Chapter 3

"Or what?" Maya pressed, even as the chamber temperature rose another ten degrees.

"Or ignite a war that will consume both dragons and humans alike." Vivienne moved swiftly to the centre of the room, placing the silk-wrapped pendant on an eighth pedestal Maya hadn't noticed before. "Your mother chose exile to prevent this moment. She believed removing herself from dragon society would break the prophecy's chain."

The pendant unwrapped itself, the silk falling away as if pushed by invisible hands. The dragon carving levitated, spinning slowly, its crystalline body catching Maya's light and fracturing it into rainbow patterns across the chamber walls.

A voice called from the passage—deep, commanding. "She's here. I can feel her resonance."

"Leon," Maya whispered, recognising the voice instantly, even though she'd exchanged barely a dozen words with him.

"Shadow dragon," Vivienne confirmed. "The most dangerous of your suitors, perhaps. Practical. Strategic. Capable of terrible patience."

The pendant spun faster, its light growing more intense.

"I don't want suitors," Maya said through gritted teeth. "I want answers. I want this to stop." Her skin was practically translucent now, golden light pulsing beneath it in time with her heartbeat.

"It won't stop," Vivienne said, something like compassion crossing her features. "But you can choose how it proceeds."

The first figure appeared in the chamber entrance—Leon Blackthorn's dark suit immaculate despite whatever chaos he'd navigated to reach them. His eyes were no longer human, shifting between obsidian black and midnight blue. Behind him came others: a red-haired man whose skin seemed to shimmer with heat, a pale blonde whose breath frosted the air around him, a silver-eyed man with electricity crackling between his fingers.

"The claiming has begun," Vivienne announced formally, stepping back as the men entered the chamber. "Maya Chen, daughter of Sarah, last of the light dragon lineage, stands before you unclaimed."

"This is medieval," Maya protested, but her body betrayed her again. The resonance in her chest sang in harmony with the energies emanating from the men surrounding her, each distinct and compelling in its own way.

Leon stepped forward first, his movement fluid and predatory. "You feel it, don't you? The pull between us. That's the resonance-seeking balance."

"I feel nothing," Maya lied, backing away until she stood directly beneath the floating pendant. "This is insane. I'm not a dragon. I'm an analyst.”

“Our pretty little mate is quite the charmer, wouldn’t you agree, gentlemen?”

A voice from the chamber entrance carried amusement and something darker. Maya turned to see a man with burnished copper hair and amber eyes that literally flickered with flames. His smile was all predator, revealing teeth that seemed too sharp for human anatomy.

"Kai Morrison," Vivienne said under her breath. "Fire dragon. He's the one who—"

"Who what?" Maya demanded, but the fire dragon was already moving into the chamber, the temperature spiking another twenty degrees wherever his feet touched stone.

"Who burned down half of Portland the last time he encountered a potential mate," Leon finished coldly, his dark eyes never leaving Kai's face. "Territorial disputes tend to get... heated... where fire dragons are concerned."

"That was a misunderstanding," Kai said cheerfully, though his gaze was fixed on Maya with unsettling intensity. "And she wasn't nearly as magnificent as our light dragon here." He gestured at Maya's glowing form. "Look at her, gentlemen. She's practically molten gold."

The remaining men filed into the chamber—an ice dragon with platinum hair and frost gathering at his fingertips, a storm dragon whose silver eyes cracked with barely contained lightning, an earth dragon built like a mountain with skin that seemed to shift between human flesh and living stone, and finally, at the rear, something that made Maya's newly awakened senses recoil.

The void dragon was absence given form—not darkness like Leon's shadows, but a walking negation that seemed to pull light and warmth from the air around him. When Maya looked directly at him, her vision wavered as if her eyes couldn't quite process what they were seeing.

"Seven," Vivienne breathed. "The prophecy is complete."

"The prophecy can go to hell," Maya snapped, her control finally fraying. In waves, golden light erupted from her skin, and the pendant above her head began spinning so rapidly it became a blur. "I don't care about ancient magic, bloodlines, or any of this supernatural nonsense. I want my normal life back."

The void dragon spoke for the first time, his voice like wind through empty spaces. "Normal died the moment you manifested, little light. Now there is only one choice—whose resonance will complete yours?"

"None of yours," Maya said firmly, but even as the words left her lips, she could feel her dragon nature stirring, evaluating, responding to each male presence with instincts she didn't understand.

Leon stepped closer, his shadow seeming to reach toward her light. "You're fighting inevitability. The resonance doesn't lie, Maya. We're bound to you, all of us, but the choice of primary mate—"

"I'm not choosing anyone as anything," Maya interrupted, her voice echoing strangely off the chamber walls.

The ice dragon—Nordic features sharp as winter—spoke next. "The claiming isn't about human concepts of choice, female. It's about survival. Unmated light dragons don't tend to live long."

"Is that a threat?" Maya's light flared brighter, and several of the crystals around the chamber began to resonate in response.

"A statement of fact," the ice dragon replied calmly. "Your power is already destabilising. You'll burn out within days without a bonded mate to anchor your resonance. Possibly hours."

"Enough." The storm dragon's voice carried the rumble of distant thunder. "She's terrified, and we're circling her like predators. This isn't how the claiming should proceed."

"There is no 'should' anymore, Lucian," Kai said, his amber eyes never leaving Maya's face. The old ways died with the last light dragon three centuries ago. We're improvising."

Maya felt something crack inside her chest—not physically, but something deeper. The golden light pouring from her skin suddenly doubled in intensity, and the floating pendant above her head let out a crystalline chime that made every dragon in the chamber freeze.