Page 39 of Dragon Rivals of New York (Dragons of New York #3)
Otto
This will be the first time I’m allowed to stay for the Goddess Week celebrations. The first time I can dance to the beat of the drums.
Under age dragons aren’t allowed to take part in Goddess Week celebrations. But today is my twenty-third birthday. The day I become a full adult in dragon culture.
Just in time for the last dance of the week.
And since dragons only recognize their mates after both parties are twenty-three, today is also the first day I’ll know if Damian is mine.
Unable to wait any longer, I go to the roof, shift into my dragon form, and head to the temple. It’s early, and I doubt anyone else will be there yet, but I can’t just hang out at my apartment anymore. The wait was suffocating me .
So far, this hasn’t been much of a birthday. Injured and confined to bed isn’t exactly the best way to spend the day. But I'm feeling good now. The wound has scabbed over, and I'm ready for tonight.
Damian wanted to come over earlier, but I told him not to. If we're not mates, I don’t want to find out before the celebration and ruin my first dance with the drums. If I have to suffer losing him, I’m gonna want to be immediately distracted.
And the dance is a perfect distraction.
I’ve heard it’s like a trance, a drug. Dragons lose all inhibitions—not that we have many to begin with. Mates typically stick together, as the mate bond can be excessively jealous, but among the rest of the horde, it’s a free-for-all.
Being un-mated for my first dance would be memorable, but… I really just want Damian. The older dragon and I have been flirting off and on for a year. Innocent little things whenever the hordes were together, which wasn’t often, even after the peace treaty. But this week everything changed. When the drums started after Finley’s transformation, I left, and Damian came with me. He gave up a goddess dance to hang out with me. We talked all night, and it was perfect.
As the sun was coming up, just before he had to leave for a meeting with Midas, he kissed me. It was a pretty innocent kiss, as kisses go, but man, it was everything. After that, we spent every moment we weren’t working together.
Until today.
What if my mate is someone else among the two hordes—well, one horde now? What would I do if it was someone other than Damian?
Goddess, I really like him.
I’m halfway to the temple, somewhere over Lower Manhattan, when I see a woman getting into a cab who grabs my attention. She’s got hair as red as fire and a full, plump figure I want to squeeze in all the right places. My wings stop mid-flight. I fall, careening down, catching myself just in time to land on the roof of the cab she entered.
“What was that?” She says.
Fuck, her voice has a deep, sexy scratch to it that does something to my insides, pulling everything tight. My heart is racing so fast, my claws nearly bend the metal beneath me. This isn’t what I wanted. She isn’t Damian. I don’t know her. But… fuck.
She’s mine. Every cell in my body knows it.
And because I recognized her before the end of goddess week, she has to transform tonight . Or I’ll lose her forever.
The law of the goddess is clear. A human mated to a dragon must enter the pools in the first Goddess Week after they meet their mate or they’ll lose their memories of them.
She'll forget me. But I won't forget her. Pure torture. To know your mate, but not know them. To never have a chance to mate again. Yeah, not happening.
I know what I’m about to do is wrong. Midas will probably exile me for it. My mate will probably hate me. But I’ll have hundreds of years to make it up to her.
And Damian…
No, I can’t think of that now.
Decision made, I perch on the top of the cab until it stops, wait for her to get out, then strike. I extend the shield that hides me in this form, so it covers my mate as I scoop her up, careful not to hurt her with my claws. She screams, and the people on the crowded street search for the source, but they can’t see her anymore.
She yells until her voice is hoarse and my heart breaks, but I don’t stop. I fly straight to the temple. Without slowing down, I hold her with one claw, snap the straps of her dress with the other, and tear through her bra and underwear, leaving her bare for the pools. She's still got a pair of earrings in, but I can't do much about that right now. Goddess, forgive me .
Ignoring the priests and priestesses, I swoop down over the swirling liquid of gold and silver and shift, catching my mate in my arms as we plummet into the pool.
Goddess above, please let her shift without needing the extra proof of an orgasm. I’ve crossed a lot of lines, but that’s one I won’t cross. No matter what. Even if it means losing her.
No one knows why some couples need to complete their union in the pools and others don’t, so all I can do is hope and pray.
Hope that she shifts.
Pray that she forgives me.
Hope that Damian… fuck, what am I doing?
My mate struggles in my arms. The gold and silver liquid surrounding us, suffocating us. What have I done?
And then it happens.
Her lush body bursts and expands, scales forming beneath my palms, muscles rippling as she shoves out of my grasp and shoots out of the pool. I shift right behind her, worried I’m going to have to chase her down, but she lands immediately in the center of the temple.
Her head swings from side to side, panicked huffs of fire shooting from her mouth, eyes wide. Shit, she looks so scared.
I shift back into a man, holding up my palms like I’m trying to show I’m innocent and weaponless. Laughable after what I just did to her. Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck!
“I’m sorry, beauty. Fuck, I’m so sorry. I can explain. Just…” I run a hand down my face.
“What the hell is going on?” Midas bellows.
Shit! This is escalating too quickly. I need to focus on calming my mate, not deal with an angry dragon king.
Ignoring him, I take a tentative step closer to the woman whose name I don’t even know. Fuck!
“It’s okay, beauty. Shift back, and we’ll talk.”
She blows fire at me, so hot it singes the hairs on my chest. If I weren’t a dragon and standing back a few feet, it would hurt a lot more than it does. Her righteous anger is breathtaking. So gorgeous. Her scales are a shimmering gold and red, everything about her fire and fury.
I move closer and explain to her how to shift back to her human form. She tries to burn me again. I don’t blame her. I acted like a dragon of old, stealing a maiden from her home like a beast.
Jeslyn is here now, stepping past me, holding a blanket out like a bullfighter. “It’s okay. I know you’re scared. But it's gonna be okay.” She throws a furious glance at me. “He’ll be dealt with. Just shift back, so we can talk.”
My mate closes her eyes, takes a breath, and shifts. Fuck, she’s even more beautiful than I thought. The need to feel that soft skin has me stepping forward again, but Jeslyn throws the blanket over my naked mate, and the action pulls me from my fog.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
Her eyes shoot up, but they don’t land on me. They focus on something over my shoulder.
“D-do I know y-you?” Her voice shakes and her brow crinkles. She tilts her head.
I glance over my shoulder to see who she’s talking to. Damian stands a foot behind me, white as a ghost.
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