Page 11 of Beneath Scales and Shadows (Lost Lunas of Artania #1)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

SORA

Sora jerked awake with a gasp, her lungs burning as though filled with icy water. The nightmare clung to her consciousness—phantom hands shoving her forward, cold water closing over her head, a familiar face watching impassively as darkness claimed her.

“Sora?” Ignis’s voice cut through her panic, low and concerned. “Sora!”

“A dream.” She struggled upright in her silken bed, hand at her throat. “It was just a dream...”

Only it wasn’t. No matter how much she tried to convince herself it was. The details were too vivid, too specific. Drowning. Being watched. The face observing her demise with cold calculation.

Ignis was instantly beside her, his scaled form gleaming in the prismed light. He knelt beside her bed, wings open as if to shield her from the world beyond, careful to maintain enough distance not to overwhelm her with his presence, though warmth radiated from him like a hearth fire.

“Tell me.”

The command carried no alpha compulsion, only genuine concern. Sora drew a shuddering breath, the terror receding beneath his steady gaze.

“I’m drowning in a frozen lake. The water fills my lungs, and I can’t breathe. Someone watches from above, someone with familiar eyes. The same dream, over and over.”

Ignis’s crimson eyes narrowed. “How long have you had this dream?”

“Since arriving in Artania.” She massaged her temples, trying to grasp details that slipped through her memory like smoke. “Maybe it’s just my subconscious processing this impossible situation.”

“Or maybe,” Ignis suggested, his voice deepening, “it’s not your imagination at all.”

A chill crept up Sora’s spine that had nothing to do with the cool mountain air. “What do you mean?”

“The baker’s daughter—this body you inhabit. She was found nearly drowned in a frozen lake—and yet you live. What if you’re not seeing a nightmare, but her final memory?”

“You think someone tried to kill her?” she muttered, understanding crashed down on her. “That her death wasn’t an accident?”

“I think,” Ignis said carefully, gently cupping her face, “that coincidences rarely exist in prophecy.”

The implications threaded through Sora’s mind, connecting fragments she’d dismissed. The strange looks from Princess Jewels. Morgana’s suspicion. The royal soothsayer’s performance at the ball.

A wave of dizziness swept over her as the temperature of her body suddenly spiked, heat cascading through her core. She clutched the silken sheets, alarmed at the intensity of the sensation.

“What’s happening to me?” The words emerged as a gasp.

Ignis’s nostrils flared, his pupils expanding until crimson was nearly swallowed by black. “Your transformation is almost complete,” he murmured, voice deeper than before. “The dragon blood in your veins knows its own, responding to my presence.” He hesitated, claws flexing at his sides. “You’re nearing your first heat.”

That word again. Heat. Everyone kept using it—Lyra, Zalaya, now Ignis—yet no one had properly explained what it meant in this world, in this context.

“What does that mean exactly?” She pushed herself upright, the sheet pooling around her waist. “I understand the concept biologically with animals, but...”

Ignis combed taloned fingers through his crimson hair, turning away to pace the perimeter of the chamber. His wings twitched with agitation, catching the luminous light in hypnotic patterns.

“Perhaps this should be a conversation you have with Ember,” he suggested, voice strained. “Or Zalaya. She has explained these matters to many over the course of generations.” His tail lashed behind him, betraying his discomfort. “There must be books on the subject in the library—”

“I want to hear it from you.” The words emerged with surprising firmness. “No one else.”

He stopped abruptly, head snapping toward her. His nostrils flared as he inhaled her scent once more, something feral shifting behind his gaze. In three fluid strides, he returned to her bedside, pressing a scaled palm to her forehead with unexpected gentleness.

“You’re burning,” he murmured, frowning.

“I need air.” She pushed aside the covers, the silk sliding against her heightened senses like water over stone. “I’m too hot.”

Ignis stepped back, giving her space. “The balcony. The night air might help cool your blood.”

She followed him through corridors to a wide balcony overlooking the central cavern. Above, apertures in the mountain’s peak allowed moonlight to stream down in silver columns, illuminating the dragon city below. The cool mountain air against her heated skin brought immediate relief.

“Better?” Ignis asked, remaining a careful distance away.

“Yes.” She leaned against the balustrade, watching dragon forms move through the cavern below. “Now tell me... explain what’s happening.”

Ignis positioned himself beside her, careful not to touch, his gaze fixed on the activity below rather than on her face.

“You stand between worlds,” Ignis observed. “Earth memories in an Artanian body, human mind housing dragon blood. Few could maintain sanity through such transition in history, and yet, you are… pretty effortlessly, I might add.”

The casual compliment to her mental fortitude warmed her in a way different from the heat of transformation.

“Moments like this are what makes believing all of this is real more difficult.” She looked up at twin moons hanging in the star-strewn sky. “That I died on Earth and woke here. That doesn’t just happen. That I’m becoming something not fully human, enhanced by the dragon blood in this body’s veins. That prophecies and magic and creatures of legend and myth exist. Then add this whole second gender hierarchy that determines where I stand…” She turned to face him, vulnerability winning over caution. “What scares me most is how right it feels. Being here, in your mountain, among your people. As if some part of me recognizes this as home.”

The admission cost her, exposing a fear deeper than physical danger—the fear of losing herself, of surrendering the identity she’d built over a lifetime of academic pursuits, on Earth, where she may never be able to return to by the sounds of it.

And even if there was a way for her to do so, what sacrifices must be made for her to do it? She would be foolish to believe that there would be a body for her mind—her soul—to return to, knowing that she physically would be six feet underground.

“And that frightens you.” Not a question.

“If I accept this new reality—this destiny everyone keeps claiming—what happens to who I was ?” Her voice cracked. “Dr. Sora Valerith, historian, researcher, scholar. Does she just... disappear?”

“Why do you assume you must abandon one identity to embrace another?” He gestured to the night sky, where the White Moon was starting to dance away from her Blue Knight. “The twice-born are powerful precisely because they carry wisdom from beyond our world. Your beautiful mind, your academic knowledge—these aren’t weaknesses to discard, but strengths to integrate.”

His insight struck her silent. She’d been viewing her arrival as something lost when it wasn’t… It was a second chance at life …

“The prophecy doesn’t erase you,” he continued, moving closer, wrapping a wing around her. “It explains what you are—and gives you a chance to help us.”

She shook her head. “You make it sound so simple.”

“Not simple. Inevitable.” His wings shifted, drawing her closer, moonlight shimmering across iridescent patterns. “Fighting your nature only prolongs the discomfort.”

Another wave of heat surged through her, more intense than before. Silver scales rippled across her skin wherever moonlight touched, shimmering with metallic luster.

“What if I’m not good enough?” The question escaped before she could contain it, exposing her deepest fear. “What if I accept this role, this... queenship, and fail? So many depend on the prophecy, on me fulfilling this cosmic plan.”

“Good enough?” Ignis’s voice carried genuine surprise as he gently gripped her chin, guiding her gaze to his. “You crossed worlds at death, awakened dragon blood dormant for generations, read ancient draconic without training, and provided tactical insight that my centuries-old advisors missed. Yet you question your worthiness?”

He stepped closer, heat radiating from his scaled form, easing the discomfort of her transformation rather than intensifying it. His scent—an intoxicating blend of midnight and fire—wrapped around her like a protective cloak.

“You are enough, Sora Valerith. More than enough. Your mind’s strength rivals your dragon blood’s power. Your compassion balances your growing magic. Both parts of you—Earth scholar and Artanian queen—create something greater than either alone.”

His words settled into her bones with comforting weight, easing fears she hadn’t fully articulated even to herself.

Another tremor raced through her, this one bringing not pain but awareness—heightened senses, deeper connection to the mountain’s heartbeat beneath her feet, to the crystal energy flowing through stone walls, to the dragon king standing before her.

“You can feel the pull... so why fight it?” Ignis asked, the question surprisingly gentle. “Why deny yourself what your soul clearly seeks?”

“Because I’m afraid.” The admission felt like release. “Of losing control. Of surrendering to something I don’t fully understand. Of wanting you. ”

The last words hung between them, charged with implications neither had directly addressed since their kiss at the Selection Ball.

“Did our kiss mean something to you?” she whispered, finally asking the question that had lingered since their flight from the castle. “Or was it just alpha instinct claiming what you believe is yours?”

Ignis’s expression shifted, something ancient and powerful moving behind his crimson gaze. “That kiss meant everything . It wasn’t merely instinct, but recognition. Not just alpha claiming omega, but soul finding its soul’s match.”

He took another step forward, now close enough that she could feel the heat of his body, see the faint pulse of fire beneath his scaled skin.

“I have lived for a century, Sora. Ruled alone. Watched generations pass and my clan’s population slowly dwindle. Nothing in that existence prepared me for you. For the hunger that goes beyond flesh, beyond instinct, to something I cannot name except to call it destiny.”

His words resonated with a truth she couldn’t deny, matching the growing certainty within her own heart.

She was falling for him—not because of omega biology or prophecy or circumstance, but because of who he was.

His wisdom and restraint, despite his alpha instincts urging possession. His ability to see her—truly see her—beyond designation or destiny.

“I’m caught between worlds,” she whispered. “Between who I was and who I’m becoming.”

“Then let me be your bridge.” He extended his hand, offering rather than demanding. “Not your master or your fate, but your partner… if you let me.”

The moment stretched between them, weighted with decision. She lifted her hand, fingers hovering above his scaled palm, choice balanced on a knife’s edge.

Sora drew a steadying breath and placed her hand in his. The contact sent warmth cascading through her, not the uncomfortable heat of transformation but something deeper, more fundamental—like finding solid ground after drifting at sea.

“I accept,” she whispered, pressing her forehead against his chest, breathing in his comforting scent. “Be my bridge.”

Ignis’s fingers closed gently around hers, talons carefully angled away from her skin.

“Tell me,” she said, voice steadier than she felt. “Tell me what happens now. What all this talk of heat truly means… I must be prepared. I won’t go in blind—not after everything else has been that way for me on Artania.”

Ignis guided her to a stone bench carved into the balcony wall, positioned perfectly to catch the moonlight streaming through the mountain’s apertures. Her scales shimmered brighter as the silver light touched her skin.

“You know the basics,” he began, voice carefully controlled. “Alphas lead, their commands followed without question, as their powers align with what’s needed for them to rule. For many of the Moon Goddess’s children, they are telepathically bound to those under their command, unlike humans.”

His wing shifted slightly, creating a shield of privacy around their conversation. “Dragons have almost impenetrable defenses, flame, and flight. Wulfkin possess tracking abilities like no other, with speed comparable only to the felynx .”

“And humans?”

“Humans are a blank slate, capable of adapting—taking in traits of those they bind themselves to,” he continued, claws scraping lightly against the stone bench. “In olden times, to create alliances, their omegas were gifted to the alphas and deltas of other species to gain attributes from their mates, passed down through offspring, strengthening their bloodline. That is how human deltas gained their lesser magic over generations—their mages... and omegas gained their defenses.”

Understanding dawned across her features. “My scales. I have scales that shimmer under the moon because of the faint dragon blood in my veins and being a child of the Moon Goddess.”

“Yes.” His gaze traced the silver patterns appearing along her arms, reverence in his expression. “Once you’ve completely transformed, you should be capable of withstanding dragonflame—even though I would never dare to ever breathe it on you.”

“But what of my impending heat?” she pressed, unwilling to let him evade the topic again.

Ignis’s grip tightened on the edge of the bench, stone crumbling beneath his claws. He stared out into the cavern, muscles tense beneath his scales. “Soon, your body would become fully capable of taking any alpha’s—no matter the species—knot.”

Sora blinked, confusion replacing embarrassment. “Knot?”