Page 29

CHAPTER 29

CLAWDIA

I dreamed I was transforming, like a butterfly shucking away its cocoon and spreading its wings for the first time. I dreamed I touched the sky and danced in the clouds, flying with another…

Who is that?

Before I could look, loud, chaotic noises broke the dream, and I came crashing down to earth, bringing the feeling of residual pain echoing in my body back to my attention.

“Is he okay? What’s happening?”

I sulked, hating being disturbed when I was having such a lovely dream, but roused.

Memories of the last few hours flashed in my mind, and I gasped. My eyes blinked open rapidly, then shut again as the rain continued to lash down, hitting me painfully. I shivered and rolled to my front, my hair falling around my face. I was aware that hands touched me, but I couldn’t tell who was who.

Is this pain residual?

It felt like it was getting worse. My skin burned hot, then cold, then searing hot again, and a moan fell from my lips. Then my moan turned to a beastly growl as my skin stretched, and my bones contorted, realigning under muscles that were suddenly too large.

My body changed, similarly it did to when I changed into my familiar form.

But that’s not possible. I gave my shadow power away. I broke my familiar bond with Charlie. I’m no longer a familiar. So what’s happening to me?

“Holy fuck.” Was that Charlie’s voice?

I tried to turn to see him, but I felt heavy. My center of gravity was off, and I stumbled.

Someone gasped. “Help me move him out of the way.”

Was that Baelen? Why can’t I see?

Panic rose in my throat, and a strange noise, like a whimper and a growl mixed together, escaped me. It made me pause.

Why am I making that noise? What am I?

“What the fuck did he do?” Charlie asked.

“I’m not sure,” Baelen replied.

Where’s Zaide? Why can’t I hear him?

And Savida and Daithi? Did they survive? Did Zaide heal us all?

But I didn’t feel healed. I felt … more. Bigger. Powerful. Fierce. Protected.

It was how I felt when I was a cat, and yet that wasn’t possible. Was it?

Something caressed my mind, like the brush of silk over skin. It was strange but not unwelcome. It calmed me.

“All is well,” a voice whispered. “We are displaying how fierce we are for our mates. It is our way.”

I couldn’t question the words because it was the voice that shocked me. It was my voice, but the thought didn’t come from me. It spoke to me.

“What is happening?” Zaide’s groaned question was when I finally opened my eyes, only to stare into Charlie’s bedroom window.

“Clawdia,” Charlie gasped, and I looked down at the grass, where he gaped up at me with awe and shock. Zaide and Baelen had similar expressions, although Zaide was still lying on the floor.

I could breathe again, though each inhale felt different, deeper, filling lungs far larger than I’d ever possessed. My senses sharpened—I could hear the neighbors three houses down arguing about dinner plans, smell the rain in the clouds, see dust particles dancing in the air with perfect clarity.

Why are they so small? What am I?

There was such a confusing bunch of emotions and strange sensations that I couldn’t breathe for a moment. I felt weightless yet heavy; I felt out of control but calm; I felt assured and yet panicked.

“Mate,” Dralie whispered in my head. “You are glorious.”

His words gave me all the answers I needed, and relief almost brought me to my knees. Our mate bond is still there, and I’m a dragon? How?

Zaide hiccuped a sob as he rose to his feet. His hand contacted my scales, and a current of energy passed between us, reigniting our bonds. Their joy at my survival, their shock at my new form, and their grief from losing Daithi and Savida flooded my senses.

“Little Cat-dragon. I’m so glad you’re alive. I thought we were all about to die.” He stroked my leg, itching a sensitive scale, and I wanted to change back, to hug him, because we both needed it so much.

But the voice whispered again, “We need his approval first.”

“Who’s approval?” I tried to ask the voice, but she didn’t reply.

I’m going mad. I’m a mad dragon.

“Are you all right?” Baelen asked, and I attempted to nod. His frown lines softened, so I assumed my body moved in a way that assured him.

My dragon body.

“You are golden, just like Charlie. Your scales shimmer like treasures.”

“There’s a violet glint to them. They almost glow,” Baelen added as he joined Zaide on the other side of my leg and petted me.

Charlie looked dumbstruck, his hand running through his hair and his eyes darting all over my body.

Dralie’s voice cut through the chaos of my mind. “Oh, my mate, we are going to have such a joyous time flying together. And guarding the apples. Won’t you speak to me? I understand this is a shock, but I long to hear your voice.”

“Dralie, it’s just me. There’s no dragon-Clawdia in here. Something must have gone wrong.”

“All is exactly as it should be, my mate. You are perfect.”

“It’s … fine?”

“Females stay hidden until they find a mate they believe can protect them and give them strong offspring. They don’t make themselves known and instead become one with their drakorian. You’ve probably felt her and heard her influence in different ways.”

“She’s not like you?” A fixture in Charlie’s mind? Distinguishable from Charlie himself? A being with its own personality?

“She’s sneaky.”

“I am here, mate,” the other me whispered. “We are as we’ve always meant to be. Do you accept the bond?”

It was a repeat of what Dralie had asked me when he first appeared to me, and I suddenly understood what was happening.

When Charlie turned into a dragon, and when I accepted the mating bond, it triggered my change because I have drakorian blood. Yet both my familiar bond and my mate bond couldn’t exist together anymore, and the familiar bond strangled our mate bond, which weakened because we hadn’t completed the ritual.

It weakened until we could no longer hear each other.

He needed to accept the bond, accept us, to complete the ritual and strengthen our bond again. Then I could return to being human and comfort my other bonds.

I lowered my head carefully, bringing my face level with Charlie’s. He didn’t flinch, didn’t back away. Instead, he pressed his forehead to the space between my eyes, a gesture of acceptance that made my new heart swell.

“Beautiful,” he whispered, and I knew he meant it. He kissed my scales. “We accept the bond.”

The sudden shock of power, happiness, and relief gripped me.

I flexed my wings experimentally, knocking down the fence, and then shifted back to my human form.

“Whoops,” I said sheepishly.

All three men surrounded me in the warmest, most beautiful hug, all of them touching, kissing, and caressing me, so grateful that I survived. Tears pricked my eyes.

The love I felt in our bonds, in their touch, was all I wanted one hundred years ago.

I’d waited a long time, but it was worth it.

Thank you, God.

Our happily ever after didn’t start there. As they set me down, Zaide covered me in his shirt, and we turned our attention to Daithi and Savida.

I held his hand as we approached the bodies. Crouching beside the pale, stiff face of the faei who’d turned me into a human, I wiped some of the crusted blood from his perfect face, the rain helping to clean him and hide my tears.

“Thank you for saving me,” I whispered.

A vision, quick as a flash of lightning, struck me, and my eyes widened. Could it be?

Soft mumbling reached my ears, and I noticed tiny movements in the black wings covering them both. I smoothed back Savida’s red hair and jumped when his teary, swollen face looked up at me.

“I tried to save him, but he’s gone. He’s gone, but I’m still here. Why am I still here?” His sobs were almost incomprehensible.

“Savida, you’re still alive,” Zaide breathed, then pulled his friend into his arms. “Oh gods, you survived his loss.”

“Why? Why?” Savida cried. “I don’t want to live without him.”

I didn’t know why. By all accounts, he shouldn’t have.

“You can’t. You can’t.” Zaide shook him. “What would I do without you? You are my family. My savior. A brightness in my life.” His sobs were like stabs at my heart.

He might not have lost me, and Savida might be alive, but Zaide had lost both his friends and saviors. Savida would never be the same without his mate.

“He was my everything. How can I live in a world without him? He has made me. He saved me too, and I’m to repay him by living when I could have eternity with him in our next lives?”

Charlie joined us, placing a hand on the demon’s trembling shoulder. “You have to stay with us, mate. We won't let you fade away. Daithi loved you, but he would have wanted you to survive this. To live. He’ll be waiting for you in your next life.”

“He wanted me with him forever. He told me so. He wouldn’t want to be away from me.” Savida struggled against Zaide’s embrace and Charlie’s hand, breathing heavily. “Let me go. I won’t leave him.”

“You can’t escape this pain, Savida. I’m so sorry, but you can’t follow him, either.” His dark eyes scanned mine desperately. “What if you never meet in your next life? What if this was all the time you ever have together? Wouldn’t you prefer to remember? To hold those memories dear?”

“Do you know something?” he whispered. “How did I survive the death of my mate?”

“I know you have another mate out there waiting to meet you and a family who have missed you every day since you were stolen from them. You’ll meet them if you don’t lose yourself to this grief.”

“A mate? Family?” He shook his head. “No. No. I can’t betray him.”

“It’s perfectly understandable you don’t want to meet a new mate or your family when you’ve just lost the only family you’ve ever known. But eventually, when your heart has healed, when hope doesn’t feel so foreign and you remember your joy and curiosity for life, you’ll meet them, and you’ll know that this is exactly the reason you survived. You’ll be glad for it because you’ll be so, so happy.”

“Your future sounds like a story you tell younglings.”

“Maybe Daithi’s soul will find you again in this life, too.” Baelen rested his hand on my back, adding a print of warmth to my shivering body.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you’ve lost him. I’m sorry I couldn’t save him.” Zaide held him tighter, choking on tears.

Charlie added softly, “He was a hero, Savida. He saved Clawdia’s life. He didn’t know he would leave you.”

“He knew. He knew. I could tell from his face. He apologized.”

“Please don’t do anything silly,” I begged. “Let’s plan a celebration of his life. Let’s lay him to rest and take everything one day at a time.”

“My mind is so dark,” he whispered, sagging into Zaide’s arms, finally accepting the comfort and turning his head into Zaide's neck.

“Even the night sky has stars, Savida. Look for them, and I promise you, your future will be bright once more.”

Elizabeth returned in time to help us clean the kitchen and stomp on Fafnir’s body. Savida took out a lot of his feelings that way. We showered and dressed and ate, but mostly, we were in a state of shock. It was over. We’d won. But it felt like we’d lost.

Zaide tucked Savida into bed and placed the nightlight on for him but returned to us in the living room, concerned.

“I don’t like leaving him. Maybe we should stay with him tonight,” he suggested as he sank into the loveseat.

I nodded. “We’ll drag the mattresses in.”

It would ease my mind to watch over him, too. He was in a dangerous place.

“I can’t sleep right now. I’m too wired,” Charlie added, his fingers drawing patterns on my knuckles. “I can’t fucking believe it.”

“He saved me,” I whispered. The guilt I felt only made my sadness ache more. Savida was without his soul mate because I couldn’t move out of the way fast enough.

“Do you think he knew? Like Savida said? He’d been acting strange.” Zaide asked, his purple eyes big and watery.

“I’m not sure. But regardless of why, he helped us end this. He’s a hero.”

“What will we do now?” Baelen asked, rubbing my knee.

“I’m certain Charlie made a list,” I replied, sighing as I contemplated how much more there was for us to do.

“Fuck that,” Charlie protested. “After the funeral, let’s go on holiday. We’ve earned a break before we start on the next thing.”

“Savida will need us,” Zaide added. “But I’m sure being away from here will help him.”

“We will need to copulate in the sky,” Dralie’s voice added quietly, as if he wasn’t sure he should mention it.

I raised a brow. “Need to?”

“It’s part of the bonding ritual.”

Charlie shook his head and laughed. “You’re a kinky fuck, Dralie.”