Page 25 of Beneath Scales and Shadows (Lost Lunas of Artania #1)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

IGNIS

Ignis hurtled through the sky, his wings slicing through clouds with brutal precision. Blood thundered in his ears—not his own, but hers . Through their bond, he felt Sora’s pain like a physical wound, her silent scream echoing across their connection with terrifying clarity.

“Hold on,” he commanded through their bond, pouring every ounce of strength into the thought. “ I’m coming.”

The castle loomed below, white marble towers glowing in the morning light like bleached bones. Guards scattered across the battlements, their weapons little more than twigs against the inferno building in his chest. Time slowed as he pinpointed the throne room—her essence calling him like a beacon, directing him.

Without hesitation, he tucked his wings and dived.

The stained-glass ceiling of the throne room shattered beneath his weight, raining jewel-colored shards that glittered like ice in the sunlight. He crashed onto the marble floor with enough force to crack stone, his claws gouging furrows in ancient tiles as he unfurled to his full height.

What he saw turned his blood to fire.

Sora kneeled before the dais, silver scales gleaming along her throat and arms, defiance etched into every line of her body despite the bindings at her wrists. The sight of those restraints—carved with suppression wards—sent fury cascading through him in molten waves.

His gaze swept the room, cataloging enemies with predatory precision. Four thrones upon the dais. Four humans who dared to call themselves royal while perpetuating atrocities that would make demons weep.

King Ralph stood, his face a mask of cold arrogance. “What madness is this? Dragons do not enter the royal presence unbidden!”

“This one does,” Ignis growled, resonating through the cavernous space like thunder.

Queen Marcille’s fingers clutched her throne’s armrests, knuckles whitening beneath jeweled rings. “Guards! Contain this beast!”

Ignis dismissed the scrambling soldiers with contemptuous ease, a sweep of his tail sending armored bodies crashing into marble columns. His focus remained fixed on the royal family—the true threat.

“The girl belongs to us,” King Ralph declared, his voice carrying the weight of generations of entitlement. “As do all omegas. Their power exists to serve the crown.”

Ignis stalked forward, each step deliberate, acutely aware of Sora’s gaze following his movements. The bond between them thrummed with shared rage.

Queen Marcille rose, her elegant features contorted with disdain. “Your power is ours by right. You can’t deny us what we’re owed!”

Something ancient and terrible awoke in Ignis’s blood, a rage that had slumbered for a century now roaring to life. He had maintained restraint for decades—watching his kind diminish, his clan suffering, his people hunted like animals. He had counseled patience, strategy, diplomacy.

No more.

King Ralph gestured toward Sora, his voice cold with command. “Seize her.”

The remaining guards moved forward, weapons raised. Something snapped inside Ignis—control shattered by the sight of metal-gloved hands reaching for his mate.

The fire had been building too long, compressed beneath scales and restraint until it became something beyond flame—pure destruction made flesh. He inhaled deeply, gathering heat from his twin hearts, and exhaled destruction.

Dragon fire engulfed the throne room, a torrent of golden-white fury that turned marble to slag and metal to vapor. The inferno twisted around Sora without touching her, their blood bond protecting her from his flame.

“You threatened my mate.” His roar scorched the air. “You harvested her kind—and mine. No more!”

Through the flames, he watched King Ralph’s arrogance collapse into terror.

“You’re nothing but a beast pretending to rule,” the king spat, defiant even as fire licked at his royal robes. “All you do is hide in that mountain of yours, afraid to take to the sky.”

Ignis didn’t hesitate. He focused his flame, concentrating its destructive potential into a lance of pure heat that struck the king with surgical precision. The human monarch didn’t even have time to scream—his body collapsed into ash upon his throne, crown melting into a misshapen lump of metal.

Queen Marcille shrieked, falling to her knees before the dais, hands raised in supplication. “I was only following tradition—”

Her plea ended in a gurgle as Ignis’s claws closed around her throat, lifting her from the ground with contemptuous ease. He studied her terrified face, searching for any hint of remorse, any flash of understanding.

He found nothing but fear and hatred.

A moment later, her screams were drowned out by his flame until nothing but ash fell from his paw.

Movement at the corner of his vision drew his attention. Princess Jewels darted toward a hidden passage behind the thrones, her royal finery fluttering as she fled. With a single thought, Ignis’s tail whipped across the room, catching her mid-stride and pinning her against a marble column.

Sora rose to her feet, the suppression cuffs falling away as silver light pulsed from her scales. She approached Jewels with measured steps, her movements fluid despite the lingering effects of captivity.

Moonlight spilled through the shattered ceiling, bathing the confrontation in otherworldly radiance. Ignis saw what the princess had become—what treachery had cost her. Icy blue eyes glowed with unnatural luminescence, skin splitting with corrupted energy. Makeshift scales erupted chaotically across her flesh, grotesque imitations of the natural patterns adorning Sora’s skin.

“We discovered the old texts,” Jewels hissed, power fluctuating around her like heat shimmer. “A twice-born omega would bring our kingdom to ruin. But why? Humans had bed with magical creatures for generations, harnessing their abilities.” Her voice cracked, desperation bleeding through rage. “Why shouldn’t we reclaim what we cultivated? What should be ours? Even though you’re an omega, you’re a human, not a dragon, not a beast. You are going against your kind for... them!?”

Ignis felt Sora’s emotional shift through their bond—not just anger but something more complex, a historical understanding that transcended personal grievance. Pride flowed through him as she faced the princess with scholar’s precision rather than emotional reaction.

“The texts don’t speak of domination,” Sora countered, her voice steady. “They speak of balance—what your ancestors destroyed when they betrayed their dragon allies.”

Jewels’s face contorted, hatred burning through corruption. “You,” she spat, drawing a second poisoned blade from her sleeve. “You should have drowned in that lake where I left you.”

The confession slammed into Ignis like a physical blow.

Through their bond, he felt Sora’s memory crystallize—not her human recollection, but the baker’s daughter’s final moments. Ice water filling lungs. A familiar face watching with cold satisfaction as darkness claimed her vision.

It was Princess Jewels who’d killed the baker’s daughter—and summoned the Sora he knew to Artania.

Rage beyond reason consumed him as he turned his full attention to the princess. His wings unfurled with a thunderous crack, blocking falling debris from Sora as more of the ceiling collapsed.

“You tried to kill my mate.” He snarled, each word dripping with murderous intent. “Again!”

“And I should have finished the job a long time ago.” Princess Jewels scoffed, corrupted essence leaking from cracked skin. “It would’ve saved me all this trouble.”

Something cold and brutal calculated behind Ignis’s fury. Execution was too swift, too merciful. Justice demanded symmetry.

A life for a life.

He seized the princess in his claws, ignoring her screams as he launched through the shattered ceiling. His wings caught the morning updrafts, carrying them toward the castle grounds with terrible purpose. Behind him, he sensed Sora following, her newly awakened abilities allowing her to track him.

The frozen lake gleamed at the edge of the castle grounds, ice thinner now in the late winter sun. Ignis landed with precision, his weight cracking the surface into spidae-webbed patterns. The princess struggled in his grasp, pleas turning to shrieks as realization dawned.

“No mercy for those who show none.” He roared, the sound crashing off the mountains, echoing like the land itself demanded the evil be purged. He held her above the fracturing ground, wings outstretched, fury blazing through every scale of him.

Her eyes widened in comprehension a moment before he released her. She plunged through the ice with a strangled scream, dark water swallowing her flailing form. Not content with mere drowning, Ignis scanned the shoreline, spotting a boulder half-embedded in frozen earth. Three wingbeats brought him to it, his hind claws digging beneath the stone to wrench it free.

With deliberate aim, he hurled the boulder at the jagged hole where ripples still marked the princess’s entry. The impact sent water geysering upward, ice cracking outward in starbursts. He watched dispassionately as bubbles surfaced, then stilled.

A stone for a stone, a life for a life.

The symmetry stirred something deep—order, balance, retribution. But beneath it, guilt coiled tight, a reminder that he’d waited too long to face the evil that had torn his clan apart.

Sora arrived at the shoreline, her breath coming in clouds of vapor. Through their bond, he felt her complex emotions—not triumph or vindication, but solemn acknowledgment that some cycles could only end in destruction.

But for Ignis—there was only relief. Bone-deep, soul-warming relief.

She was alive. His Luna, his queen.

He hovered above the ruined coastline for only a heartbeat, wings outstretched, breath still heavy with the scent of battle. But it was her golden hair that caught his eye, whipping wild in the wind like a living flame. Her body stood strong and unyielding on the blood-soaked shore, her posture regal despite exhaustion. And her gaze—Moon Goddess, her gaze —was locked onto him with a force that made his chest ache.

She’d never looked more furious. More radiant. More his .

He dropped from the sky in a rush of wind and wings, landing with a heavy thud beside her. The moment his claws touched sand, he lowered his great head to hers, curling his long neck around her smaller frame. His forearms folded inward, gathering her into the curve of his chest, and his wings swept forward, enclosing her in warmth and shadow.

A cocoon. A claim. A home.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he pathed through their bond, the words choked and thick. “Shells, Sora, I love you, but I need you to stop dancing with death.”

She pressed her face into his neck, trembling—not from fear, but from the weight of survival.

“It’s over,” he pathed, more to himself than to her. He didn’t quite believe it. The war. The pain. The endless clawing ache of not knowing if he’d lose her.

Gone, all of it. And she was here.

But even wrapped in her scent, even lost in the feel of her, he caught it—faint at first, then unmistakable.

Heat.

She was in heat. Which only meant one thing—her body had finished its omega transformation.

The scent hit him like a physical blow—sweet, sharp, full of her essence and ripe with need. His wings twitched around her, his instincts flaring, fierce and possessive. How could she be in heat at a time like this? After everything they had just endured?

No. Not here. Not now.

As much as every part of him screamed to take her back to their chamber, to lay her down and worship every part of her until she forgot the war, he couldn’t—not yet. Not until the final thread was tied.

Once her heat took hold, they’d be occupied for days—locked away in their chambers, lost to the pull of instinct and bond.

He pulled back just enough to press his forehead to hers. “You’re in heat, my treasure. We’ll return home soon—I’ll take care of you, I swear it. But first, we must speak with the prince. I need to be sure he keeps his word.”

He dipped low, wings folding tight as he crouched before her. “Climb on,” he pathed gently, though there was a thread of urgency beneath it. “Let’s finish this, so I can bring you home and give you what you need.”

She nodded once and swung onto his back, her fingers curling against the scales of his neck.

Ignis launched skyward, the wind catching beneath his wings as he soared toward the ruined castle—his mate secure, his heart burning, and his mind already on what awaited them once peace was sealed.

Ignis landed with a heavy beat of wings, the ruined throne room yawning open before him. Sora slid from his back with practiced ease, but his attention was already locked on the male kneeling in the center of the shattered hall.

Prince no longer. King now.

The male’s hands were raised in surrender, his eyes wide but steady. There was no madness in him—no shadow of the corruption that had claimed his sister. Only fear… and the cautious, flickering hope of a ruler desperate to rebuild.

The king lowered his gaze and bowed deeply, the sharp line of his throat exposed in a gesture of deference not lost on Ignis. The young alpha that was willing to submit to another wasn’t an easy feat, especially when their newfound alliance was young. Only those who’d worked together for a long time—like his wingleaders Blaze and Enixa—held no resistance under his leadership.

Only time would tell if Celestoria would hold up to their promises and change of leadership.

“Thank you, Lord Ignis,” he said, voice quiet but sincere. “For aiding us—for sparing what could be rebuilt. It won’t be forgotten.”

“Send word when your kingdom is ready to sign a treaty,” he pathed to the new king. “And be certain your terms honor the wounded, not just the survivors .”

“Will do.”