Page 5 of Beneath Scales and Shadows (Lost Lunas of Artania #1)
CHAPTER FIVE
SORA
The moons’ ethereal light bathed the balcony in silver and blue, wrapping Sora in an otherworldly glow that seeped through her skin into her very soul. His words lingered in the space between them—balance, life, magic—arcane promises whispered beneath an alien sky.
Something impossible.
Her soul felt splintered, caught between worlds.
Every heartbeat brought fresh uncertainty, a tide of questions with no anchors to hold her steady. The mountains loomed in the distance, their snow-capped peaks luminous against the night sky, calling to her with a siren’s song she felt rather than heard.
What am I becoming? The thought spiraled through her consciousness, accompanied by conflicting desires. Part of her yearned for the sanctuary of her Earth life—the comforting weight of academic journals, the precise methodology of artifact analysis, a world where the magic belonged in glass cases, labeled and explained.
Where myths and legends belonged in stories, for her to get lost in…. Not here.
But that reality receded with each passing moment, like footprints disappearing beneath rising water. In its place surged something ancient and unfamiliar—a presence that shimmered beneath her skin with increasing urgency, hungry for something her scholarly mind could not comprehend.
“Your heart races,” the masked stranger observed, his voice resonating through her like distant thunder. “I can hear its rhythm from here.”
The intimacy of the statement should have unsettled her. Instead, heat bloomed across her skin, a flush that had nothing to do with embarrassment.
“Everything about this world is overwhelming,” she confessed, her fingers tracing the balustrade’s cold stone. “I died on Earth and woke here in a body both mine and not mine. Now my skin shimmers with scales, and you speak of prophecies and destinies as though I should understand what any of this means.”
“You do not need to be scared.” He moved closer, each step deliberate as a predator’s approach. “Some knowledge lives in blood rather than mind. Your body remembers what your thoughts cannot.”
His scent enveloped her—obsidian, ancient fire, stars burning in the void. Her breath caught as another wave of heat surged through her, pooling low in her abdomen with an intensity that made her knees weaken.
“And what does my body remember?” The question emerged breathless, half-challenge and half-surrender.
“That you were made for this world.” He circled her with fluid grace, his crimson gaze never leaving hers. “That your soul belongs here. For this moment.”
“For me ,” his eyes seemed to add, though the words remained unspoken.
Sora’s rational mind cataloged the danger of this situation—alone on a balcony with a stranger whose very presence scrambled her thoughts. Yet something deeper than reason kept her rooted in place, drawn to him by forces older than conscious thought.
Was this truly predetermined—written in the stars?
“I don’t even know your name,” she whispered as he completed his circle, stopping before her close enough that the heat of his body reached her through the night’s chill.
“Ignis.” The name fell from his lips like an invocation, seeming to ripple through the air between them. “King of the Dralux Clan.”
The title should have meant nothing to her, yet recognition flared in her bones, as though some part of her had been waiting to hear those precise words. The mountains in the distance— his mountains—pulsed with renewed intensity in her awareness.
“And what am I to you, King Ignis of the Dralux?” Her voice emerged stronger than she felt, steady despite the trembling that had begun deep within her.
“Everything.” The word carried the weight of loneliness and searching and hope long deferred. “The answer to a promise made by the stars before either of us drew breath.”
He reached for her, his hand hovering a breath away from her cheek. “May I?”
Unable to form words, she nodded, watching as he traced the line of her jaw with exquisite gentleness. Heat followed his touch, cascading through her in waves that left her dizzy. Where his skin met hers, she felt the telltale shimmer of scales emerging, responding to him as though he controlled the tide of her transformation.
“Your body knows me,” he murmured, satisfaction darkening his already rich voice. “Even if your mind has not yet caught up.”
The space between them vanished as he drew her closer, one arm encircling her waist with careful strength. Their breath mingled in the cold night air, crystallizing in the inches between their lips. Warning bells sounded distantly in her mind, but they couldn’t compete with the roaring need that surged through her blood.
His mouth claimed hers with a hunger that matched the inferno building within her. The kiss ignited something deep within her—not the tentative exploration of first intimacy but the desperate reunion of souls too long separated.
His lips moved against hers with practiced precision, coaxing rather than demanding, even as he locked his arms around her with unmistakable possession.
Sora’s body responded with pure impulses her mind couldn’t comprehend. Her hands slid up his chest to his shoulders, then higher still, fingers tangling in hair that felt like crimson silk. The taste of him—smoke and starlight and ancient power—flooded her senses, drowning rational thought with an unexplained recognition.
Scales rippled across her skin wherever they touched, silver patterns emerging like constellations mapping an unknown sky. The sensation should have terrified her, but instead it felt like awakening—like shedding a skin too small to contain what she was becoming.
What she truly was .
His growl vibrated against her lips as his hands tightened at her waist, lifting her slightly to better align their bodies. The world narrowed to this single point of contact—his mouth on hers, his hands mapping the contours of her body as though committing them to memory, the heat building between them that threatened to consume them both.
In the midst of that consuming fire, her fingers found the edge of his mask. The cool material contrasted sharply with the burning heat of his skin, the edge a boundary between what she knew and what remained mystery. Without conscious decision, her fingers hooked beneath the ornate rim, desire overriding caution, need eclipsing reason.
The mask came away in her hand.
Magic exploded between them like a supernova. Golden light erupted from the broken enchantment, illuminating the balcony with blinding intensity. Sora staggered backward, the mask falling from her nerveless fingers to clatter against stone.
“What have you done?” Ignis growled in her mind.
When the light dimmed, the man before her was transforming. His formal attire tore as his body expanded, elegant hands elongating into taloned claws. Ruby scales erupted across his skin, flowing like liquid shadow until they covered him completely. His face elongated, features rearranging into something terrifyingly beautiful.
Something that shouldn’t exist—just like her. And yet, she was here.
Where the masked nobleman had stood moments before, a gigantic gold trimmed ruby dragon now loomed—midnight wings unfurling to span the width of the balcony, crimson eyes still fixed on her with unmistakable intelligence.
Ignis , her mind whispered, recognition rather than fear flooding her system.
The balcony doors burst open behind them. Guards poured through, swords drawn, shouting orders that Sora couldn’t process through her shock. Princess Jewels emerged from their midst, her face contorting with triumph and horror.
“Dragon!” she screamed, pointing at Ignis. “Seize the girl! Kill the beast!”
Guards rushed forward. Arrows notched against bowstrings, the deadly tips glinting in the moonlight. Sora stood frozen between the advancing soldiers and the dragon— her dragon, a quiet voice deep inside her insisted, fierce and sure.
Time slowed, compressed into a single moment of perfect clarity. These guards would kill Ignis. The thought struck her with visceral certainty, unleashing protective fury she hadn’t known herself capable of.
Without conscious decision, Sora stepped between the guards and Ignis, arms outstretched. “Stop!”
The first arrow flew. Acting on reflexes born of another lifetime, she reached out to deflect it—and watched in stunned disbelief as silver scales erupted across her arm, the arrow glancing harmlessly off their metallic surface.
Everyone froze—the guards, Princess Jewels, even Sora herself.
Only Ignis moved, his massive head lowering beside her, a deep growl rumbling from his chest that she felt rather than heard, the vibration passing between them like a current.
“How?” Princess Jewels whispered, horror dawning in her eyes.
Before Sora could respond, Ignis’s tail whipped around, wrapping protectively around her waist. His voice resonated directly in her mind—darker—ancient, powerful, tinged with both urgency and tenderness.
“Trust me.”
She had no time to respond before he launched from the balcony, powerful wings beating against the night air. Sora’s stomach lurched as the ground fell away beneath them, the castle shrinking to a toy-like miniature as they ascended into the star-strewn sky.
Wind whipped her hair around her face as she clung to the smooth scales of Ignis’s foreleg. Far below, guards scrambled at the balcony’s edge, arrows slicing through empty space as their shouts drowned in the rush of air.
Princess Jewels’s face, twisted with rage and disbelief, grew smaller until it vanished altogether, swallowed by distance.
Fear and exhilaration twined through Sora’s veins as they soared higher, the world spreading beneath them like an unfamiliar map—something new for her to discover and catalog. The frozen lake reflected moonlight like a silver coin, the forest a dark carpet stretching toward—
The mountains. They were flying toward the mountains that had been calling to her since she awoke in this world.
“Where are you taking me?” she shouted against the wind, unsure if he could hear her human voice while in dragon form. Deep down, she knew the answer.
“Home,” came his simple reply. “Where you belong.”