp edge of need.

"Someplace safe," I whisper beneath my breath. "Somewhere they could never find us."

I reach out for my mates, and they're too far away. I can't touch them; I can't access the shared magic we've been able to summon with our hands entwined.

But I feel them all the same. My magic folds them in as if they were a part of me.

Purple light streams from the very center of my being, and then it's dissolving, going golden at the edges. Pushing the shadows away.

There's a tear in the fabric of space itself.

And then I'm tumbling, hurtling, falling. With my magic, I grab onto my mates with everything I'm worth, and something's ripping open in my heart. The portal I've created is a vortex, pulling me down.

"Ember--"

The voice that shouts my name isn't that of my mates. I whip my gaze around, even as I'm being tugged into nothingness.

Shadow Dragons keep streaming from the portal Atina created, but behind them are people in human form.

And leading them all is the man I've struggled so hard to forget.

"Storm," I breathe.

Flashes of memory slam into my mind with force. Storm's hot hands on my body, his mouth on mine. The soft look in his eyes when we were alone together, laughing and talking.

He's too far away for me to see into his eyes now, but he's radiating anger and guilt. He stretches out his hand toward me, and a stupid, masochistic part of me wants to reach for him, too.

More memories assault me. His bitter voice echoes in my ears. He said that I was nothing--he allowed his family to humiliate me and banish me. The searing burst of pain in my heart steals my breath.

But beneath the pain and the bittersweet echo of love, there's something else. Something light.

Before I can figure out what it is, Storm's shoved aside and out of my line of sight. His brother Fury charges past him, shouting a war cry as he lifts his arm, summoning a hot gust of powerful air magic.

I recoil, and that's all the sucking vortex behind me needs. My mates and I fall backward through nothing, spinning out into an emptiness too vast to comprehend. Their dragons melt away in the swirl of magic, leaving them in their human forms. My mouth opens on a scream as we plummet and plummet for what seems like forever. An absolute darkness encases us, making it impossible to see where we are or where the ground might be.

Then we land with a thud. For a moment, everything is silent.

Quietly, utterly deadpan, Rafe says, "Ow."

I glance over, and he's holding his side, but whatever injury his dragon suffered, it's been mostly healed by his transformation. Jianyu is on my other side, his arm held tightly to his chest, the skin raw, but he seems otherwise intact.

A hysterical peal of laughter escapes me as I'm swamped with relief.

I did it. Somehow. I saved my mates and made a motherfucking portal through time and space. I have no idea how, but I did.

I melt down into the ground, whatever power infused me dissipating slowly away. The shock of seeing Storm--not to mention the rush of adrenaline from watching my mates almost get slaughtered by a horde of Shadow Dragons, and summoning incredibly advanced teleportation magic--has left me shaky and weak.

I close my eyes for a moment. I can still feel the tingles of magic in my fingertips. My bracer radiates a gentle, simmering warmth, and my mates' presence--battered but safe--hums in my bones.

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