Now that I’ve shifted, I can finally, finally be with Eliane. I know I need to tell her about Jewels, but not yet. For now, she’s already overwhelmed with the idea that I have a human form. How overwhelmed would she be if she knew she had a dragon form?I watch her as we eat. She’s deep in thought, trying to assimilate all the information I’ve given her. She must feel the mate bond. She must. If we’re mates, she would feel it, even if it’s only in a human way, and I know she's drawn to me. She's told me she loves me multiple times.As I begin to speak to her, I realize that once again, we have the language barrier. There’s a way for us to get past that, a way that she could always understand me and I would know exactly what she was thinking all the time.If I submitted to her, I’d become her dragon. She already calls me her dragon, so I know she wants me. She’d be my rider and no one could ever tear us apart, not the Mean Ones and not Ancalagon.The thought of the dragon who calls hims
I had intended to go see my father, but Everett thought it was important to call a meeting about Eliane right away.“So you think she’s the one?” Ishir asks Everett.“I do. I think Oliver planned to make her powerful but under his control, and then make her Cal’s mate so that she could control him. We’ve guessed at this before, but the more I hear the more I feel confident that this is what was going on. The problem is, he didn’t get to finish what he started,” Everett says, making me growl.“You mean he didn’t get to finish torturing her?” I snap.“No, Cal. Of course, that’s not what I mean. But based on what you’ve told me, she’s…unfinished. She’s two beings in one body that don’t know the other exists. She’s a split personality but with two truly different forms.”“And you don’t know if you can fix that?” my mother asks softly, her hand coming to rest on my arm. For her sake, I try to calm myself, although it’s not easy.“I won’t know unless we can bring her in.”“Well, Iniko won’t
When I wake the next morning, I feel warm, warmer than usual and there is something hard pressing into my back.It takes a second for me to realize that it’s Iniko’s human form that has me so warm. He has his body practically draped over mine. And then my eyes go wide as I realize what is poking into my back. He may not be in his dragon form, but I’m pretty sure he’s aroused just lying here with me.I shift, trying to maneuver away from him. When I do, his arms wrap more tightly around me, his face burying itself in my hair.“Iniko,” I say quietly, not wanting to wake him up rudely. Instead of waking up, he presses the hard rod into my back, moaning softly.“INIKO!” I shout, jolting him awake as I leap out of his arms.“What? What….what happened?” he says, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.“You were practically laying on top of me. I couldn’t move,” I say.“Sorry,” he says, shaking his head. “I was having an incredible dream,” he says, smiling up at me.I look down. “Yeah, I can guess
Maybe I was a little sneaky about getting Eliane into the water, but really, I’ve seen her naked many times. Granted, she’s right that I didn’t have a human form then, but now that I do, it’s better. We can be together as we were meant to be.We spend the afternoon bathing. I know Eliane is afraid of the water because she says she doesn’t know how to swim. However, she has control of water, it's one of her elements. Once we’re able to tap into that element, she won’t have to worry. But for today, I use her fear of the water as an excuse to hold her close, letting her wrap her legs around my waist as I take her deeper into the water.In her bag, she’s collected lilacs and flower petals. They give her daffodil scent a slight change for a short period of time, but they smell nice, so I use my earth element to grind them up and then I have her lean back in the water to wet her hair before massaging it into her hair and scalp.I love watching her as she closes her eyes, letting me shampoo h
I have no idea what happened, no clue what Iniko saw in my mind that made him run away from me like that. I’d felt his pain, as if I’d stabbed him in his heart. I love him, I do. How would I even know if I loved him because of a mate bond or just because of who he is?Then I’d heard his dragon’s lament begin. I’d felt every emotion he’d been feeling, agony, betrayal, regret, fear. Fear for what he'd done. That, more than anything, caused me to sob as I listened to him crying.Then, something had happened, and it felt like he’d begun to numb our connection, like he did something so I couldn’t feel him any longer.“Iniko!” I called out, hoping that he’d hear me, hoping that my call would bring him home. But it didn’t and not long afterward, I lost all connection to him and his emotions.I cried myself to sleep, so horribly sad to have hurt my dragon like that, sad that I’m not what he thought I was. Hopefully, when he returns, we can talk about it so I can understand what I did wrong.At
I couldn’t believe it when Eliane ended up at the Academy. I had no idea that she knew where we were, but after listening to her, I realized that she not only knew where we had been this entire time, but she and Iniko had purposefully avoided us.I didn’t want to believe it when she called him Iniko. I knew what it meant, but I had to hear it from her that he shifted and when she’d shown us her claiming mark, I felt like my entire world was crumbling around me.Her anger, her hatred toward me was palpable. She thinks I left her to die, thinks that I haven’t searched for her. I need to tell her, explain to her that I have been searching for her from the beginning, but for now, she’s here asking for our help. I don’t want to save Iniko, my brother. He submitted to MY mate. Now she’s HIS rider. But I can’t deny that he’s my brother any longer. His mark is almost identical to the one that Merethyl wears from my father, only with Iniko’s image.As we walk inside, I can feel that Eliane is b
The moment I wake up, I’m terrified that it’s all been a dream and I’m back in the laboratory. I’m on a bed with tubes in my arms and a machine beeping near me.I hear voices nearby and I lay quietly, trying to hear what they are saying.“I’ll have to talk to her, explain to her what’s happening and what we need to do to keep her and us safe…” a man’s voice, vaguely familiar, says. His voice cuts off suddenly and there’s silence.“She’s awake,” a much deeper voice says. That voice is like a call to my soul, like it’s drawing me to him. Who is that?“Hey there,” a pregnant woman says, walking into the room. “I’m Tesha. The others told me you remembered me from when you and Iniko saw us. Kaylani said that you thought I was nice and that you might be okay with me coming in to talk to you.”“I remember you,” I say quietly.“Good. I wanted you to know that you’re safe. You’re not back in a laboratory which is what most of us think when we wake up like this,” she says.“If I’m safe, why am I
I knew it. I knew he’d tortured her, but to hear her say it, to hear Eliane sobbing with the memory of what must have been unimaginable pain….I couldn’t take hearing anymore.I’d been right outside her door, listening in. I don’t care if she doesn’t want me to hear. She’s my mate. I need to know what I can do to help her. But hearing that, hearing her break down, it nearly broke me.I raced outside, barely making it before my dragon ripped through me. I leaped into the air roaring my anger and frustration. Elio and Ajax are the first to join me, the other dragons joining close behind.“Please, I just want to be alone,” I tell them.It takes a moment, then they all fall away. All but one.I turn and look at my best friend.“Alone means by myself, Jax,” I tell him.“I know. I’m just flying,” he says as if he’s not keeping tabs on me. I’m too distraught to care. If he wants to follow me, fine. At least I know he’ll keep quiet.I fly high up into the sky, high enough that humans and even m