Page 21 of Sereis
The frost patterns on my skin blazed bright as stars, then settled into a steady, gentle glow that matched his. I could feelthe change completing—bones denser, skin tougher while still sensitive, lungs that could process the thin air of the Frost Veil without struggle. The lethal cold of the Grotto no longer bit at me. Instead, it felt like coming home, like silk against my new skin, like the perfect temperature I'd been seeking my whole life without knowing it.
I took a deep breath of frozen air and felt it invigorate me rather than hurt. Felt strong in ways that had nothing to do with muscle and everything to do with magic. Felt claimed, transformed, reborn as something that could stand beside an ice dragon without breaking.
Above us, the aurora continued its eternal dance, and in the infinite reflections of the Fractal Walls, I saw what we'd become—not human and dragon, but something new. Something bonded. Something eternal.
"Mine," Sereis whispered, still inside me, still covering me with his transformed body.
"Yours," I agreed, and meant it with every transformed cell, every shifted molecule, every piece of my new existence. "Yours, Daddy."
The title made him growl and thrust once more, deep and claiming, and I gasped at how different it felt with my new body—more intense, more everything. I was no longer human. I was of the Frost Veil now, bound to the Ice Lord, transformed by pleasure and pain and magic into something that could survive in his world.
Something that could thrive.
Chapter 5
Iwoketototalsilence.
I took a breath, and felt like I was drowning in reverse—not the desperate need for air, but the strange realization that I no longer needed it the way I once had. The Genesis Grotto's lethal cold pressed against my naked skin like silk rather than razors, and somewhere in that impossible comfort, I understood that the screaming thing inside me that had been dying for hours had finally, mercifully, gone quiet.
The transformation was over. I knew it the way I knew my own heartbeat—except that rhythm had changed too, slower now, more deliberate, like it had all the time in the world. Which I supposed it did. The thought should have terrified me, but terror required energy I didn't have yet.
Sereis's arms still wrapped around me, our bodies pressed together on the warm crystal of the Dais. Through our skin-to-skin contact, I could feel his consciousness hovering at the edges of mine, not invasive but present, like knowing someone was in the next room even when you couldn't see them. His chest roseand fell against my back in a rhythm that didn't quite match breathing—more like tides, deliberate and measured.
I shifted slightly, and the movement triggered a cascade of sensation that nearly made me gasp. Every nerve ending had been rewired, recalibrated to specifications I didn't understand. The oil had long since absorbed into our skin, but I could still feel its ghost, the memory of that slick heat that had made the transformation bearable. More than bearable, if I was honest, which I wasn't ready to be.
When I opened my eyes properly, the Grotto exploded into detail that hadn't existed before. Or maybe it had always existed, and human eyes just couldn't perceive it. The black ice walls weren't solid at all—they were composed of millions of individual fractals, each one a perfect mathematical spiral that caught and refracted the aurora light above. I could see the patterns now, follow the equations that governed their formation, understand the language of frozen geometry that had been gibberish hours ago.
Magic moved through the air in lazy spirals, visible as faint threads of silver and blue that responded to our breathing. When Sereis exhaled, they swirled away from him in eddies. When I breathed in, they rushed toward me like iron filings to a magnet. The aurora above wasn't just light anymore—it was pure magical energy, compressed and contained, singing in frequencies I could suddenly hear.
"Don't move too quickly." His voice rumbled through his chest into my back, and I felt it in my bones differently now, each word carrying harmonics that painted colors behind my eyelids. "Your nervous system needs time to adjust to its new configuration."
I looked down at myself, at the skin that wasn't quite mine anymore. The frost patterns that had bloomed during the transformation hadn't faded—they'd settled into my flesh like tattoos made of winter starlight. Delicate traceries of silver-blue ran from my shoulder down my arms, across my breasts, spiraling around my ribs in designs that hurt to follow but were too beautiful to look away from. When I shifted, they caught the light and threw it back transformed, making me look like I'd been etched from living ice.
"How do you feel?" Sereis asked, and there was something in his voice I'd never heard before. Relief so profound it bordered on prayer.
"Different," I managed, testing my voice. It sounded the same to my ears, but I could hear the new undertones, the way it carried differently through the magical atmosphere. "Like I'm wearing someone else's skin, but it fits better than my own ever did."
He moved then, careful and controlled, helping me sit up while keeping one arm around my waist for stability. The simple motion of vertical orientation made my vision sparkle at the edges, my new body trying to figure out which way was up in a space that didn't entirely obey normal physics.
"The first stage of the transformation is complete," he confirmed, his fingers ghosting over the frost patterns on my shoulder with something approaching reverence. "You survived what would have killed any ordinary human. You are safe now, little one."
But even as the words left his mouth, I felt the weight settle into them. His expression shifted from relief to something harder to read—serious in a way that made my newly calibrated instincts prickle with alarm.
"However," he continued, and that single word carried enough gravity to make the aurora above us flicker, "the ritual took longer than anticipated. The binding required more magic than I calculated for." His jaw tightened, a muscle jumping beneath that pale skin. "We missed the celestial alignment for the Caretaker Pact."
The words hit like ice water—which shouldn't have affected me anymore, but the psychological impact remained. I pulled back enough to look at him properly, those silver-white eyes still dragon-bright but shadowed now with frustration.
"What does that mean?" But I already knew. The knowledge had come with the transformation, downloaded directly into my consciousness along with the ability to perceive magic and understand the Old Tongue. The Caretaker Pact required specific celestial conditions—when the twin moons went dark and the ley lines aligned properly. It was what would seal our bond legally in the eyes of both dragon law and the magical forces that governed this realm. Without it, I was transformed but not truly claimed. Protected but not possessed. His but not his.
"It means Caelus's claim is not yet void." The words came out sharp as breaking glass, his control slipping enough that frost spread from where he touched the Dais. "You are transformed, yes. The bond is activated, absolutely. But until we complete the Pact, until the magic recognizes you as fully mine, his prior claim as your master holds weight."
My stomach—did I even need a stomach anymore?—twisted with anxiety that had nothing to do with hunger and everything to do with the memory of electricity and careless cruelty, of being called 'little mouse' like I was barely worth naming.
"When is the next alignment?" I asked, though I suspected I already knew that answer too.
"Seven days." He stood smoothly, magnificently naked and completely unbothered by it, those frost patterns on his skin glowing brighter with his agitation. His robe materialized in his hands—not summoned but created from the moisture in the air, frozen into fabric finer than silk. He wrapped it around himself with practiced movements, the white fabric making him look like winter personified. "Seven days of existing in limbo, neitherfully human nor completely dragon-claimed. Seven days where any challenge to our bond could theoretically succeed."
Seven days.
