Page 52 of Dragon Awakened

"Yeah," Jimmy says, conviction lighting his eyes. "We know."

That's good enough for me. Without any further hesitation, I extend my magic around my mates and my friend and her ripped new boyfriend.

"Unity," I whisper. The portal shivers open in a rain of violet sparks, and I shudder. Glittering black glass cascades through my veins, the Shadow Dragon magic unmistakable now.

The same fear from before makes me flinch, but before I can recoil from my own power, the first Air Dragon attacker reaches the opening in the ceiling and breathes fire into the air. His great, reptilian wings flap a gust of wind like daggers through the cloud of flames.

As the inferno hurtles toward us, a violet shadow crosses over my vision.

Instinct overwhelms me. A split second before the fireball can hit us, I fling myself, my mates, and my friends forward.

And then we're falling, deep into the inky black void.

Chapter

Fourteen

STORM

I'm going to die.

That's all I can think, as Ember yanks me down into a gaping vortex. It's like the portal the Shadow Dragon sorceress made to get us to the Fire Kingdom, only different. Plummeting, I cling to Ember's hand, and it's the only thing keeping me from screaming--from letting my beast take over and try to fly us to safety. Her conviction pours into me, and I glance at her in the sparkling darkness.

Worth it, is my second thought.

My third thought is, "Ow."

I land with a thud on short desert grass, staring up at a cloudless sky I've never seen before.

"Are we dead?" someone asks from off to my right.

I hold my hand up in the dim light of some nearby streetlamps, moving my limbs gingerly. I groan, pretty sure I'm going to have a decent bruise on the side where I landed, but otherwise I'm intact and--as far as I can tell--alive.

"I don't think so," Ember allows.

Her voice is music, lighting me up, and I force myself to sit. She's landed just a foot or so away from me.

Just looking at her takes my breath away.

Mate. The word screams itself in my brain, and I want to laugh and maybe cry.

All those years we were together--when I was madly, desperately, hopelessly in love with her... When all I could offer her were scraps of time and stolen kisses and denial...

I wondered. She just fit in a way I couldn't explain. If her dragon had ever Emerged, I thought maybe. Maybe we'd lock eyes and feel that impossible pull that they write about in stories.

It never happened for us then. Fuck knows how the hell it's happened for us now.

But it has. She was made for me, and I was made for her, and nothing else matters.

Except getting her alone.

My cock pulses with need, my skin on fire for her. The strength of our new bond steals the air out of my lungs and gives it back to me as desire. I have to hold her, kiss her, claim her--now.

She can feel it, too. The heat in her blood sings in our connection, multiplying my own by a thousand.

I let out a growl beneath my breath, and she jerks her gaze to mine. Our eyes lock, and it's like the moment of bonding all over again. I shudder, and my flesh pulses, blood and static in my ears screaming at me to take her and make her mine--for real this time. No barriers or duties or royal bullshit standing in our way.

All these months that she's been gone. All the time I spent self-flagellating and stewing in regret.

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